California has completed environmental remediation on 6,495 residential parcels across communities poisoned by decades of industrial lead contamination, marking a massive milestone in what state officials rank among the largest residential cleanups in U.S. history.
Governor Gavin Newsom’s administration announced the latest figures, which also encompass 7,818 parkways, 12 schools, 68 childcare centers, and five public parks. The staggering totals trace back to the shadow of the former Exide Technologies facility in Vernon, located five miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles.
For decades, the plant recycled lead-acid batteries, blanketing surrounding neighborhoods in hazardous fallout. Testing in 2014 laid bare the full extent of the crisis, revealing dangerously elevated lead levels in nearby residential soil. By 2015, DTSC ordered the facility to withdraw its operating permit, effectively shutting it down.
The battle intensified when a federal bankruptcy court subsequently allowed Exide to abandon the contaminated site entirely. Governor Newsom condemned that decision, vowing that California would hold the company and its creditors financially accountable for the residential parcels, playgrounds, and backyards left poisoned in the facility’s wake. Since then, the state has poured more than $500 million into remediation efforts, including major funding injections in 2021 for demolition and residential cleanup, followed by additional money in 2023 for parkway remediation.
Transforming Southeast Los Angeles Neighborhoods
The physical footprint of the cleanup stretches across thousands of properties where families live, work, and send their children to school. Secretary for Environmental Protection Yana Garcia emphasized the fundamental stakes of the state’s intervention, stating in the announcement that clean air, soil and water should be basic rights.
Garcia noted that the administration’s investments mean nearly 6,500 families have cleaner properties, and impacted communities have safer childcare centers, schools and parks where they can safely live, work and play.
Behind every completed parcel lies a rigorous scientific process. DTSC conducts comprehensive soil sampling to establish cleanup eligibility, targeting properties with soil lead concentrations exceeding 80 parts per million or featuring a single sample greater than 1,000 ppm. To date, the department has sampled 10,028 parcels, identifying 9,016 as eligible for further remediation. Approximately 80 percent of contacted property owners have granted DTSC access to perform the work. Once physical remediation concludes, DTSC utilizes spot-check verification and retrospective sampling—completing those checks on 623 properties so far—to ensure every site meets strict state safety standards.
DTSC Director Katherine Butler emphasized the deliberate pace and accountability driving the operation. Every home we clean brings communities closer to the safe, healthy future they deserve after decades of industrial pollution,
Butler stated, pledging that California remains committed to finishing the job with full transparency.
Community Engagement and the Path to Federal Superfund Status
State officials have paired heavy engineering with localized outreach, spending thousands of hours holding public meetings, hosting office hours, and conducting door-to-door visits. Residents can track ongoing operations in real time using the Exide Cleanup Feedback Management System.
More than 120 local residents have joined DTSC’s Workforce Environmental Restoration in Communities initiative since 2017, and over 70 of those participants have moved straight into remunerated remediation positions right inside their home areas.
Aiming to broaden the scope of the project, the Newsom administration has taken firm actions to seek the inclusion of the past Exide site onto the federal Superfund National Priorities List. Securing that designation aims to unlock additional federal resources, cementing a permanent defense for a community long burdened by what Governor Newsom has characterized as a decades-long injustice
and a toxic industrial legacy.
