State EPA asked feds to declare former Exide site in Vernon a Superfund site

State environmental regulators have asked that the abandoned Exide battery recycling plant in Vernon be declared a federal Superfund site.

The small city with a population of less than 2,000 on the southeastern edge of Downtown L.A. is a major industrial center in Southern California, with space at a premium these days.

The state EPA and its Department of Toxic Substances Control have asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for Superfund status for the polluted battery plant, freeing up millions of dollars for faster cleanup, Fox11 reported.

Authorities say the plant, which closed in 2015, released toxic lead, arsenic and mercury into more than 10,000 homes and businesses in Bell, Boyle Heights, Commerce, Maywood, East Los Angeles, Huntington Park and Vernon.

A state cleanup and remediation effort has been under way for years.

“We were just announcing a milestone of 3,000 properties remediated at the end of December, and now we’re closing in on 4,000. It’s remarkable,” Meredith Williams, director of the state toxics agency, said.

Jared Blumenfeld, secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency, called the Exide property one of the most heavily lead-contaminated sites in the United States. The DTSC is a division of the Cal EPA.

Declaring it a Superfund site would place it on a National Priority List for cleanup, potentially freeing up millions of federal dollars to speed cleanup efforts.

Martha Guzman, U.S. EPA regional administrator for the Pacific Southwest, said the agency will begin a “rulemaking process” to consider the state’s request to make Exide a Superfund site.

The Exide plant opened in Vernon in 1922 and operated for decades despite continuing environmental violations.

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice agreed not to prosecute Exide Technologies for violations of hazardous waste law in exchange for safely shutting down the Vernon facility and cleaning up related contamination, including lead found in the soil of surrounding homes.

When Exide closed the lead-acid battery recycling plant, it committed to pay $50 million for cleanup of the site and surrounding area. Of that amount, $26 million was meant to be set aside for residential cleanup.

But in late 2020, a bankruptcy court judge approved a settlement agreement allowing Exide to formally abandon the Vernon facility without further liability. Under the agreement, a bond of $11.16 million was issued in connection with liabilities related to the Vernon site.

“While Exide has walked away from its responsibility to clean up its decades of toxic pollution, California has stepped in to do right by this community and address the remnants of an industrial past that threatens the health of the most vulnerable among us,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. “Today’s announcement will take our efforts to the next level, as we aggressively pursue federal funds made available by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to further this critical work.”
In 2016, then-Gov. Jerry Brown allocated $176.6 million to expedite and expand the testing and cleanup of homes, schools and parks near Exide. The funding was expected to begin the process but not finish the work.

In 2020, an auditor found that even high-risk properties like child care centers and schools had yet to be cleaned and only about 2,000 residential properties in the area were cleaned.

[Fox11] – Dana Bartholomew

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