EPA is accepting comments on the proposal to add the Exide to Superfund List

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has determined that the Vernon Exide lead battery smelting and recycling site and surrounding areas should be listed on its National Priorities List (NPL) of Superfund sites.

“We must advocate for Exide and the surrounding impacted communities to be placed on the official Superfund National Priorities List in Spring 2025,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda L. Solis stated in a press release. “This is a critical step to receive the funding necessary to address this environmental injustice and ensure the voices of the generations of people living with Exide’s contamination are heard."

Supervisor Solis said that during the Trump administration, “the EPA and the U.S. Department of Justice negotiated a bankruptcy court settlement with Exide that fell hundreds of millions of dollars short of estimated cleanup costs ─ absolving Exide from all wrongdoing.”

The EPA is accepting comments on the proposal to add the Exide Technologies - Vernon site to the Superfund NPL from September 5 until November 4, 2024. 

“The proposal to add Exide to the Superfund list is the first step in a process, and we will be 100% committed to engaging and gathering feedback from the community the entire way,” said EPA Pacific Southwest Regional Administrator Martha Guzman. “When finalized, the listing will provide access to federal funding and resources that EPA will utilize to take a more comprehensive approach to the contamination in the community.”

According to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Exide's operations resulted in the release of harmful levels of lead and arsenic into the environment in the communities surrounding Exide's former Vernon facility. 

“This is a critical milestone in our fight to secure environmental justice for Los Angeles communities impacted by decades of industrial pollution,” said Yana Garcia, California Secretary for Environmental Protection. “I look forward to continuing to work with the U.S. EPA to address the contamination left behind by the former Exide facility.”

EPA’s decision to add the now-abandoned Exide lead battery facility to its NPL means that if that recommendation is accepted, federal resources and expertise would then be dedicated to fund and oversee cleanup efforts of the contaminated groundwater that have inflicted a generation of illness on neighborhood families. 

The EPA Site Inspection Report indicates that the Exide site is eligible for listing on the NPL based on groundwater contamination.

The public can submit comments online (preferred) by going to www.regulations.gov and searching docket number EPA-HQ-OLEM-2024-0376

If submitting comments by mail: 

EPA will hold a virtual public information session on the proposal and review how to submit comments on September 18, 2024, at 5:30 p.m. PT. More information can be found at Exide Technologies - Vernon