EXIDE, No More

For over a decade, the community, along with city officials, had been fighting to shut down the battery recycling company EXIDE due to their constant release of lead and arsenic into the air. Although the community had come close to succeeding in their goal because “it [EXIDE] was unable to comply with strict new rules adopted by the South Coast Air Quality Management District,” the company managed to spring back onto its feet because all it had to do was “upgrade its pollution control equipment at an estimated cost of $5 million,” according to Exide hit with federal grand jury subpoena over Vernon battery plant.

Back in 2013, “A March 2013 health study found that the facility’s arsenic emissions posed an increased cancer risk to more than 110,000 people in southeast Los Angeles County,” according to the previously stated article. This enraged the community even more because now it wasn’t just affecting their environment but also their health. A common complaint was that EXIDE violated so many laws and, year after year, they were able to pay it off without a concern involving the public’s health.

But now, after nine decades of having to deal with this lead contamination facility, EXIDE is finally being shut down in exchange for dropping their criminal prosecution: illegal storage and transportation of hazardous waste and for posing “a higher cancer risk to more people than any of more than 450 facilities the agency has regulated in Southern California in the last 25 years,” according to L.A. City Council members irate over arsenic emissions.

According to Milton Nimatuj, Youth Program Coordinator for Huntington Park’s Community for Better Environments, “It’s bittersweet, they got shut down, but got less charges. If they don’t clean up the area or comply with the rules within the next ten years, they can still get sued.” To the communities hopes, EXIDE is completely closed down, the buildings have to be taken down, and the area must be cleaned.

Since LMHS is right next to the industrial side of town, and a 10 minute car drive away from EXIDE, students can be affected by the surrounding air pollutants. With EXIDE gone, students have one less sickness causing factory to worry about.

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