Los Angeles – Yesterday, environmental groups joined an ongoing lawsuit brought by Communities for a Better Environment and Los Angeles Waterkeeper over the City of Los Angeles’s failure to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in approving the retrofit of the Scattergood Gas Plant to keep the plant running past its expected closure date by burning a mix of hydrogen and methane. Groups joining the lawsuit are Food & Water Watch, Physicians for Social Responsibility – Los Angeles, and Sierra Club.  

In 2022, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) announced plans to retrofit the Scattergood Gas Plant – located near communities in Inglewood, Hawthorne, and Lennox whose air quality has already long been negatively impacted by fossil fuel infrastructure – to be capable of burning a mix of methane gas and hydrogen. Despite major public concern about the retrofit due to the climate impacts of continuing to operate a fossil gas plant, the safety risks of hydrogen, and its massive water needs, in 2025, LADWP’s Board of Commissioners certified the inadequate Environmental Impact Report for Scattergood.

The lawsuit, filed in December, was on hold for months while LA City Council considered the environmental groups’ appeal of the LADWP Board approval. With the August 4, 2026, City Council vote denying that appeal, the stay of litigation will expire in September now with more parties challenging the Scattergood project.

“LADWP’s Scattergood boondoggle is a dark chapter for the City’s environmental leadership and fiscal management. Once the champion of Sustainability among the cities of the world innovating with real clean green and affordable energy solutions, now, the City’s Environmental Impact Report turns a blind eye to public safety, air pollution, and water impacts let alone its own climate targets. LADWP has chosen to pursue this so called “hydrogen-ready” project that will be nothing more than a brand new fossil fuel plant constructed five-years before LA is supposed to be carbon-free,” said Theo Caretto, Staff Attorney at Communities for a Better Environment.

“Los Angeles’s decision to double down on retrofitting Scattergood based on the false promise of hydrogen flies in the face of its commitment to make the city 100% carbon-free by 2035,” said Food & Water Watch Senior Staff Attorney Tyler Lobdell. “Retrofitting Scattergood will not get Los Angeles closer to reaching its climate goals and instead will keep the city dependent on dirty fossil fuel infrastructure.” 

“LADWP’s environmental analysis of the Scattergood project is riddled with flaws that tilt the analysis in favor of a massive investment in new fossil fuel infrastructure,” said Sierra Club’s Western Beyond Coal Campaign Manager Zack Waterman. “This is the wrong direction for the city, and we want to see those errors in the analysis corrected before Angelenos otherwise pay for a false climate solution.”

“LADWP’s failure to adequately assess the health and environmental impacts of this project is deeply troubling, and it’s important for us to continue to challenge LADWP to live up to their climate and environmental commitments in order to protect the public health of Angelenos,” said Alex Jasset, Director of Energy Justice at Physicians for Social Responsibility – Los Angeles. “Without an honest assessment of the project and the limitations of the hydrogen market, LADWP is locking the city into a future that continues to rely on methane combustion.”

The Center for Biological Diversity has also sued LADWP over the Scattergood project.