A group of residents has filed a lawsuit to stop the expansion of the I-495 toll lanes in Northern Virginia due to fears it will harm their homes and health.

Last week, the Northern Virginia Citizens Association filed a lawsuit with the U.S. District Court in Alexandria alleging the ongoing construction to expand the I-495 toll lanes “has and will cause severe damage to the health, safety, and property of NOVA’s members, as well as to the local environment.”

Additionally, since the plans were first approved, there have been major revisions to the design, a development that “violates the Constitution and laws of the United States,” since the defendants “knowingly evaded required environmental review.” The changes will cause “significant on-going environmental harms,” alleges the lawsuit.

The defendants named in the suit include the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), and operator Transurban.

It was just two weeks ago Transurban pulled out of the I-270 toll lanes project in Maryland. Those lanes were supposed to connect to Virginia’s I-495 extension.

FFXnow first reported on the lawsuit.

Construction began a year ago this month on the $660 million 495 NEXT project which will extend the road’s toll lanes by 2.5 miles between the Dulles Toll Road in Tysons to just past the George Washington Memorial Parkway in McLean. The project is also reconfiguring a number of bridges and interchanges within that segment.

However, after construction started, “radical changes” were disclosed publicly for the first time that would “result in significantly greater environmental impacts” than previously revealed, reads the Northern Virginia Citizens Association’s lawsuit.

DCist/WAMU has reached out to both the Northern Virginia Citizens Association and VDOT for further comments but has yet to hear back as of publication.

The lawsuit goes into specific complaints, like how recently-added ramps “will increase concentrations of fine particulate matter” that will harm the health of students who go to school nearby, as well as how the lack of proper stormwater management could result in “dramatic erosion” in nearby neighborhoods.

The organization may seek an injunction to halt the $660 million project until the court is able to hear the lawsuit, per a WTOP report, but the group has yet to finalize that decision.