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Contaminated Southern California battery recycling plant turned over to state environmental trust
Environment Oct 29, 2020
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LOS ANGELES — A state environmental trust will take over a battery recycling plant in Southern California to prevent its bankrupt owners from abandoning the heavily contaminated facility, a newspaper reported Saturday. The Department of Toxic Substances Control announced Friday that the trust will assume responsibility for the Exide plant in Vernon, the Los Angeles Daily News reported. The trust “avoids the many legal challenges posed by abandonment and ensures an orderly transition of ownership and responsibility for maintenance and site cleanup — all with DTSC’s close supervision and oversight,” the department said in a statement.
Exide is responsible for creating the trust and transferring the property to the new entity, the newspaper said. It will be called the Exide Vernon Environmental Response Trust. The Exide plant recycled 11 million lead-acid batteries a year until it was forced to shut down in 2015. Before that, Exide had operated on temporary permits for more than 30 years. High concentrations of lead dust from the plant settled in the soil around thousands of homes in Boyle Heights, east Los Angeles, Maywood, Huntington Park and Commerce, the newspaper said. Lead is a neurotoxin and can cause developmental disabilities, cancer and other long-term […]
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