[CPEO-BIF] "EPA’s Superfund designation for Exide cleanup now in jeopardy," Vernon, California

[Lenny Siegel <Lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

EPA’s Superfund designation for Exide cleanup now in jeopardy
The EPA said that a chemical found in the area was not generated by the plant.

by Alfredo Santana
Los Angeles Public Press (CA)
February 28, 2025

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday at a community meeting that a toxin found at the former Exide Technologies battery smelter in Vernon was not generated by the plant, dealing a serious blow to calls from residents and elected leaders to designate the site as a Superfund. 

Superfund is the informal term used to refer to a law originating in the 1980s that authorizes the EPA to clean polluted industrial sites, as well as force parties at fault for the toxins to clean their properties or pay the government for remediation work. 

After months of testing and investigating the Exide plant’s toxic chemicals, EPA representatives concluded the presence of the chemical Trichloroethylene (TCE) was not caused by the process of smelting lead batteries. 

The former Exide battery recycling plant operated for more than 90 years until it was shuttered in 2015 after years of advocacy from local residents who blamed the plant as the culprit for a myriad of health concerns, including  elevated lead levels in the blood of children.   

…

For the entire article, see
https://lapublicpress.org/2025/02/exide-toxic-superfund-cleanup/

—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)




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