Exide was one of the world's largest producers, distributors and recyclers of lead–acid batteries. Lead–acid batteries are used in automobiles, golf carts, fork-lifts, electric cars and motorcycles. They are recycled by grinding them open, neutralizing the sulfuric acid, and separating the polymers from the lead and copper. In the US, 97 percent of the lead from car batteries is recycled, which is the highest recycling rate for any commodity. Most states require stores to take back old batteries.
Since 2010, operations at seven Exide lead–acid battery plants have been linked to ambient heavy metal levels that posed a health risk to the environment and thousands of residents in neighborhoods surrounding the Exide plants. Exide has been found to be a significant source of lead emissions and/or contamination in Crescentville, Philadelphia (1920–1978); Los Angeles County; Frisco, Texas; Muncie, Indiana; Salina, Kansas; Bristol, Tennessee; Reading, Pennsylvania; and Forest City, Missouri.
Los Angeles County, California (Vernon)
A battery recycling plant in southeast Los Angeles County, California, United States, emitted toxic metal dust over decades that contaminated as many as 10,000 homes in half a dozen working-class, Latino communities near the plant. Lead is a neurotoxin that causes harm to most organs, but it most commonly causes cognitive deficits, neurodevelopmental delays, and psychological impairments. Exide Technologies, owner of the lead–acid battery smelter located in Vernon, agreed in 2015 to close the facility during the massive cleanup of the contaminated soil, which will take years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Background The 15-acre battery recycling plant (6.1 ha) was in Vernon – a heavily industrialized city in Southeast Los Angeles county. The plant processed over 11 million used lead batteries each year. The smelter was issued an "interim status document" by the California Department of Health Services in 1981 and operated under a provisional permit while documented violations were occurring. Exide took ownership of the smelter when they purchased the Gould-National Battery and its assets in 2000. In 2013, Exide was under federal criminal investigation for emitting high levels of harmful pollutants from its battery recycling plant in Vernon, California. Hundreds of residents had complained for years about Exide's toxic emissions before state and federal agencies acted. Organized opposition included Mothers of East Los Angeles, students, and local churches. In March 2015, the company signed an agreement with the U.S. attorney's office to close permanently. The deal allowed Exide and its employees to avoid prosecution for years of environmental crimes, including illegal storage, disposal and shipment of hazardous waste, while agreeing to pay $50 million to demolish and clean the plant and surrounding communities, including $9 million set aside for removing lead from homes.
Environmental impact
The soil beneath the facility tests high for toxic metals. The groundwater was also polluted from the operation of the plant and corrosive and irritating sulfates drained onto public streets.
Studies have indicated that as many as 10,000 homes in half a dozen working-class, Latino communities near the plant have had their homes and yards contaminated by the lead emissions. The decades of air pollution from the Exide Technologies facility has potentially contaminated the nearby communities of Boyle Heights, Maywood, East Los Angeles, Commerce, Bell, and Huntington Park.
Residents had long been concerned about the air pollution from the plant that was found to have emitted lead, arsenic and other dangerous pollutants over decades. Lead is a potent neurotoxin that puts children at-risk for learning disabilities, lower IQs and other developmental problems who may have acquired lead poisoning from playing outdoors.
Public Health Impacts Throughout history, lead exposure has led to public health problems, specifically for workers in factories or other industrial entities. While past measures that prevent lead exposure in the first place have been successful, "secondary prevention" is emphasized by public health agencies now, leaving the people who have already been exposed or who will continually be exposed at risk because lead is still used in the manufacture of batteries, buses, trucks, tractors, and motorcycles. As a result, Low income communities and communities of color face a major gap in the public health system for lead exposure prevention.
According to "Industrial Lead Poisoning in Los Angeles: Anatomy of a Public Health Failure" in the Journal of Environmental Justice, Southeastern Los Angeles has similar gaps and failures of lead prevention as in the Flint, Michigan water crisis. Since the 1970s, Exide had been operating in Vernon. In 2013, AQMD explained that upwards of 250,000 residents in East Los Angeles face a chronic health hazard from lead and arsenic exposure from Exide.South Coast Air Quality Management District, Lead Monitoring at Exide Technologies, 2014. Communities living near Exide such as Boyle Heights and Maywood are more than 90% Latino and rank among the top 10% of most environmentally burdened areas in California. More than 90% of homes in the area were built before the 1978 ban on lead paint and many directly neighbor freeways and truck routes which resulted in decades of exposure to leaded gasoline which contaminated soil.Mielke, HW, et al, Science of the Total Environment 408; (2010) 3965–3975Laidlaw MAS, Zahran S, Pingitore N, Clague J, Devlin G, Taylor MP. 2014. Identification of lead sources in residential environments: Sydney, Australia. Environ Pollut 184: 238–246. Lead exposure is especially prevalent in soil, water, and dust; it has the most impact on the children and workers around Vernon.
In 2019, a study conducted by the University of Southern California found a high amount of lead in baby teeth of children in Boyle Heights, Maywood, East Los Angeles, Commerce, and Huntington Park. The lead in the baby teeth matched with soil contamination data from the California Department of Toxic Substances Control. The Truth Fairy study revealed that children in Boyle Heights and East L.A. have the highest exposure to lead, which most likely came through winds carrying soil in utero from their mother or post birth. The study urges legislators to create initiatives to prevent lead exposure. Jill Johnston, co author of the study and professor of preventive medicine explains, "higher lead in teeth means higher lead in the brain, kidney and bones. Testing women for lead during pregnancy, or even earlier, as they enter child-bearing age, may be needed to decrease lead exposure to their future offspring."
Testing and clean-up
The facility closure is overseen by the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) and the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD). The closure includes dismantling the former recycling facility under a full enclosure tent, under negative pressure, preventing emissions from leaving the premises. Hazardous materials from the facility are recycled or disposed of under DTSC oversight.
The cleanup of the soil contaminated with lead is being overseen by the DTSC. In August 2015, the department announced that soil testing had shown that the toxic dust had deposited lead in as many as 10,000 homes. Department officials said that they had not previously been involved in a lead cleanup case in which the number of properties was this high.
Nineteen homes received first priority for cleanup starting in December 2014 based on the test results. The residents of two neighborhoods in Boyle Heights and Maywood were notified in August 2015 that they could have their soil tested for lead after being identified by the SCAQMD as the communities most likely to have been contaminated by the lead emissions. Contaminated soil was removed and replaced at 146 of the homes closest to the facility in these communities.
High lead levels were found in the soil at Lorena and Rowan Elementary Schools in the summer of 2015 by the Department of Toxic Substances Control.
In October 2015 the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, frustrated with the slow pace by the state, designated $2 million to "facilitate" the cleanup effort by hiring contractors and consultants, performing soil testing at 1,000 homes during the following two months, and sending community outreach workers to neighborhoods around the plant. A timeline and strategy was also included in the resolution to force state regulators, Exide "and other responsible parties to fully fund and undertake this cleanup." The state had used all but $1 million of $9 million Exide placed in a trust fund for residential cleanup. By the end of February 2016, county crews began testing soil at homes in Commerce. The state allocated $176.6 million for the cost of testing and cleanup of about 2,500 of the most contaminated yards. Job training programs for community members to be employed in cleanup have been planned by the Department of Toxic Substances Control. It is also establishing a local office to improve and coordinate information-sharing efforts. Local community groups are working with the agency for outreach in signing up residents for testing.
In fall 2017, the Department of Toxic Substances Control began to implement their plans to remove lead-contaminated soil from 2,500 residential properties near the closed Exide Technologies lead–acid battery plant in Vernon. It is believed to be the largest environmental cleanup effort of its kind in California history, encompassing seven Los Angeles County neighborhoods. California state regulators estimate that Exide's operations may have threatened the health of an estimated 100,000 people and 10,000 residential properties. A total of $192 million has been authorized by the state for the massive cleanup effort; $176.6 million of which was approved by Governor Jerry Brown in April 2016.
The $192 million set aside by the State will only allow for cleanup of 2,500 of the estimated 10,000 homes and properties believed to have been contaminated by Exide's decades of pollution. Total costs to clean up the estimated 10,000 homes contaminated by Exide's pollution is believed to be over $500 million. By August 2016, over $42 million of the $192 million had already been spent.
Facing mounting pressure from community activists, residents, and elected officials, to hold Exide, and not taxpayers, accountable for millions of dollars of additional money needed to clean up Exide's toxic lead mess in east L.A. County, the South Coast Air Quality Management District filed claims against Exide totaling over $80 million. Exide filed its own lawsuit in 2016 seeking blood lead data on people tested in L.A. County, including each person's age, city and ZIP Code; the age of the home in which each person lived; and any causes of lead poisoning. The state is fighting the lawsuit in court, calling it an attempt by Exide to dodge financial responsibility and blame the contamination on lead paint and gasoline. Paying for the cleanup might admit guilt that could lead to criminal charges and jail time for executives.
On January 31, 2018, Exide Technologies told a bankruptcy judge that their company was not responsible for the $80 million in additional cleanup costs that the State of California was trying to recoup, and that the State's claim should be discharged as part of the company's Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan in 2015. With the State legislation placing creditors ahead of environmental cleanups, and with the bankruptcy judge ruling in favour of Exide, taxpayers will end up paying for the cleanup, while the company will be released from all liability. The bankruptcy judge allowed a "nonconsensual" plan with a release of liability and abandonment of the property in October 2020.