Agency promises to do better on Exide cleanup
tamination on a property” because of obstacles underground, such as pipes or foundations.
“We recognize that we haven’t been clear enough about what this means, and we vow to do better,” Williams said. In cases where lead is left behind, she added, the state “may need to come back and do more.”
Williams and her deputies unveiled their promises during a sometimes-raucous community meeting held on video Thursday evening. They said that beginning the week of March 6, officials will hold in-person meetings in Boyle Heights and southeast Los Angeles County cities to hear residents’ concerns about the cleanup and respond to them swiftly.
Officials said they also now plan to reach out to renters, who make up a significant portion of the residents in the cleanup area, and not just property owners, to make them aware of the work going on at thousands of homes.
Many residents and advocates responded that this was not nearly enough.
“The amount of misinformation being given [tonight] is disgusting,” said mark! Lopez, a community organizer for East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, which has spent years pushing the state for a more vigorous cleanup.
Lopez said state officials falsely claim they are providing appropriate oversight of contractors who were cleaning people’s yards, when “abuses run wild. We visited sites with your staff and witnessed violations with your staff while we were there.”
He also took umbrage at the idea that the state was committed to protecting the community, noting that officials had in the past tried to limit the number of homes that would be cleaned up and expanded the area only under pressure from county officials.
After the meeting, Jill Johnston, the USC associate professor of environmental health who is conducting soil testing in the area, noted that the state’s plan called for contractors to remove soil until its lead content was below 80 parts per million, and that workers were supposed to use shovels and other hand tools to excavate near trees and structures. “Surface soil was intended to be removed and replaced,” she said.
Tiff Sanchez, a youth organizer for East Yard, dismissed the meeting as “another DTSC world apology tour” and said it is “something that we’re quite frankly sick and tired of, literally and figuratively.”
In response to Sanchez, Todd Sax, the DTSC’s deputy director of site mitigation and restoration, said: “I hear you. I appreciate the anger. I understand we have a long way to go.”
Other residents aired specific complaints about
the cleanup of their properties.
Andres Gonzalez, who lives in Maywood, recounted how he witnessed workers dumping contaminated dirt from a neighbor’s home into bushes in his yard.
“They had a large dump container that appeared to be full,” he said, adding that instead of getting another container, they got rid of the dirt in his yard. “When I stepped out the front door, I heard a loud ‘Oh, s—,’ ” he said.
Several employees of contracting crews doing the lead remediation work defended the job they were doing.
Juan Flores, who is employed on a cleanup crew, said he views his work as “taking care of the community that’s been suffering for a long time.”
The $750-million cleanup effort was launched six years ago after the closure of the recycling plant after state officials determined that as many as 10,000 properties had been contaminated by pollution from the facility.
Exide has argued in the past that it was not responsible for lead contamination in the surrounding neighborhoods, pointing to other sources such as lead paint.
State leaders have framed the massive cleanup as a measure of redress for neighborhoods subjected to decades of environmental degradation and government negligence. Many in the community were furious that the state allowed the plant to operate for so long despite a history of illegal air pollution and hazardous waste violations.
Faced with mounting costs for the cleanup, state officials have also appealed to the federal government to declare the closed plant and the area around it a Superfund site, which would clear the way for federal funds to support the cleanup.