California High-Speed Rail Authority, church agree to settle lawsuit

The California High-Speed Rail Authority has reached a settlement with the First Free Baptist Church of Bakersfield, which will result in California Environmental Quality Act litigation being dismissed for the project's Fresno-to-Bakersfield section.

The litigation involved the final environmental impact report and statement for that section of the project, authority officials said yesterday in a press release.

As part of the settlement, the authority agreed to fund church improvements to mitigate construction noise, while the church agreed to drop its legal challenge to the state's program to build a high-speed rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The final environmental impact report and statement for the Fresno-to-Bakersfield section of the project was adopted in 2014 and identified the route from Fresno to Bakersfield.

"This agreement demonstrates the high-speed rail program's continued commitment to working with our partners to work through potential issues and develop solutions that will allow us to bring high-speed rail to the Bakersfield region," said Central Valley Regional Director Diana Gomez.