Wave Staff Report
VERNON — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced that the Exide lead battery smelting and recycling site and surrounding areas are now eligible for listing on its national priorities list of Superfund sites.
The announcement is considered a major victory for the people in area communities who have suffered for decades from the debilitating health effects of the lead, arsenic, cadmium and other toxic metals released by the plant that continue to contaminate local groundwater.
The EPA decision to add the now-abandoned lead battery facility for eligibility to its national priorities list means that if that recommendation is accepted, federal resources and expertise would then be dedicated to fund and oversee cleanup efforts of the contaminated groundwater that have inflicted a generation of illness on neighborhood families. The EPA Site Inspection Report indicates that the Exide site is eligible for listing on the national priorities list based on groundwater contamination.
“This is what the fight for environmental justice in historically disadvantaged communities looks like — a decades-long struggle to be heard — and after nearly a generation of battling for accountability and protection for the children and families who continue to be victimized, we are one step closer to achieving that goal,” said county Supervisor Hilda L. Solis. “The EPA’s decision clears a major hurdle, but it is not a victory lap. It does, however, make sure that the people in East Los Angeles, Vernon, Boyle Heights, Bell, Huntington Park, Commerce and Maywood who continue to suffer the consequences of an egregious offender who knowingly released toxins into their water, soil and air have not been forgotten.”
The next step will be for the EPA to determine if it will officially list Exide on its list of Superfund sites, which is not guaranteed.
“We must continue to fight for equal justice and environmental equity to expedite the cleanup of Exide’s poisonous legacy,” Solis said. “Everyone in these communities should contact Senator Alex Padilla and Representative Jimmy Gomez and urge them to push the EPA to add Exide to the NPL list.”
EPA will be scheduling briefings for stakeholders to discuss the contents of its Site Inspection Report. Contact Stephanie Steinbrecher, community involvement coordinator, at (628) 299-0985 or via email at steinbrecher.stephanie@epa.gov with questions or comments.
In July 2022, Solis urged the EPA to follow the California EPA’s recommendation to designate Exide, which was shut down in 2015 after decades of operation, as a Superfund site and urged the EPA to “provide additional, crucial resources to complete this urgent cleanup.”
“Our communities have suffered for too long. We must move forward on this long-overdue effort to address the ongoing environmental injustice from Exide,” Solis wrote at the time.
Exide declared bankruptcy in 2020, which allowed it to abandon its cleanup responsibilities and evade obligations imposed by the state to take responsibility for the toxins it had released into the surrounding neighborhoods’ soil and groundwater for decades.
In July 2022, CalEPA requested that the federal EPA evaluate the former Exide facility and surrounding areas impacted by its operations for potential listing on the national priority list of Superfund sites. EPA completed a preliminary assessment in November 2022, followed by a site inspection report, which was initiated in January 2023, to determine if the site is eligible for listing.
The site inspection report contains the results of an evaluation conducted by Weston Solutions, Inc. for the EPA under Section 104 of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), commonly known as the Superfund law.
