It has been called āthe most insidious form of environmental racism we have seen in Los Angeles County in the last 100 years.ā And, right now, the California state government has the opportunity to fix it.
The Exide battery plant operated for nearly a century, poisoning nearby homes with lead. Despite excessive and documented malfeasance, the plant was allowed to operate with only a temporary permit starting in 1981. It took until 2015 to shut the plant down. Unfortunately, the damage had been done.
Over 10,000 homes in the area surrounding the Exide facility have been contaminated with lead. Some homes have lead levels on par with toxic dumps. Unlike the disaster in nearby Porter Ranch, these residents have not been relocated to protect their health. Instead, residents have been instructed to stay inside, away from the poisonous metal in their local parks and own backyards.
Just this past week, students and teachers heading back toĀ three elementary schools near the plantĀ found parts of their campuses fenced off after testing found dangerous levels of lead.
Before that, it was discovered that children living near the facility haveelevated lead levelsĀ in their blood.
To be clear, lead is a neurotoxin. There is no safe level of lead for children to be exposed to, and those who do have lead poisoning may deal with physical and psychological problems for the rest of their lives.
Health officialsĀ warned back in 2013Ā that the toxins released by the battery plant put over 100,000 residents in the surrounding area at a higher risk for cancer.
The community in Vernon and the surrounding area is comprised of lower income, minority families. They do not have the money to pay for lawyers, and their pleas for help have been addressed with minimal urgency by the state government.
The state already acknowledged the need for clean up with some funds allocated earlier this year, but that emergency relief is far from enough. It only addresses testing a 1.7 mile radius around the plant and clean up of barely a quarter of the homes. We need a lasting solution.
We estimate that is will take about $500 million to clean up the lead contamination around the Exide site and there have been at least fourteen other contamination sites identified throughout California.
This is why I proposed AB 2153, The Lead-Acid Battery Recycling Act of 2016. This bill would reallocate a one dollar fee already imposed on all car batteries to fund the cleanup of contamination caused by lead acid batteries throughout the state.
This bill would provide a consistent source of funding for the Exide battery plant clean up, and it has rare support from both the battery manufacturing industry and environmental justice advocates. This may be our best shot to get a fiscally responsible, acceptable solution for all involved parties.
Yet, there is fear and hesitancy in Sacramento that this simple bill might set a precedent for how we address future toxic waste disasters.
The thing is, the responsibility for the cleanup of this disaster should fall heavily on the shoulders of the state. The lead contamination in Vernon was partially caused by the irresponsibility of state regulators, who allowed the plant to operate for years despite significant evidence that it was not meeting safety standards.
If paying to clean up thousands of lead contaminated homes for the low-income and minority families in our State through an existing source of revenue is a dangerous precedent to set, Iām willing to take that leap. I hope you are too.
The families impacted by the Exide battery plant need every Californian who believes that our children shouldnāt get lead poisoning from their backyards and play grounds to demand action.
Please, write toĀ Governor BrownĀ in support of AB 2153. Help us save thousands of children and families fromĀ preventableĀ lead poisoning.