SOURCE:
https://patch.com/new-york/patchogue/brookhaven-rail-terminal-legal-challenge-dismissed
By Peggy Spellman Hoey - January 22, 2024
A judge nixed the challenge of a review for a warehouse and transloading project for clients like Home Depot, officials say. Appeal planned.
YAPHANK, NY — A legal challenge by the Citizens Campaign for the Environment and the NAACP to an environmental review of Brookhven Rail Terminal in Yaphank was dismissed by a Suffolk County judge recently, officials said Friday.
Supreme Court Justice Joseph Santorelli rejected the challenge to the thoroughness of the town’s environmental evaluation of BRT’s planned warehouse and transloading project for users like Home Depot to receive and ship products by rail rather than trucks.
Town officials have previously lauded the project as environmentally sound because it reduces the amount of trucks on the road.
The town previously stopped the prior developers’ "environmental destruction and sand mining of the site and encouraged the replacement of the sand miners with a new developer with recognized experience and ability to develop the project in an environmentally sound manner," officials stated in a news release.
"Rejecting the challenge that the town’s environmental oversight was in any respect inadequate, the court’s decision recognized the comprehensive and extensive town environmental review of the project in a voluminous Environmental Impact Statement, supplemental environmental and engineering reports, and further review by the town’s principal environmental analyst," officials said.
"The court also noted that the town was able to retain an important degree of local environmental oversight over this project by means of a prior lawsuit against the former developers, despite the fact that rail supported facilities," officials said, adding that such as this are usually subject only to federal environmental review of the project which is also occurring before the Surface Transportation Board in Washington."
The court’s decision upheld the latest site plan approvals for two rail-supported transloading buildings, including one to be occupied by and used by Home Depot, and ruled the town "diligently complied with all environmental requirements and court orders," according to the release.
Town officials said they were pleased with "this vindication" of the town’s "responsible environmental role in efforts to take polluting truck traffic off of Long Island’s roads and replace them with environmentally sound rail-railway supported deliveries in an industrial area for which it is appropriate."
Citizens Campaign for the Environment Executive Director Adrienne Esposito told Patch the group is filing an appeal.
"We are undaunted," she said.
The NAACP told Newsday that they also planned an appeal, saying that they are "not surprised [and] not deterred" by Santorelli's ruling.