TAXPAYERS TO PAY FOR MASSIVE EXIDE CLEANUP

A bankruptcy court ruled Friday that Exide Technologies may abandon its shuttered battery recycling plant in Vernon, leaving a massive cleanup of lead and other toxic pollutants at the site and in surrounding neighborhoods to California taxpayers.

The decision by Chief Judge Christopher Sontchi of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court District of Delaware was made over the objections of California officials and community members.

Community groups have fought for years with the company and its environmental regulators to restrict harmful pollution, shut down illegal operations and clean up the toxic mess. The property's abandonment compounds the challenges of addressing ongoing health risks to young children and others living nearby, where thousands of yards remain riddled with lead, a powerful neurotoxin with no safe level of exposure.

The decision followed a two-day court hearing with testimony from environmental regulators, company consultants and officers and health experts, much of it about the threats to the environment and the public from abandoning a hazardous facility with the remediation unfinished. The recycling operation, about 5 miles from downtown Los Angeles, has not been fully demolished and remains partially enclosed in a temporary, tent-like structure designed to prevent the release of lead and other toxic pollutants.

In his verbal ruling, Sontchi concluded it is not an imminent threat to the public.

State officials blame decades of air pollution from the plant, which melted down used car batteries until its closure five years ago, for spreading lead dust across half a dozen communities in an area that is home to more than 100,000 people.

A state-led cleanup has so far removed contaminated soil from 2,000 residential properties, as well as parks, day care facilities and schools. But thousands more have yet to be cleaned in the largest remediation project of its kind in California.