Wal-Mart likes to foster the image of an environmentally green company, but its impact on greenhouse gases has attracted a lawsuit in Perris, California. The City of Perris is located in the heart of Southern California, between San Diego and Los Angeles. Perris describes itself as “a fast growing community with prime available land, an able work force and plenty of affordable housing… (with) miles of frontage on Interstate 215.” Some of that prime land was grabbed by Wal-Mart, but now the city’s appetite for sprawl has brought it some legal problems. The city already has a Wal-Mart discount store on North Parris Boulevard, and no less than 13 Wal-Mart’s within 20 miles, including a superstore 16 miles away in San Jacinto. There is easy access to cheap Chinese goods in Perris. A group called The Center for Biological Diversity filed suit late last week, challenging the city’s approval of the Perris Marketplace, a 520,000-square-foot development that includes a 24-hour Wal-Mart Supercenter, and will generate as many as 40,000 daily vehicle trips. The lawsuit challenges the project’s failure to consider measures to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, as required by California law. According to the Center’s press release, “The California Environmental Quality Act, the state’s flagship land-use planning and environmental statute, requires state and local governments to assess and reduce the significant environmental impacts of new projects. Greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming are one of the greatest threats facing Californians’ future, and the law provides an opportunity and a legal mandate for cities to consider options to reduce such emissions and evaluate global warming solutions at a range of scales. ‘The city refused to meaningfully address the greenhouse gas emissions generated by the Wal-Mart Supercenter,’ said Center staff attorney Matt Vespa. ‘Wal-Mart’s public-relations department wants you to believe the company is aggressively fighting global warming, but at the end of the day their project fails to meet even the minimum standards required by California law.’ California is particularly vulnerable to global warming, with projections of temperature increases of 8 to 10.5?? F, a 90-percent loss of the Sierra snowpack, 22 to 30 inches of sea-level rise, and a four- to six-fold increase in heat-related deaths in major urban centers by the end of the century. Research indicates that the worst of these impacts can still be avoided, but only if action is taken now to sharply reduce emissions. ‘Wal-Mart is one of the world’s largest greenhouse gas polluters. Its annual greenhouse gas emissions, including its supply chain, are equivalent to almost half of the emissions of the entire state of California,’ said Vespa. ‘It is fundamentally unfair to allow approval of a new Wal-Mart Supercenter without the basic environmental review required by the California Environmental Quality Act.'”
The Center for Biological Diversity has filed several other suits challenging projects that failed to properly address greenhouse gas pollution in the California Environmental Quality Act process. All these cases are ongoing. You can expect to see an increasing number of local zoning cases beginning to focus on greenhouse gases, global warming, and air quality issues generally. Readers are urged to call Perris Mayor Daryl R. Busch at (951) 943-6100. Tell the Mayor, “Make Wal-Mart go back and pay for a greenhouse gas study, and have the city hire an independent contractor to do the research. Perris should care a little more about the environment, and a lot less about Wal-Mart.”
