Two groups filed lawsuits this week against the Port of Oakland seeking to stop a project that would considerably grow the size of OAK airport, adding new gates and many more flights per year.

In November, despite pushback from local environmental, community and health organizations, the port unanimously approved the environmental study for the airport’s planned expansion. 

The expansion calls for the modernization of existing terminals, the renovation of current infrastructure, construction of expanded international arrivals facilities, and the addition of 16  new gates. The port has said that this project is needed to meet projected increases in passenger traffic in the next decade.  

Communities for a Better Environment and Stop OAK Expansion Coalition both allege in their lawsuits that the port is not adhering to the California Environmental Quality Act, which requires government agencies to consider the environmental impacts of projects. 

“CEQA is about informing the public and really considering the project, its environmental impact and how it’s going to potentially change an entire community and in this case the port hasn’t done that,” said Ruby Acevedo, a lawyer with Communities for a Better Environment. “At the heart of this really is their failure to the community to inform them and to give them the disclosures necessary for them to understand what kind of harm [this project] is going to cause.”

Communities for a Better Environment is seeking a court order that would prevent the Environmental Impact Report from being certified, a necessary step before the port can move ahead with the project. The group also wants an injunction to halt initial demolition plans. 

Both groups claim the airport did not adequately take into account the pre-existing environmental conditions present in the East Oakland community. 

According to Stop OAK Expansion Coalition, the health assessment conducted by the port to understand how a bigger airport might impact East Oakland residents was not adequate, pointing out that the Alameda County Public Health Department requested a more thorough report to be conducted during the public comment period for the draft environmental impact report. In response to this request, in the final report, the port wrote that the health department’s request would produce “inconclusive results or similar conclusions” when compared to the assessment they conducted. 

East Oakland faces some of the biggest environmental burdens in the area, especially regarding air pollution and asthma-related hospitalization rates. Both groups claim that the port’s environmental study fails to address these longstanding issues and how OAK expansion could add to them. 

“East Oakland, like some other vulnerable communities, is a frontline community experiencing a history of air pollution effects, and then on top of that, if the port got its way of increasing the flights as intended, it would lock in a future of more suffering, disease and premature deaths,” said Bret Andrews, a local physician and board member with the San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility.

A spokesperson for the airport, Kaley Skantz said the port could not comment on specific claims made in either suit, but sent the following statement. 

“The project being proposed would improve passenger experience at OAK, modernize the airport’s facilities, and meet the region’s travel needs. The Final Environmental Impact Report was certified by a unanimous vote by the Oakland Board of Port Commissioners on November 21st of this year. The EIR is a product of years of careful study, community outreach, and careful deliberation preceding the November vote.”

The two new environmental lawsuits come as the port is locked in litigation with the San Francisco International Airport over OAK’s attempt to rebrand itself as the “San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport.”