Read the complaint. It is very clear. NCRA/NWP misrepresented themselves when they projected only be a few trains a week as part of SMART's EIR. However in the same month NCRA/NWP gave the CTC a document claiming that the line would be open to Humboldt Bay by 2011 and that there would be 1000 containers a day and 6 million tons of gravel coming from Island Mountain.

At the same time NCRA/NWP started their own CEQA process for their own work on the line.

EIRs are a disclosure process. Novato like all the other cites and agencies that would be effected by the NCRA's plans reviewed the EIRs to comment. They noticed the discrepancy and after a little investigation found that NCRA was low balling their estimated traffic volume even for the lower end of the line. It is the Novato city government's job to look out for its citizens and ask for full and truthful analysis of the project and its potential impacts on the city.

CEQA requires that as part of the disclose process that an project proponent describe and analyze all portions of a project up front, not just the section you are working on today. This is just part of good municipal planning and environmental stewardship.

Because NCRA/NWP is refusing to complete the CEQA process that they themselves started Novato has decided to sue. Its really that simple.

The more NCRA/NWP fights this the more they seem to have something to hide and the more unpopular they will become.