[CPEO-BIF] Jordan Downs, Watts, Los Angeles, California

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

[In response to my comments on the draft Remedial Action Plan for the  
Jordan Downs "Factory" site, California's Department of Toxic  
Substances Control has directed the House Authority of the City of  
Los Angeles (HACLA) to conduct additional soil gas sampling and for  
the first time, groundwater sampling, on a portion of the site. I  
suggest that HACLA conduct groundwater, soil gas, and indoor air  
sampling at existing housing units adjacent to that property but  
outside the Voluntary Cleanup Program site. – LS]


An LA Housing Project Could Be Giving Its Residents Lead Poisoning

By Daniel Ross
Vice Magazine
January 28, 2014

It’s not necessarily the patchy linoleum flooring, the egg-white  
cinder block walls, or the bars against all the windows that gave  
Eleazer Acevedo’s unit at Jordan Downs in Watts, Los Angeles, its  
penitential quality – it's more the sparsely furnished rooms,  
noticeably bare save a few scant furnishings that look as though  
they’ve been plucked from a dozen different roadsides and yard sales.

...

The Jordan Downs urban redevelopment project has been decades in the  
imagination, years in the works, and months under the glow of a green  
light - a major landmark for a community long bedeviled by crime,  
poverty, and unemployment. Last August, the Los Angeles City Council  
unanimously approved plans to raze the current 700 units and replace  
them with approximately 1,800 mixed-income apartments along with  
chain stores and new streetscapes in order create "a vibrant urban  
village and model for public housing developments throughout the  
country," according to the city's five-year plan for South Los  
Angeles. This urban village was going to cost around $1 billion.  
Current government subsidized tenants have been promised one-for-one  
rehousing, as long as they remain in good standing with the Housing  
Authority. The full scope of the project hinges on a $30 million  
Choice Neighborhood Initiative Grant - a sought-after federal grant  
likely to be awarded in May.

At the center of Jordan Downs is a 21-acre L-shaped industrial site  
called the "Factory." Now vacant, adorned mostly with rubble and  
weeds, the Factory abuts the residential complex; the two are  
separated by an eight-foot-high brick wall with holes large enough  
for a child to crawl through. This is the source of everyone's fears.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.vice.com/read/an-la-housing-project-might-be-giving-its- 
residents-lead-poisoning-miserable

For Lenny Siegel's October 2013 report on Jordan Downs, go to
http://www.cpeo.org/pubs/JordanDowns.pdf

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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