Wednesday, February 7, 2001 Naval Station suit OKd   By Keith Higginbotham, Staff writer A federal appeals court has ruled that local preservationists can sue the U.S. Navy for tearing down the former Long Beach Naval Station and Shipyard to build a cargo terminal, attorneys said Tuesday. Despite the ruling, legal experts said there is little chance the suit will be able to stop the $525 million project. "An injunction is very remote," said Lisa Beazley, a partner at the law firm Keesal, Young & Logan. "You really need to jump a very high hurdle to get a judge to issue an injunction." In 1991 the U.S. Department of Defense announced that the Long Beach station would be closed, and in 1994 operations ceased. Built during World War II and once home to more than 100 Pacific Fleet warships and 18,000 Navy personnel, the base closed in 1995 and in 1997 the adjacent naval shipyard was shut down. The city and the port, under a base reuse plan approved by the Navy in June, are redeveloping the Terminal Island site as a 375-acre cargo terminal. Local preservationists, including Long Beach activists Ann Cantrell and Ken Larkey, filed the lawsuit in June 1998 to prevent several historic buildings and bird habitats at the station from being destroyed in the transition. They were unsuccessful, and after several delays over the potential tenant for the terminal, demolition of the base began in October 1998. According to the group's complaint, "The historic buildings on the base (were) demolished, the ornamental ficus trees destroyed and the shallow water habitat dredged." In May 1999, a judge in U.S. District Court ruled that the group did not have legal standing to file suit in the matter. Monday's 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals opinion reversed that ruling. The appellate panel found that the definition used by the previous courts had been too narrow and that the group indeed had standing under the National Environmental Protection Act. Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote that the group, which included birdwatchers, had shown "a concrete and particularized interest in observing the birds and their habitat from land adjacent to the station." "The court has shown that it will not allow the rights of the people to be compromised by physically destroying the naval station," said attorney Richard I. Fine, who represents the preservationists. "We will now go forward and require the city, port and U.S. Navy to obey the law and do what is right," he said in a statement. The birdwatchers want the city and the Navy to reconsider the environmental effects of their reuse plan and fix the damage to the birds' habitats. Deputy City Attorney Dominic Holzhaus said he expects the preservationists' latest legal effort to fail on the same grounds as their previous actions. He noted that Fine and his clients have repeatedly failed to prove the basic arguments of their case. Within 30 days, the complaint will be returned to federal court, where the preservationists will ask for an injunction to halt construction of the terminal.