California Governor Proposes $454 Million to Clean Up Exide Battery Recycling Plant

SEATTLE (Waste Advantage): Gov. Gavin Newsom has earmarked up to $454 million in his revised budget to clean up lead and arsenic spread throughout southeast Los Angeles county by the former Exide battery recycling plant. The California Department of Toxic Substances Control estimates the toxic chemicals produced during Exide’s decades of operation spread up to 1.7 miles away, contaminating schools, parks and thousands of homes in the largely working-class, Latino neighborhoods of Bell, Boyle Heights, East Los Angeles, Maywood, Huntington Park and Commerce.

The Exide battery recycling plant, which produced a host of hazardous wastes as part of the process, operated for 33 years in Vernon without a permanent permit. It closed in 2015 as part of a nonprosecution agreement that allowed the company to avoid criminal charges. Last year, a federal bankruptcy court and the Department of Justice allowed Exide to abandon the property without fulfilling the terms of the agreement, which required the company to demolish and clean up the shuttered facility. A court-appointed trustee with about $30 million in funds from the bankruptcy settlement is now in charge of remediating the property.

If that money runs out, Newsom’s proposal would provide $132 million in one-time funding to finish the work. California already has spent $251 million on residential cleanup and other costs, according to the Governor’s Office. Under the proposal, the state would earmark another $322 million over three years to remove contamination from additional properties. DTSC estimates that money will allow the clean up of “roughly 2,740 properties with the highest levels of contamination and the highest risk of exposure being cleaned up to 200 parts per million,” according to a spokesperson.

Courtesy: www.wasteadvantagemag.com