Earlier this year a coalition of more than 60 environmental, labor, community and academic groups called for a moratorium of up to two years on new warehouse development in Southern California's Inland Empire, demanding in an open letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom that the governor declare the market's one billion square foot warehouse sprawl a "public health emergency."

According to a white paper the groups referenced in their letter, the logistics traffic from Inland Empire's growing network of more than 4,000 warehouses generates more than 200 million truck trips annually—at a rate of more than 600K per day—spewing more than 15 billion pounds of carbon dioxide, 30 billion pounds of nitrous oxide and 300K pounds of diesel particulate matter annually into the nation's most polluted air.

While this pushback to warehouse development is most common in California, protests have been springing up in communities across the country as local residents tire of the truck traffic and pollution these facilities tend to attract.