Vallejo sues American Canyon alleging proposed industrial project sidestepped environmental review

VALLEJO – The city of Vallejo sued American Canyon and its city councilmembers earlier this month, claiming that a voter initiative inappropriately carved out a special process to sidestep environmental review for a new industrial development over the objections of Vallejo and two environmental groups. 

The American Canyon City Council approved the project in March 2023, which would build the Giovannoni Logistics Center, a 163-acre industrial park and distribution hub that consists of 2.4 million square feet of warehouse space with truck bays and railroad access on 208 acres of undisturbed land located north of Green Island Road at Delvin Road. 

But Vallejo’s lawsuit, which was filed on April 4, claims that American Canyon officials collaborated with residents to draft a voter initiative to override Vallejo’s concerns that the project did not adequately address potential impacts to Vallejo’s water system, which supplies American Canyon.

Vallejo argues  that a voter initiative is too closely designed to accommodate one specific project and its developer, Buzz Oates Construction.

Mary-Beth Moylan, a professor at University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law who specializes in California’s Initiative process, said that, “An initiative can be used to make law but not to take specific actions on behalf of or against any particular individuals or entities.”

“I think it will be a very interesting case. It certainly does seem like this was an attempt to get around CEQA,” she said, referring to the California Environmental Quality Act, which requires a lengthy environmental review process for many development projects. Moyland said that the case has potential to further define the conditions under which voter initiatives are exempt from environmental review. 

The initiative to approve the process came after Vallejo, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Golden State Environmental Justice Alliance previously sued American Canyon separately over the project approval on April 21, 2023, claiming that the city and the project developer had not adequately addressed environmental impacts that the city and the two organizations raised during the project’s public review process.

The Center for Biological Diversity claimed that the environmental review of the project had not adequately evaluated a number of environmental impacts, including the destruction of 163 acres of foraging habitat for the threatened Swainson’s hawk and the approximately 200,000 truck trips per year that would result from the project. 

The lawsuit from the Golden State Environmental Justice Alliance echoed those claims, stating that the project’s environmental impact report had not adequately considered impacts to air quality or the greenhouse gas emissions involved in the project. 

Vallejo’s lawsuit claimed that the project’s environmental impact report grossly overestimated the amount of water that Vallejo is able to provide to American Canyon through a 1996 agreement between the two cities. The city also alleged that the report failed to identify alternative sources of water and did not adequately assess the project’s impacts to Vallejo’s water supply.

While the lawsuits alleging deficiencies in the logistics center’s environmental review were in progress, an American Canyon resident started a petition for a voter initiative that would create a separate municipal process tailored to approve the development. The proponents of the project successfully collected more than the 1,323 signatures needed to qualify, according to the Napa County Register of Voters. 

Qualified statewide initiatives go directly to the ballot for voters to approve or reject. But when a county or municipal initiative qualifies for the ballot through the petition process, the board of supervisors or the city council has the option to adopt the proposed measure as is or bring the measure to a vote. The American Canyon City Council voted to approve the measure without a citywide vote on March 5.

A series of California court rulings have held that voter initiatives are not required to undergo environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act. 

But Vallejo’s attorneys argue that the project is still required to undergo environmental review because the initiative was ultimately guided by the city of American Canyon and did not arise from residents independently.

The city of Vallejo’s prior lawsuit over deficiencies in the environmental review is still pending. The Center for Biological Diversity and the Golden State Environmental Justice Alliance filed motions to dismiss their cases.  

Frances Tinney, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that the organization reached a settlement. “The terms of the agreement included funds for land conservation, greenhouse gas mitigation and the dismissal of our lawsuit,” she said.