EXIDE VERNON BREAKING NEWS: More stories about Exide admitting criminal conduct regarding operations at its Vernon lead smelter and the permanent shut down and cleanup of the violation-ridden plant to avoid criminal prosecution
Over the last year, federal authorities built what appeared to be a strong criminal case against Exide Technologies, the Vernon battery recycler that has long faced scrutiny for spewing lead and arsenic into neighborhoods in southeast Los Angeles County.
Investigators found environmental crimes spanning two decades and documented the transgressions in hundreds of pages. Among other violations, the company and previous operators had illegally stored lead and caustic battery acid at the 15-acre facility and then dripped hazardous waste all over Southern California roads as they transported it in leaking trailers to an unpermitted facility in Bakersfield.
But instead of charging Georgia-based Exide with crimes that could have landed its executives in jail, the U.S. attorney’s office struck a deal. It allowed the company—and firm employees—to escape criminal charges by agreeing to permanently close the Vernon facility, demolish it and clean up the pollution. Exide also had to commit to pay nearly $50 million to clean up the site and surrounding communities while admitting to an array of felony violations.
CLICK TO READ EXIDE’S NON-PROSECUTION AGREEMENT
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Questions remain after Exide deal with federal prosecutors
Over the last year, federal authorities built what appeared to be a strong criminal case against Exide Technologies, the Vernon battery recycler that has long faced scrutiny for spewing lead and arsenic into neighborhoods in southeast Los Angeles County.
Investigators found environmental crimes spanning two decades and documented the transgressions in hundreds of pages. Among other violations, the company and previous operators had illegally stored lead and caustic battery acid at the 15-acre facility and then dripped hazardous waste all over Southern California roads as they transported it in leaking trailers to an unpermitted facility in Bakersfield.
But instead of charging Georgia-based Exide with crimes that could have landed its executives in jail, the U.S. attorney’s office struck a deal. It allowed the company—and firm employees—to escape criminal charges by agreeing to permanently close the Vernon facility, demolish it and clean up the pollution. Exide also had to commit to pay nearly $50 million to clean up the site and surrounding communities while admitting to an array of felony violations.
The U.S. attorney’s office defended the strategy as a way to ensure a timely cleanup without leaving taxpayers saddled with the bill. But some state officials and community groups say that after watching decades of lackluster environmental enforcement by California regulators, they have serious doubts about whether the agreement will ensure that Exide doesn’t walk away from its mess before it’s fully cleaned up.
Joseph Johns, assistant U.S. attorney and chief of environmental crimes, said he believes there are safeguards in place to ensure Exide finishes the cleanup work. “We struggled with this, and we decided that the right thing to do was not worry about sending one or two people to jail for a year or two, but rather, to prevent another 50-to-100-year sentence for the 110,000 people, the children and grandchildren that live in the communities,” he said at a news conference.
The Exide plant, about five miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles, has been a source of community frustration for years. The concerns were heightened after a March 2013 report to the South Coast Air Quality Management District found its arsenic emissions posed an increased cancer risk to 110,000 people who live nearby. The plant sat idle for the last year because it could not comply with air quality rules. Federal officials were worried that Exide, which is in the middle of bankruptcy proceedings, was preparing to resume operations in a matter of weeks.
The terms of Exide’s plans to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which a court could confirm by the end of March, would have almost certainly been liquidated if it still faced the threat of criminal prosecution, federal officials said. That would leave no one but the taxpayers to fund cleanup of the site and homes in Maywood and Boyle Heights that had been contaminated by decades of lead emissions.
Community groups in southeast Los Angeles County that have long worried about the health effects of the facility and demanded action against the plant reacted to the deal between federal officials and Exide with a mix of surprise, relief and skepticism.
“We’re concerned that they will not be pursued for criminal prosecution,” Roberto Cabrales, a community organizer with Communities for a Better Environment, said. “But if that means that Exide will stay closed, then that’s in itself a victory for the community.”
He said community groups would push state regulators to quickly and thoroughly clean nearby homes contaminated with lead from the battery recycler.
State Senate leader Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) said that while the closure was a victory for those in the community who have long wanted the facility shuttered, he was concerned about the terms of the agreement not to prosecute Exide.
“What concessions did the U.S. attorney get for letting them off the hook?” De León asked. “We need to make sure the community doesn’t get shortchanged by this settlement.”
Federal officials said the agreement requires the company to pay the cost of the entire cleanup, even if it exceeds $50 million.
That’s because the deal contains a “hammer,” they said: If the company does not comply with federal and state agreements at any point in the next 10 years, it will be prosecuted for the felonies to which it has now admitted.
Federal officials’ agreement with Exide does not require funds beyond the $50 million the company previously promised to set aside under a 2014 settlement with state regulators to pay for closure and cleanup of the facility and to clean lead-tainted soil from surrounding homes.
But under a related closure agreement with Exide state regulators announced Thursday, some of those payments will be accelerated. The company will also be required to pay an additional $5 million to clean homes in 2018.
The state Department of Toxic Substances Control will oversee a years-long cleanup of the property, which will remain under the ownership of Exide Technologies, and nearby homes.
Over the next two years, Exide will be required to remove all buildings and structures, reducing the site to dirt. After that, studies will start “to better characterize the full extent of the contamination on the site,” DTSC Director Barbara Lee said in a conference call with reporters. Further remediation will follow, she said.
“We will make sure they get the job done,” Lee said.
Lee acknowledged Thursday that cleaning up the facility and surrounding neighborhoods is likely to exceed $50 million. She said the department has collected about $16 million of that so far.
Lee said she told Exide on Feb. 26 that the department would not issue a full permit for the facility, prompting weeks of discussions with the company about the terms of its closure.
Under a new state law adopted in the wake of the outcry over the pollution, lawmakers had required the DTSC to either issue a permit or force Exide to close the facility by year’s end.
The Department of Toxic Substances Control had allowed the facility to operate for decades without a full permit, even as it racked up dozens of hazardous waste violations.
The hundreds of pages of documents released by federal officials Thursday provided a snapshot of extensive contamination and hazardous waste violations at the facility since at least 1985.
They detail how acid, lead and other metals fouled groundwater around an earthen acid dump pit; how hazardous waste was released from dozens of work stations at the facility; and how pollution migrated from the plant through the soil, air, surface and ground water, resulting in high lead levels in surrounding soil.
The criminal investigation, disclosed publicly in August, also included investigators from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Transportation.
The facility, which employed about 130 workers, began operations in 1922 and was taken over by Exide in 2000. The company has been in chapter 11 bankruptcy since June 2013.
In a statement, Exide said the agreements with federal and state officials will allow the company to proceed with its plan to emerge from bankruptcy.
“Exide expects to be able to meet its closure and cleanup obligations under these agreements, continue to honor its environmental obligations at its other facilities, and preserve nearly 10,000 jobs globally,” the company’s statement said.
The deal also extends an ongoing program to test the blood of surrounding residents for lead, a potent neurotoxin, for which there is no safe level of exposure. The metal, one of the oldest-known toxic substances, can cause learning disabilities and other developmental problems in children.
Of 118 homes in areas of Boyle Heights and Maywood tested so far, all but three had lead concentrations high enough to require soil removal, according to data from the state toxic substances department. About three dozen of those homes have been cleaned up. The residential property cleanup could be expanded if testing currently underway shows elevated levels further away from the facility, state officials said.
At Indiana Street and Union Pacific Avenue in Boyle Heights on Thursday, workers in orange and green neon vests could be seen replacing lead-contaminated soil. Two large sacks of dirt sat on the front lawn of one of the homes.
At another home nearby, workers used an excavator to lay new dirt.
Not far away, Miguel Dominguez, 50, a 10-year resident of the neighborhood stood in front of his new lawn and said his 3-year-old son is staying mostly with his grandmother since workers began replacing some of the contaminated soil.
“I’m happy that they’re closing the plant,” he said in Spanish, “but in reality, it’s not just the plant who should be held accountable, but those who let them operate for so long.”
Twitter:Â @tonybarboza
Times staff writers Julie Cart and Ruben Vives contributed to this report.
Regulators detail Exide battery plant closure after decades of pollution
Exide Technologies will immediately begin shutting down its embattled battery recycling plant in Vernon after reaching an agreement, which federal officials announced Thursday, that allows the company to avoid facing criminal prosecution for decades of pollution.
Under the deal between federal officials and the company, Exide acknowledges criminal conduct, including the illegal storage and transportation of hazardous waste. Company officials will avoid criminal charges in exchange for shutting down, demolishing and cleaning the 15-acre battery recycling plant about five miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles.
DOCUMENTS: Exide non-prosecution agreement
Federal officials on Thursday detailed their investigation of Exide and its two decades of illegal waste disposal and other environmental crimes. The U.S. attorney’s office defended its agreement to force the facility’s closure in exchange for dropping the prosecution.
Yonekura said that without the agreement, Exide, which is in bankruptcy, “would almost certainly cease to exist. And it would be liquidated if it still faced the possibility and threat of criminal prosecution.”
“The government would be left holding the bag for the cleanup and remediation,” Yonekura said. “In short, this is the best solution for a very difficult environmental problem.”
She said the agreement will produce improvements in the environment for thousands who live near the Vernon plant, including less lead, arsenic and other cancer-causing agents in the air and water.
In a statement, Exide officials said the agreement would allow the company to emerge from bankruptcy and meet its obligations to close and clean up the plant while preserving approximately 10,000 jobs at its facilities globally.
“We recognize the impacts that closing the Vernon facility will have on our approximately 130 employees and their families,” Robert M. Caruso, president and chief executive of Exide Technologies, said in the statement. “On behalf of the company, I thank them and the United Steel Workers Union for their commitment and dedication.”
The agreement with Exide does not require additional funds for cleanup beyond nearly $50 million in payments outlined in a fall 2014 settlement with state regulators. But the agreement accelerates payments into trust funds. It also extends an ongoing program to test surrounding residents for lead poisoning.
Federal officials insisted the agreement would require the company to pay the cost of the entire cleanup, even if it exceeds $50 million.
If the company does not comply at any point within the next 10 years, it will be prosecuted for felonies it has already admitted to, they said.
“They’re on the hook with this agreement to pay whatever it takes to clean that site up,†said Joseph Johns, assistant U.S. attorney and chief of the environmental crimes section.
Johns said he would have liked to secure a conviction and penalties against the company. But prosecuting the company would have resulted in its liquidation, leaving taxpayers to pay for the cleanup.
“We decided that the balance of justice required us to think out of the box,†Johns said. “We struggled with this, and we decided that the right thing to do was not worry about sending one or two people to jail for a year or two, but rather, to prevent another 50-to-100-year sentence for the 110,000 people, the children and grandchildren that live in the communities.â€
The Department of Toxic Substances Control said it would issue an order that outlines the safe closure of the plant along with cleanup of residential properties in neighboring areas.
“DTSC will use every tool and legal mechanism at its disposal to ensure that Exide’s remaining resources are used to properly close the facility and clean up contamination in the residential area,” department Director Barbara Lee said in a statement.
State Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Huntington Park), who wrote legislation requiring the state agency to issue Exide a permit or shut it down by the end of 2015, said the plant’s closure will bring relief to those who live in the area.
“But the legacy of impacts of this facility will not go away overnight,” he said in a statement. “To truly understand the magnitude of this issue, we need a comprehensive review of soil contamination and better data on the health impacts to people who continue to be exposed to unhealthy levels of lead and arsenic.”
State Senate leader Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) said that while the closure was a victory for those in the community who long wanted the facility shuttered, he was concerned about the terms of the agreement not to prosecute Exide.
“What concessions did the U.S. attorney get for letting them off the hook?” De Leon asked. “We need to make sure the community doesn’t get shortchanged by this settlement.”
Roberto Cabrales, a community organizer with Communities for a Better Environment, called news of the closure “a shocker.”
His group and others fought for years to see the plant closed and had expected that state officials would allow Exide to remain open.
“We’re concerned that they will not be pursued for criminal prosecution,” Cabrales said. “But if that means that Exide will stay closed, then that’s in itself a victory for the community.”
He said community groups would push state regulators to quickly and thoroughly clean nearby homes contaminated with lead from the battery recycler.
Sitting in her small blue Honda car with her grandson outside of Maywood Elementary School, two miles from the Exide plant, Angela Benitez, 60, smiled at the news that the battery recycling plant was closing for good. She has lived in the area for nine years.
“It’s magnificent,” she said. “We’ve been signing petitions for it to close.”
Benitez said she remembered the noxious fumes the facility emitted.
“It was almost like an acid smell, a bleach-like odor,” she recalled.
The smell would cause her eyes to become inflamed. She’d get headaches and her grandson would often cough, she said.
She said she’s disappointed Exide would not face criminal charges.
“I don’t think the punishment fits the crime,” Benitez said.
A 2013 report released by the South Coast Air Quality Management District found that Exide’s arsenic emissions endangered the health of 110,000 people who live near the plant.
Over decades of operation, the facility has polluted the soil beneath it with high levels of lead, arsenic, cadmium and other toxic metals, according to state environmental records. It has also fouled groundwater, released battery acid onto roads and contaminated homes and yards in surrounding communities with lead emissions.
The agreement with federal officials is intended to allow Exide to continue operating as a viable company — it also recycles batteries at facilities in Missouri and Indiana — so that it can pay for cleanup of the Vernon facility and surrounding neighborhoods, according to the person involved with the negotiations. The Georgia-based company, one of the world’s largest lead-acid battery recyclers and manufacturers, is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and has filed plans to to emerge as a reorganized company. A hearing in the bankruptcy case is scheduled for March 27.
Exide’s battery plants have left a similar legacy of pollution and health concerns across the country.
Since 2012, the company has closed or halted lead recycling operations in Pennsylvania and Texas in the face of pressure from regulators and surrounding residents.
The wide-ranging federal criminal investigation into the company — first disclosed publicly in August — involved its air emissions and transportation of hazardous waste. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Transportation were also involved in the investigation.
The Vernon plant, which can melt tens of thousands of car batteries a day to provide a source of lead for new batteries, has sat idle for the last year because it could not comply with air quality standards.
The facility had been allowed to operate for decades with only a temporary permit from the state Department of Toxic Substances Control.
The facility has operated in Vernon since 1922 and was taken over by Exide in 2000. The company has repeatedly been cited for violations of environmental regulations by state and local officials in recent years.
Following public outcry, Gov. Jerry Brown last year signed a law requiring regulators to either issue Exide a full permit by the end of 2015 or force the facility to close.
“Our long nightmare is over,†said Msgr. John Moretta of Resurrection Catholic Church in Boyle Heights, whose parishioners had raised health concerns about the facility and rallied for its closure for years. “We now look forward to a thorough and just cleanup of our homes and neighborhoods.â€
Twitter: @LATvives, @tonybarboza
With Exide plant’s closure official, lawmakers target state regulators
Federal officials announced that Exide would permanently close the battery recycling plant under an agreement that allows the company to avoid criminal prosecution despite admitting that it illegally stored and transported hazardous waste. Under the agreement, the company will pay to clean up the site and nearby homes that have been polluted.
The state’s lackluster oversight of the 15-acre battery recycling plant five miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles illustrates the department’s problems, he said, and “those who let this happen must be held accountable.”
Barbara Lee, who took over as DTSC director last year, said she would continue working to improve the agency.
“The department certainly has a very poor reputation right now,” she said. “But I’m very optimistic.”
Lee said the department has struggled with an increasing workload and declining resources. She showed lawmakers a thick binder filled with what she described as a fraction of the battery recycling plant’s permit application.
The plant, run by Georgia-based Exide Technologies, shut down temporarily last year after a new round of testing found increased levels of lead in nearby soil.
Lee said she informed the company on Feb. 26 that the plant would not be allowed to reopen, which led to negotiations over clean-up costs. The plant had been allowed to operate for decades with only a temporary permit, and complaints about pollution and health hazards had mounted for years. Last year, legislators passed a law requiring the agency to either issue a permit for the plant or force its closure by the end of 2015.
Follow @chrismegerian for more updates from Sacramento.
STREETSBLOGLA.COM
Victory in Our Time: Exide Plant to Close for Good, First Phase of Clean-Up of Site to Begin Immediately
As news began to trickle out Wednesday night that, under an agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, embattled lead-acid battery recycler Exide Technologies will be forced to permanently shutter its Vernon plant, hope seemed to have finally been restored to those who have spent years clamoring for environmental justice.
In the 15 years since Exide took over operations at the Vernon site, it has repeatedly violated air quality and other standards by improperly storing lead-acid batteries, contaminating a drainage channel with lead, failing to clean up public areas it contaminated around the plant, spilling approximately 1136 lbs. of lead into the watershed (between 2003 and 2006), exceeding airborne lead emissions multiple times (including during the period it was closed for upgrades last year), not repairing degraded pipes carrying up to 310,000 gallons of contaminant-laden wastewater a day, and, most recently, storing “contaminated sludge in tanks that [it] is not authorized to operate,†failing to sufficiently protect against spills of hazardous waste, and “fail[ing] to minimize the possibility of any unplanned sudden or non-sudden release of hazardous wastes or hazardous waste constituents to air, soil, or surface water.â€
Most egregiously, Exide managed to accomplish all of these terrible feats while operating on an interim permit, something many in the surrounding communities have long viewed as negligence on the part of the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD), and other relevant authorities.
Exide didn’t even file its first application for a formal operating permit until 2006. Nor was it hit with any real financial penalties until very recently. By the DTSC’s own admission, between 1990 and 2015, it only levied a total of about $2 million in penalties against Exide and its predecessors in 10 separate enforcement actions. A $1.3 million fine — the bulk of that total — was not levied against Exide until November, 2014.
The agreement to close the plant will therefore be a largely welcome one for most in the surrounding communities (minus, of course, the 130 employees who have now permanently lost their jobs).
But it doesn’t mean we’re quite out of the woods, yet.
First, despite Exide’s long history of violations, the closure agreement allows it to avoid prosecution in the criminal investigation the Attorney’s Office launched into its emissions history and illegal storage of hazardous materials.
This may be a major oversight.
Exide had been notified of the DTSC’s intention to deny it an operating permit on February 26 — well ahead of the formalization of its agreement with the Department of Justice (DOJ). Meaning that the plant would have been forced to close regardless of the outcome of the criminal investigation.
By signing on to the federal agreement — an agreement the DOJ drew up without consulting the DTSC — Exide effectively avoids further exploration into the extent of what, if any, criminal wrongdoing it is responsible for and limits the ability of affected residents, the city, or the state to seek redress (outside of existing agreements) for any resulting damages.
Second, both Exide’s ability and its willingness to clean up its own mess are rather suspect.
Thursday’s DTSC press release about the closure cites concerns regarding Exide’s ability to ensure adequate funding for the safe closure of the facility and the complete cleanup of lead contamination in the surrounding communities as being key to their decision to deny Exide a formal permit.
As DTSC Director Barbara Lee reiterated during a press call Thursday afternoon, given that it is unclear what Exide’s status will be when it emerges from bankruptcy, those concerns will continue to remain front and center. Not only have the bankruptcy proceedings tied up Exide’s funds for a few years now, but Exide has not hesitated to use the proceedings to its financial advantage. Notably, it required that anyone submitting personal damage claims (e.g. excessive lead in blood, other health issues) do so by the end of January of 2014, well before any of the free blood tests it agreed to pay for could actually be administered to residents of communities affected by lead emissions. And while Exide did comply with the November 2014 order that it put $2.75 million into a closure financial assurance fund and $3 mil. into a trust fund for residential clean-ups, those funds represent just a fraction of the approximately $50+ mil. the DTSC estimates the final clean-up will eventually cost.
Even assuming Exide does have sufficient funds to conduct a clean-up, follow-through may still be a significant issue.
Last June, the DTSC’s assessment of Exide’s third application for a formal operating permit indicated they had little confidence in Exide’s ability to perform even the most basic of tasks properly, such as conducting sampling or cataloging how much hazardous waste was on site. Specifically, they declared that Exide’s application:
- Fails to provide an accurate cost estimate to ensure Exide can safely clean up the site after it has permanently ceased operations. Specifically, the application fails to accurately describe actions needed to clean up lead contamination throughout the facility, demolish structures, and remove contaminated soil underneath the facility;
- Fails to accurately describe the amount of lead-contaminated waste that needs to be safely removed from the site for treatment and disposal when the facility permanently closes;
- Fails to include a safety assessment of all tanks that hold waste, including tanks that hold acidic hazardous wastes that could overflow during an earthquake;
- Fails to describe all rooms where waste is handled so that it can be safely managed; and
- Fails to describe the correct sampling needed to characterize toxic contamination that must be cleaned up after the facility is permanently closed.
The DTSC subsequently sent Exide a Notice of Deficiency that carefully detailed its concerns with the application and requested that Exide adjust and resubmit the application within 30 days. Even with that level of assistance, Exide struggled to comply, eventually requesting (and receiving) a substantial extension of the deadline.
Unfortunately, Exide’s struggle to get its act together is not all that surprising.
As the good people of a number of communities across the U.S. can attest, Exide has quite a legacy of inflicting environmental harm. In Frisco, Texas, where Exide was forced to shut down operations a little over two years ago, the post-closure clean-up of the area has been fraught with problems (including the disappearance of a bucket of potentially contaminated waste off the back of a truck) and concerns about whether Exide would continue to comply with the settlement agreement. Just last October, Frisco leveled fresh accusations that Exide was continuing to downplay the contamination at the former plant site in order to hurry the clean-up process along and minimize costs.
When asked about these failures and oversight mechanisms on the press call, Lee acknowledged Exide’s poor track record, saying, “We have concerns.â€
She went on to cite a recent case in which the DTSC had required Exide to conduct additional sampling under the containment area at the plant only to find that contamination levels were much higher than Exide had previously estimated.
The DTSC, she reiterated, would continue to work closely with the AQMD, the County, and any other relevant authorities, as it has over the last year, to ensure that oversight and enforcement are sufficient. Moreover, she pointed out, by entering into a federal agreement, Exide had granted the DOJ the ability to bring any and all of the necessary resources to bear to ensure the clean-up is conducted properly during the next 10 years.
The first phase of the clean-up should begin immediately, she said. The clean-up, demolition, and removal of the existing plant structure should take between 19 and 22 months. During this time, Exide will be required to continue paying into a clean-up fund, studying the contamination levels at the site, and preparing plans for phase 2 of the process — the decontamination of the site and surrounding areas.
Decontamination of residential areas will also continue during this period, Lee added, as will the study and planning for decontamination of residences that fall outside the two assessment areas (those areas pinpointed by emissions modeling as being most likely to have experienced lead contamination) currently undergoing testing and clean-ups.
Although Lee suggested planning for any residential clean-ups outside the boundaries of the existing assessment areas will take place on an accelerated schedule, she could offer no estimate of what that time-frame might be.
She also noted that it was important that the DTSC had recently secured a commitment from Exide to dedicate an additional $5 mil. to the $9 mil. already earmarked for residential clean-ups because, she felt, the clean-ups would “probably cost more than [$9 mil.].†The extra funds won’t be handed over until 2018, but Lee believes there should be enough in the pot to ensure clean-ups can continue in the meanwhile.
Finally, Lee said she understood the skepticism observers might have, both regarding Exide and the ability of the DTSC to oversee the closure of the plant. Before 2013, the DTSC had stopped by to inspect Exide’s operations, on average, once a year. Over the last year and a half, they ratcheted up their oversight and were on site once a month. Now, she has staff on site even more regularly and the DTSC is “fully committed,†she said, “to the protection of public health and the environment.â€
The DTSC will make sure all of the agencies are working together to ensure Exide is complying with the law, she reiterated. “You can watch us going forward.â€
For more information on the DTSC’s monitoring of Exide or to track the clean-up of residential areas, please visit their dedicated webpage here.
EGPNEWS.COM
Feds Strike Deal to Close Exide Permanently
Deal will allow company to avoid criminal prosecution.
By Gloria Alvarez EGP Staff Writer
Embattled Exide Technologies will permanently shut down its battery recycling plant in Vernon in a deal reached with federal authorities to avoid prosecution on criminal charges, announced the U.S. attorney’s office Wednesday.
“We have reached a deal with Exide that will result in the immediate and permanent closure of the battery recycling plant,†said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office.
“It’s a complicated deal, but we think it will ensure that money is available to pay for tens of millions of dollars in cleanup efforts.â€
The closure comes following years of public outrage over the company’s numerous violations for toxic chemical emissions and handling of hazardous waste. As many as 110,000 people in Vernon, Boyle Heights, Maywood and other nearby communities were exposed to cancer causing levels of lead and arsenic, state air quality regulators found.
Residents in nearby communities and local elected officials have repeatedly demanded the company be permanently closed.
“Exide was poisoning our community, it had to be closed,†said Rev. Monsignor John Moretta of Resurrection Church in Boyle Heights, ground zero in the fight to close the Vernon plant.
The agreement calls for Exide to permanently close the plant which, the company admits, produces a host of hazardous wastes, including lead, cadmium, arsenic and volatile organic compounds.
According to the negotiated agreement, Exide will acknowledge the illegal storage and transportation of hazardous waste but avoid criminal prosecution in exchange for shutting down, demolishing and cleaning its 15-acre battery recycling plant.
Smelting operations have been shut down at the Vernon facility since March 2014 as the company worked to install equipment upgrades to comply with state air quality standards. During the closure, however, the company continued to violate air pollution regulations and hazardous waste storage and transportation laws.
Exide is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and according to federal authorities the agreement will allow the company to remain financially solvent so it can make good on an agreement reached last year with state regulators for the company to set aside $38.6 million for closure and cleanup of the facility and to place $9 million in a trust fund to clean lead-tainted soil from surrounding homes in Boyle Heights and Maywood.
At the time, Exide called the “agreement†a “crucial step forward†in its pursuit to re-open its plant, closed since March 2014 as the company worked to upgrade pollution controls and meet other Department of Toxic Substance Control (DTSC) requirements.
Those payments will be expedited under the agreement with federal officials.
“Permanently shutting down Exide’s Vernon facility is the best and long-overdue outcome for communities harmed by its dangerous pollution for decades,†said Senate President pro Tempore Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles).
“For too long, kids and the elderly were left vulnerable to hazardous waste leaking from the plant while the state agency responsible for protecting them failed to do its job,†he said, referring to state regulators allowing the company to operate on a temporary permit for decades.
DTSC, the state agency in charge of the permitting process, has repeatedly come under fire for its failure to complete the permitting process or to shut down the plant in the wake of its continuous violations that endangered public health.
A bill signed by the governor last year required the company to get a permanent permit by the end of this year or be shut down.
DTSC has been reviewing Exide’s permit application, and said today they “initiated the process of denying the company’s permit application†last month.
Sen. Ricardo Lara of Bell Gardens said news of Exide’s permanent closure would “bring great relief to his constituents, who for decades have been exposed to toxic levels of lead and arsenic emissions from their Vernon facility.â€
Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard called the permanent closure a “landmark public health victory for the 40thDistrict.â€
Exide issued a statement today saying the company would “immediately move to permanently close its lead-acid battery recycling facility in Vernon,†under the terms of the “non-prosecution†agreement reached with the U.S. attorney that “resolves the USAO’s criminal investigation into Exide.â€
The company will request that the Bankruptcy Court approve the agreements as part of its reorganization plan at a hearing scheduled for March 27.
Approval should allow the company to meet its financial commitment, said Robert M. Caruso, President and Chief Executive Officer of Exide Technologies. Caruso said the company recognizes the impact the closure will have on the facility’s 130 employees, and thanked the United Steel Workers Union for their “commitment and dedication,†without detailing what if anything will be done to assist the displaced workers.
Lawsuits have been filed against several company executives and the manager of the Exide recycling plant by area residents who allege they and their children were exposed to lead, arsenic and other contaminants.
One complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in January also alleged wrongful death. It was brought by family members of residents who died between June 1998 and May 2013. Plaintiffs attributed the deaths to toxins from the plant that affected the water, soil and air.
When operational, the plant recycled about 25,000 batteries daily. It was one of only two lead-acid battery recycling plants west of the Rockies.
LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS
Exide Technologies to close Vernon battery recycling plant, pay $50 million for cleanup
VERNON – Battery recycler Exide Technologies has agreed to immediately and permanently close its Vernon lead-acid battery recycling plant and pay $50 million to clean up the site and surrounding neighborhoods, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced today.
The agreement approved late Wednesday calls for Exide to close a facility that, according to the government, produces a host of hazardous wastes, including lead, cadmium, arsenic and volatile organic compounds.
“The reign of toxic lead ends today,†Acting U.S. Attorney Stephanie Yonekura said. “After more than nine decades of ongoing lead contamination … neighborhoods can now start to breathe easier.â€
Exide had planned to resume operations at the recycling facility as early as next month, but the agreement calls for the facility to be shuttered, demolished and cleaned up. The company is also required to expedite the funding of a $9 million trust fund that will be used to clean up 216 nearby residences in Boyle Heights and Maywood.
Robert M. Caruso, Exide’s president and chief executive officer, said he recognizes “the impacts that closing the Vernon facility will have on our approximately 130 employees and their families. On behalf of the company, I thank them.â€
The deal to close the recycling plant is contained in a non-prosecution agreement, or NPA, that Exide and prosecutors finalized late Wednesday.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles estimated that Exide’s direct costs of compliance are well in excess of $100 million, including the company walking away from recent improvements to the facility and incurring new costs for lead and plastic that must now be purchased to manufacture new batteries.
Prosecutors said they entered into a non-prosecution agreement because negotiations with the bankrupt company revealed that just the threat of criminal charges would almost certainly force its liquidation, leaving government agencies responsible for cleaning up the Vernon plant.
The NPA also opens the door to new funding for the company, which employs thousands of workers in the U.S. and around the world, prosecutors said.
“The agreement with Exide ensures that the Vernon site will be permanently closed, while guaranteeing that the company will survive to adequately finance the clean-up of this long-suffering community,†Yonekura said.
Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Los Angeles, said it was “regrettable†that Exide avoided criminal prosecution, but “at least the plant is now permanently closed. I hope authorities can swiftly complete the decontamination of the site and its surrounding communities.â€
“I have been greatly concerned about the health hazards that the Exide plant poses to my constituents, and that is why I have been a vocal supporter of the plant’s closure,†she said. “While I recognize Exide had made efforts to update the facility’s air pollution control systems and complete renovations, the reality is that it was too little too late. Given Exide’s history, there was little reason to believe in its promises of corrective action.â€
Jared Blumenfeld, EPA’s Regional Administrator for the Pacific Southwest, said the closure of Exide “is a victory for the residents of Vernon who have suffered from decades of toxic pollution.â€
“Today’s announcement shows that companies who fail to meet federal environmental laws will face serious consequences,†he said.
Bell Mayor Nestor Enrique Valencia said Exide’s contamination of the environment “is inexcusable and will continue harming us for years to come,†adding that a new hospital specializing in cancer and birth defects should be part of any settlement.
In addition to the commitments to close the Vernon facility and pay for associated clean-up costs, Exide has acknowledged criminal conduct, including the illegal storage, disposal, shipment and transportation of hazardous waste.
In the NPA, Exide admits that it “knowingly and willfully caused the shipment of hazardous waste contaminated with lead and corrosive acid†in leaking van trailers from Vernon to Bakersfield and did so “a significant number of times over the past two decades, in violation of federal law.â€
Each incident could be charged as a felony violation of the federal Hazardous Materials Transportation Act, according to the document.
Prosecutors said the admissions of criminal violations were important because Exide agreed that it could be prosecuted at any time over the next 10 years if it fails to abide by the terms of the NPA.
A violation would include failing to adequately finance clean-up efforts at the recycling facility, a program that will be overseen by the California Department of Toxic Substances Control.
DTSC Director Barbara Lee said the department’s priority is to ensure the safe closure of the Exide plant and to complete the cleanup of contaminated yards in the surrounding neighborhoods.
She said the department’s decision to close the plant was based on such factors as Exide’s inability to meet safety standards, failure to certify the structural integrity of a containment building used to hold hundreds of tons of lead, and poor history of compliance with environmental and health protection laws.
“DTSC will use every tool and legal mechanism at its disposal to ensure that Exide’s remaining resources are used to properly close the facility and clean up contamination†in nearby neighborhoods, Lee said.
Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, said that news of Exide’s closing brings relief to his constituents, “who for decades have been exposed to toxic levels of lead and arsenic emissions†from the plant.
“But the legacy impacts of this facility will not go away overnight,†Lara said. “To truly understand the magnitude of this issue, we need a comprehensive review of soil contamination and better data on the health impacts to people who continue to be exposed to unhealthy levels of lead and arsenic. We need to ensure that this deal adequately holds Exide morally and financially accountable for the damage they have caused. Impacted families deserve no less.â€
City Councilman Jose Huizar blamed the DTSC for allowing the company to operate with a temporary permit for more than 30 years.
“This is what can happen when you allow a company that deals with toxic chemicals to operate with a temporary permit for decades,†he said. “Exide’s actions and criminal activity should serve as a warning to state regulators to do a much-better job in the future. While Exide’s closing is welcome news, our communities deserve nothing less than a full cleanup of the toxic mess this company has made.â€
