California governor signs legislation to fund battery plant pollution cleanup

California Governor Jerry Brown Wednesday signed legislation to provide 176.6 million dollars of fund to test and clean the area polluted by Exide battery recycling plant in Vernon.

"Children should be able to play in yards free from toxics," Brown said in a statement. "With this funding plan, we're doubling down on efforts to protect the community and hold Exide responsible."

The funding would pay for testing of residential properties, schools, daycare centers and parks within a 1.7-mile radius of the Exide Technologies battery-recycling plant in Vernon, and fund cleaning of as many as 2,500 properties with the highest lead levels, state officials said.

The Exide plant permanently closed in March 2015. When Exide agreed to close the lead-acid battery recycling plant, it committed to pay 50 million dollars for cleanup of the site and surrounding neighborhoods. Of that amount, 26 million dollars is meant to be set aside for residential cleanup.

As of last August, Exide, which filed for bankruptcy in 2013, had paid 9 million dollars into a trust and another 5 million dollars was due to be paid by March 2020.

Children living near the closed Exide plant were found to have elevated blood lead levels, according to local media reports.

Vernon is an industrial city of 5.2 square miles located several miles to the southeast of Downtown Los Angeles.

Founded in 1905 as the first exclusively industrial city in southwestern United States, it has only about 120 residents but currently houses more than 1,800 businesses that employ approximately 50,000 people, many of whom are living in surrounding cities. Enditem