When we arrived at the Hacienda Heights community center, it was immediately clear that the meeting was much larger than we anticipated--it was almost impossible to find parking. Many of the attendees were wearing Teamster jackets and were there because they answered a call by Teamsters to attend the meeting, not necessarily because they worked at the facility or knew anything about it. There was also a significant police presence. The front of the room had roughly 200 seats and there were about six informational tables at the back. The tables were run by DTSC, Nature for All (received SEP money), and LA County Department of Public Health (which was distributing information about lead poisoning and testing).
She pointed out representatives of various elected officials that were in attendance, along with a representative from Hacienda-La Puente Unified School District. She noted that this will be the first in a series of meetings and that this is her first public meeting since COVID-19 began. "The settlment agreement is the result of strong enforcement action by DTSC." "We are satisfied with this outcome." "We would love to have more projects available so that when we take enforcement action there's someone who can take advantage of the penalties and bring that money back to the community." "We know we need to work collaboratively to solve problems of environmental injustice." "We have a very sincere dedication to improving our relationships" She ended by listing other DTSC officials present, including Deputy Directors of the Cleanup Program, Hazardous Waste Mitigation Program, and Communications, along with Division and Branch Chiefs of Inspection and Enforcement.
Translation into Mandarin and Spanish is available. Equity is a priority for DTSC. We pursue enforcement for all of the most significant facilities, including Quemetco. Quemetco is inspected annually and had violations in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018. Many of these were Class I violations, which are the most signficant. In 2018, the attorney general's office filed a civil complaint over 29 violations. Quemetco is now in compliance with 25 of those violations. Two were removed and they still are not compliant with two (the leak-detection system is non-functional and the groundwater monitoring system is inadequate). DTSC has an EnviroStor page where this information is available.
The settlement states that Quemetco must comply with hazardous material laws and that they admit to the most significant violations, which DTSC has proven. This means that DTSC can apply stricter penalties in the future if the same violations are found again and they can use these admissions in future permitting decisions. Remaining tasks for Quemetco:
DTSC has secured a $2.3 million total penalty. $1.15 million will be put into a government fund for cleanup of "orphaned" toxic sites with no responsible party. $1.15 million will go to two Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEPs), which were awarded to Nature for All and California School-Based Health Alliance.
These speeches are all extremely scripted, and many of the speakers (not Meredith) seem very nervous. There's a lot of fiddling with the microphone going on.
Explanation of the violation scoring system. Violation score -> inspection score -> facility score. There are three compliance tiers: acceptable, conditionally acceptable (which triggers a 3rd party compliance audit and requirement to submit reports to DTSC), and unacceptable. In 2020, 2021, and 2022, Quemetco was conditionally acceptable. The point requirements for each tier were changed and their 2019 score was moved from conditionally acceptable to acceptable. "This means that the facility will be held accountable with all the requirements even though the score went down." This "protects the community." "Quemetco isn't changing tiers and they must comply with the settlement."
DTSC: We are only accepting questions about the settlement. Questions about ongoing regulation should be asked at the back after the presentations. There will be another presentation from the SEP organizations after this Q&A.
Question 1 (community member): People have been working on this facility for 20 years, she has been working on it for nine. Quemetco should be shut down, $2.3 million is just a slap on the wrist. Mitigation does not change the fact that people have been harmed. This penalty is like with a child, when it's all warnings with no consequences it will not be effective. In 2018 when the lawsuit began, she was like wow, DTSC is really going to do something--there are 29 violations and thousands of days of exposure to toxins. Disappointed in the outcome, she was with the Athens project years ago, which was less toxic, and AQMD sued them for $23 million.
Question 2 (Elena, from Vaqueros): I'm a cancer survivor. I want you (DTSC staff, Teamsters members who showed up in support of the facility) to look me in the face and know how this facility impacted me. I am sharing my story for those who have died from cancer and can't share. DTSC tries to cut her off: "What's your question?" My question is what will you do about future violations? I've been out here doing your job. DTSC: "Thank you for your questions, we appreciate that."
Question 3 (community member): I am disappointed, DTSC and AQMD have failed the community again. The last in person community meeting was in 2018, the communtiy was told that follow up meetings would happen and they haven't. DTSC had closed door meetings and settled with Quemetco. There was no transparency. Who will protect us when these organizations have not? These are not just violations, they affect peoples lives. My nephew died of a rare form of cancer at 35, many other community members haven also battled cancers. $2.3 million, are our lives worth that little? Quemetco: shame on you for putting our union brothers and sisters against us. I hope you don't think it's okay to lose a son or daughter like this. DTSC, do not give Quemetco the 25% increase permit. They have been operating with an expired permit, when our license expires we can't keep driving, so why can they keep operating? Elected officials, you need to look at yourselves in the mirror. Do you support this?
DTSC: if you have questions about regulation, we have experts at the back of the room.
Community member: We want to hear everything, we don't want individual conversations.
DTSC: We have a time limit.
Community member: Where is the transparency?
Question 4 (former union president): Teamsters, please stand up. As a union sister, I appreciate your willingness to do that. I live in this area, I have for a long time. The Teamsters came to show support for their fellow brothers and sisters, and I understand that, but we're talking about health, lives, safety. Quemetco continues to violate. There has always been monitoring and it has not worked. I have gone through six years of chemo. [DTSC tries to cut her off]. I ask that actions are taken such that it will stop the pollution.
Question 5 (Wildwood mobile home park resident): There are over a million dollars going to cleanup, what will that look like? In past cleanups in other locations, residents say that the process was fast-tracked and that regulations were ignored. Hunters Point and Treasure Island in San Francisco--children were poisoned when housing was built on brownfields. How will the community play a role in the cleanup process?
DTSC: $1.15 million goes into a fund for sites without someone to pay for the cleanup. If you want to know more, there are cleanup staff at the back you can talk to.
Question 6 (community member): Is there a legal representative here? For DTSC or Quemetco? There's no transparency if we don't have a brief on the settlement. I want to know who was involved, who made decisions. If we're going to ask questions, we need legal experts in the room. We can't discuss the settlement if we don't have actual information on it.
DTSC (Meredith): We tried to communicate, we're here to understand your needs.
Question 6 cont'd: After 9/11, CDC removed public access to knowledge about cancer clusters. We need this information about Quemetco. These lawsuits do not include the real victims (cancer patients). Why was an organization based out of Oakland funded instead of a local organization? We can't have these discussions because you're not being transparent. "This is a dog and pony show."
DTSC: We were trying to make it simplistic, but we can have the legal team here in the future.
Question 6 cont'd: The victims have legal standing. We need our own legal representation.
Question 7: There are 22 impacted schools. You have an agenda? So does Quemetco. You need to listen to the community.
April presented again.
Nature for All: I want to acknowledge the frustration and sadness in the room. I am a former resident of Southgate, so I understand because of Exide. I am now a resident of La Habra so this is close to me. The way we engage with community is authentic.
California School-Based Health Alliance
Question 8 (community member): This is blood money. How do you all look in the mirror? You put a brown face in front of us and think that's enough to appease us. We need a work stoppage from the unions. You're brown people like us, they are using you. This meeting is a sham, the people impacted should be centered. This meeting is a way to legitimize yourselves.
DTSC: We want to continue moving forward. How can we do that productively? This isn't a community forum. There will be more meetings. No one likes an agenda but we have to close Q&A at 8.
Question 9 (community member): I have been an Avocado Heights resident for 42 years. I've taken samples, I've talked to residents who live across from Quemetco, I've talked to people with rare cancers. Talking to people and feeling their pain is why I got involved with this. DTSC failed with Exide, but even then they had a community advisory board. Why don't we have that. Who made the decision about where the money from this settlement went? Is this money really addressing the problem, or is it just addressing the symptoms? I have to give AQMD some props, they are more open--at least they have a phone number we can call, DTSC does not have that. We never got answers from DTSC, there was no two way communications. We are only getting some now, after the fact.
Question 10 (Clean Air Coalition member): The money should be allocated to the community, that is the most important thing. Quemetco has created hazards for years and DTSC has not done enough. Next time, you need to focus on the harm that they have done to this community.
Question 11 (North Whittier resident): To the SEP organizations, did you know about the battery acid that Quemetco releases into the San Jose Creek, which flows into the San Gabriel River and out through Seal Beach? DTSC refused to scrap the walls of the San Jose Creek during the soil sampling process even though you can see the crud built up there, all the acids and the lead. They had an agreement with Quemetco and they let Quemetco call the shots on what should be tested. Who is supposed to be enforcing the laws? Also, the scoring system doesn't make sense. When you inspect more, it brings the score down.
DTSC (Meredith): Yes, that's correct about the scoring system. We've received a lot of feedback and we're deliberating.
Question 12: DTSC keeps talking about a $2.3 million settlement as a means of holding Quemetco accountable, but on page 11 of the settlement it says that DTSC has suspended Quemetco's obligation to pay $1.15 million. As long as Quemetco pays the SEP organizations, they don't have to pay DTSC.
DTSC response: Thank you for that feedbac. The penalty is $2.3 million, they do have to pay $1.15 million to the SEPs, if they don't pay that then they will pay it to the state.
Question 13: Thank you for coming here, but you're late. This is not credible. The settlement shouldn't have happened, why wasn't the community involved before?
DTSC response: This is not the first time we've had concerns about how settlements happen. There is not an easy way to go through the settlement process in public. There are lessons to be learned from this for other communities, but this case is settled.
Question 13 (cont'd): Admissions mean nothing when they have repeated violations and they're still operating. Right now they have two violations, but they are still operating. Why haven't you shut them down yet? Community members are tired of government and this is why, elected officials and government agencies that are supposed to work for the people are instead working for multimillion dollar companies. They are running right now, and they're not in compliance, correct?
DTSC response: We have given them a timeline, but yes they are still operating. This is not a debate we're holding here tonight.
Question 14 (Vaqueros and Clean Air Coalition member): The company has applied to expand even though they're not in compliance. Does this settlement pave the way to approve that permit?
DTSC response: The current permit request does not cover expansion, we are not considering permitting expansion. They have another permit application to SCAQMD that does cover a 25% expansion.
Question 14 (cont'd): Can we have joint AQMD and DTSC meetings with the community?
DTSC response: We can put in a request for joint meetings but we can't force them to come.
Question 15 (La Puente resident, lives next to Bassett HS): How will Quemetco remain accountable if they're going to continue to pour money into the schools? Are schools still going to accept money to fund STEM programs? They need to be out of our community entirely, out of our schools entirely. Hacienda Heights-La Puente School District has refused to take the money, but Bassett has not. How are we going to accept money from a company that is poisoning our children?
Question 16 (Hacienda Heights-La Puente School District Board of Education member): I want to begin by acknowledging we are on Tongva land. Our elders would be enraged by what is going on here. I also want to honor all of the families that have lost someone to rare forms of cancer that are caused by chemicals that only Quemetco emits. Shame on the Teamsters---I'm from a Teamsters family, and to see you all not taking a stand to protect the community is sad. You're the strongest union in the country, you should stand with us. There are 22 schools within a 2 mile radius of Quemetco that are being poisoned. They're releasing specific chemicals that can be tracked and traced back to them. We (HHLPUSD) stopped accepting their dirty money two years ago when I was elected to the board. The previous board didn't care, said it's not our problem--but we are one of the biggest stakeholders. Our children, employees, staff members are being poisoned by Quemetco. We need to test all 22 school sites. These approaches are reactive. Screening children in school is great, but who is liable to take care of the children when lead is found? It should be Quemetco and everyone who's giving them the green light to poison our children. No level of lead is okay. Quemetco needs to be shut down. This is the only battery recycling plant west of the Mississippi. Never in the efforts to go green/recycle did we say save our air, poison our children.
Question 17 (Mount San Antonio College Board Member): What is the actual status of this settlement? Have both parties signed? Has the court approved it? When is the next hearing? Where is it? What's the judge's name? I'm a Nature for All steward and I do not support this SEP or settlement. My soil has lead and arsenic in it. To the agency, you're supposed to be shutting Quemetco down. Exide was shut down, it should have been done a long time ago.
Question 18 (teacher): To DTSC staff who are present: do you have children? Would you move your children within a 2 mile radius of Quemetco? The violations have escalated, they have not been resolved. How many chances do they get when they violate over and over again? Where are the soil sample results, why wasn't that in the presentation?
DTSC response: There are people at the back who can discuss those questions. If we learned anything tonight it's that we will have more meetings going forward. At the same time, meetings for the sake of meetings are not helpful. We need to think about moving forward. It was really clear what this meeting was about.
DTSC response (Meredith Williams): Folks in the back can talk a bit about soil samples, but we weren't prepared to give a presentation on that topic tonight. We need adequate time to get into the details. We do not have the answers tonight, but we are coming back. These are conversations we need to have. We'll have them in person but we need to structure them so there's not frustration--we know there's frustration but we need to have time for the real conversations. We will have subsequent meetings about permitting and soil sampling, but they're beyond the scope of tonight's meeting. We are a public agency and we make results public. But we need to respect the time of people who work at the community center, so we have to close Q&A.
Margaret Tebbe, "Fieldnote Feb 15 2023 - 4:44pm", contributed by Margaret Tebbe, Disaster STS Network, Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, last modified 21 February 2023, accessed 3 December 2024. http://465538.bc062.asia/content/fieldnote-feb-15-2023-444pm