Dear Editor,
Dear Editor,
The News Enterprise discussed the proposed Prologis truck depot in Cypress in an article titled “Cypress Council crowded by protest”, on Wednesday, May 1. The article quoted the Mayor of Cypress as saying: “The city council will not consider this matter until late summer.” His statement shows, clearly, that the people of West Orange County can expect no help from the Cypress city government, in their fight to stop this project. He states that he will wait for the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) to be completed, and then “a 45-day public comment period will allow residents the opportunity to comment on the report”.
We do not need an EIR to tell us that the health and safety of our children, our personal and family lifestyles, and our property values, are threatened by the prospect of a 1.4 million square foot loading dock complex being built in our neighborhood.
An EIR is used to define those things that can reasonably be done to “mitigate” the effects of a development. In this case, the only potentially effective measure, a tunnel between the site and the freeway, would, clearly, be far too expensive to be economically feasible for the developer. If things progress as normal, the EIR will then become a vehicle for explaining why the development is so desirable, and that we need to go ahead with the project, in spite of the environmental damage. That outcome, typical of the EIR process, is clearly what the developers and their allied politicians expect to happen here.
As things are, Cypress, Cerritos, Rossmoor, Los Alamitos, and Seal Beach, are on the eastern edge of a high cancer risk zone. The high-risk zone starts with the trucks entering Long Beach Harbor, and extends east, reinforced by the 110, 605, 405, and 5 freeways. (Added cancer risk, block-by-block, is available online in the AQMD’s “Multiple Air Toxics Exposure Study III” from 2008.)
Inserting a major source of air pollution into Cypress, will increase the already high risks noted, and probably push the cities of Stanton, Buena Park, and Westminster, into the high-risk zone.
The problem area extends into 3 Orange County supervisorial districts (first, second and fourth), but so far the problem has not been recognized by our Supervisors.
Development interests appear to have secured the support of key local politicians before the plan became public knowledge. The residents of Cypress approved a zoning change, unaware that they were making this project possible. It appears that inducements for support, or, at least, silence, may have been made to Los Alamitos city officials.
At this point, an appropriate course of action would be for the Citizens of Cypress to recall their City Council, hopefully, before it is too late. They should be replaced with people who share the residents’ interests. The Los Alamitos City Council, a few weeks back, said they would explore possibilities for legal action to stop the project. Hopefully, progress is being made.
While this kind of action may seem extreme, it is necessary. The real beneficiaries of action to stop this project will be the coming generation of children, who will not need to pass through clouds of diesel exhaust on the way to and from school each day, and who will not spend twelve years seated in classrooms where they have no choice but inhale the by-products of ProLogis’s success.
Ken Brown
Rossmoor