From a news release:
The Madera County Farm Bureau Board, jointly with the Merced County Farm Bureau, have voted to sue the California High Speed Rail Authority (Authority) on the grounds that its environmental review is woefully deficient and harmful to the Farm Bureau's members. The Board environmental study inadequately and improperly analyzes the full effects the Project will have on agricultural production in the Central Valley.
The two Boards felt strongly that this Project is to the detriment of the enormous agricultural economies in their respective counties and that the Authority, on numerous occasions, has stepped over the line in not being responsive to the concerns of the agricultural community. As the leading agricultural advocacy organizations county-wide representing thousands of members -it was incumbent upon the Boards to act in a manner necessary to garner responsiveness by the State.
"As a Farm Bureau, we have to honor our mission to protect agriculture and our membership base in Madera County. The Route selected by the Authority is severely detrimental to our bedrock ag economy," said Madera County Farm Bureau President, Tom Rogers."
This action comes after the Authority approved the environmental report that selected a route through Madera and Merced Counties that impacts approximately 1,500 acres of prime and important farmland, along with an estimated 150 agri-businesses. The environmental document failed to analyze a variety of substantial resources in the area, including bee pollination impacts and water supply impacts.
In addition, the two Boards do not accept the agricultural mitigation measures in the environmental document as being adequate or truthful and that a project's impacts cannot be fully analyzed for agricultural and local impacts north and south, when the east and west project areas are not defined or analyzed.
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