An Alameda County judge on Monday rejected the argument made in a legal challenge from Oakland-based environmental groups seeking to halt the expansion of the Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport, ruling that the Port of Oakland’s environmental review of the project met the requirements of state law.
The plaintiffs alleged that the Port of Oakland failed to comply with the guidelines within the California Environmental Quality Act.
Superior Court Judge Michael Markman issued a finding that the airport’s governing body had presented sufficient evidence to support certifying the Final Environmental Impact Report for the airport’s Terminal Modernization and Development Project, to the chagrin of the advocacy group Stop OAK Expansion Coalition and other environmental groups who raised objections to the project.
Oakland’s airport intends to modernize its aging facilities and build a new terminal — roughly 830,000 square feet, north of the existing Terminal 1 — with up to 25 additional gates, along with upgrades officials say are needed to accommodate growing demand and to improve the passenger experience.
The Board of Port Commissioners certified the final Environmental Impact Report in November 2024, a necessary step before construction begins.
Petitioners from Stop OAK Expansion Coalition, Communities for a Better Environment, and the Sierra Club filed similar lawsuits starting in December 2024, arguing the port’s review violated CEQA on multiple fronts. They claim the airport used insufficient data, flawed assumptions of emissions, and an inadequate analysis of the project’s effects on the surrounding communities, which they say already endure higher health risks than other parts of Alameda County.
Markman disagreed with the petitioners. The judge wrote that the Port of Oakland had made “a good-faith effort” at disclosing all the risks associated with the project and that petitioners’ objections concerned “topics that are open to reasonable debate” rather than legal problems.
Dispute centers on health impacts
A large portion of the legal fight centered on public health. The port’s review included an 888-page air quality analysis and a 346-page Human Health Risk Assessment conducted by Boston-based engineering firm CDM Smith, which the port said found that the project’s impacts fell below the significance thresholds set by the Bay Area Air District and local and state regulators.
The Stop OAK Expansion Coalition pushed for a Health Impact Assessment — a broader study, typically conducted by a public health agency, that would weigh the project’s effects against the pre-existing health of the surrounding community.
A 2023 letter to the Port of Oakland from the Alameda County Public Health Department during the initial phases of the environmental report stated that East Oakland adults were hospitalized or sought emergency care for asthma more than three times the countywide rate.
Markman ruled that the port’s own report reasonably estimated the effects on the local community and that mandating a Health Impact Assessment would require a change in state law and go beyond what the California Environmental Quality Act demands.
Craig Simon, the Port of Oakland’s director of aviation, said the agency welcomed the outcome and is looking forward to continuing with the expansion project.
“We’re pleased that the court ruling clearly and unequivocally found that the Port of Oakland fulfilled all of its legal and public health requirements in the preparation of a comprehensive Environmental Impact Report that was consistent with both the law and formal Bay Area Air District evaluation methodologies,” said Simon in a written statement.
David Foecke, a member of the Stop OAK Expansion Coalition, said the group still believes the project violates the law, adding that the group intends to appeal to a higher court. Foecke argued the port’s health study looked at toxicology research rather than accounting for the pre-existing health burden already carried by East Oakland residents, and that it omitted analysis of ultrafine particulate matter, a pollutant tied to jet exhaust that the county health department had specifically flagged.
Dr. Mark Jacobson, a professor of medicine emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco, and a coalition member, said in a statement that neighborhoods near the airport already have the county’s highest rates of heart-attack mortality and pediatric emergency visits for asthma, and that expansion “should not happen until a Health Impact Assessment has been conducted by people with public health expertise.”
Foecke said the coalition isn’t opposed to modernizing the airport’s existing facilities but would fight any expansion shown to harm the health of nearby residents, saying, “We want the process to follow the law.”
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