March 23, 2016
Chutzpah is a Yiddish term for shameless audacity, amazing gall, outrageous impudence or shocking nerve.
When someone or some institution does something that just leaves one speechless or gasping in shock, that’s chutzpah.
There’s a lot of it in the world of polluting industries and government institutions responsible for protecting the environment and the public from those polluting industries.
One case that has garnered attention in Southern California and in the legislature in the last few years, is the case of Exide Technologies’ lead battery smelting plant in Vernon, an industrial town about 5 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles.
That case hasn’t won the same level of national attention as has the horrific contamination of the local water supply in Flint, Michigan. But it is also terrible and demonstrates just how lopsided the burden of pollution is in disadvantaged communities in California, and how slow the agencies responsible for protecting the public are to react.
And it reveals some chutzpah.
The lead smelting plant first opened its doors in Vernon in 1922. Exide bought it in 2000. For more than 90 years, until the plant was forced to close about a year ago, it collected the lead from old lead-acid batteries and melted it to be recycled and used in new batteries.
Vernon is surrounded by communities such as Bell, Maywood, Huntington Park and East Los Angeles—places notable for low median income and high poverty rates. Over its history, the Vernon-based smelter committed a range of air pollution violations, including after Exide bought it. People living, working and going to school in the surrounding communities suffered the consequences.
The region’s air pollution control agency believes at least 110,000 people were exposed to arsenic-poisoned air from the plant. The state says 10,000 properties within 1.7 miles of the plant need to be tested for lead contamination from the plant, and late last summer, the state began testing and hauling away tons of contaminated soil from 1,500 properties.
When the Exide executives finally agreed to close the plant last year, they did so after admitting Exide had committed a list of offenses—crimes, really—including illegal storage of hazardous waste, illegal disposal of hazardous waste, and illegal shipment of hazardous waste in leaky trailers. In exchange, the executives escaped criminal prosecution.
For many years, people living near the smelting plant complained about its pollution. For many years, the main agency responsible for regulating the plant, the Department of Toxic Substances Control, didn’t listen and didn’t act. Even now, under new leadership, it isn’t certain whether that agency’s inaction will ever be fully explained or whether anyone there will be held accountable.
Estimates are that it could cost close to half a billion dollars to clean up the mess left by Exide. The federal prosecutors who worked out the deal to force the plant to close said that Exide will be responsible for cleanup costs.
In the meantime, on February 17, Governor Brown stepped up with a promise of $176.6 million to accelerate testing and cleaning up the lead pollution found at the rest of the 10,000 properties not already tested. But there is a catch: The money will come with an exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) for the clean-up effort.
Now that’s chutzpah.
Communities that have historically been denied information, transparency, and a seat at the table, are effectively being told by the governor that help to begin to restore their environment is on the way—but only if they give up the one tool they could count on to provide information and transparency about how the cleanup would be done and how it might affect their environment, their health, and their children’s health.
In a March 14 letter to Governor Brown, about 35 representatives of environmental justice and community groups politely and firmly asked him to remove the CEQA exemption proposal.
“Exemptions from laws designed to protect the public’s health harm all Californians by setting a precedent for unequal protection under the law,” the letter said. “Environmental justice communities already bear the brutal brunt of past and present government policies which concentrate pollution in communities already reeling from over-exposure to environmental harms. We need the information which the CEQA analysis provides and the mitigation which it ensures if we are to safeguard the health of the communities we inhabit and steward.”
The issue will likely be resolved through the budget process. It isn’t the first time the governor has used the budget process to try to roll back environmental review. It probably won’t be the last time.
It’s just one of the most surprising. And disturbing.
Sincerely,
Kathryn Phillips
Director
Sierra Club California is the Sacramento-based legislative and regulatory advocacy arm of the 13 California chapters of the Sierra Club.
Please consider becoming a sustaining donor.
