California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control released draft regulations that would require hazardous waste facilities to assess cumulative pollution impacts in surrounding communities. The regulations are seven years overdue and do not go far enough to protect vulnerable residents, according to environmental advocates. “It’s not enough to ‘consider’ cumulative impacts,” said Angela Johnson Meszaros, an attorney for Earthjustice. “Communities want strong guidelines for when a permit should be denied. The draft doesn’t deliver that.”
The draft regulations stem from a decade-old law passed after the Exide Technologies lead battery recycling plant operated with violations for more than 30 years near thousands of homes in Los Angeles County. Environmental advocates and vulnerable communities like Kettleman City, which ranks in the top 10 percent of California’s environmental harm index, are pressing the state for stronger protections as residents face a compounded threat from multiple pollution sources.
What the Draft Regulation Requires
Under the draft regulation, hazardous waste facilities seeking new permits would be required to profile the demographics and environmental risks of communities within one mile. That includes documenting where vulnerable residents live—the elderly and children—identifying other hazardous waste handlers and toxic chemical businesses, and noting transportation corridors where air pollution is elevated.
If a surrounding community ranks in the top 25 percent of CalEnviroScreen, a state tool that measures environmental harm, the facility would have to write a detailed assessment of cumulative pollution impacts. If a facility increased a region’s cancer risk beyond a certain threshold, regulators would initiate a review process that could lead to special permit conditions.
But the draft has a significant limitation: permits could only be denied based on pollution from the hazardous waste facility itself, not the cumulative pollution already present in the area.
“The geographic scope of studies really needs to be expanded in order to make sure that this regulation stays true to the intent of the law,” said Chelsea Tu, an attorney with California Rural Legal Assistance.
Kettleman City and the Three-Mile Problem
Kettleman City, a town of about 1,500 residents 150 miles north of Los Angeles, exemplifies the problem. The community ranks in the top 10 percent of CalEnviroScreen for environmental harm. Farms spray pesticides on almond and pistachio trees. A composting facility handles human sewage waste. Diesel fumes and particulate matter from freeway traffic fill the air. The West Coast’s largest hazardous waste landfill operates nearby.
That landfill sits three miles away—outside the one-mile radius that applicants would have to study under the draft regulation. Neighbors say the regulations would not improve scrutiny of the facility, which operates on a permit that expired in 2013. Community advocate Miguel Alatorre said: “There is a lot of cumulative burden from living next to, not just a landfill, but so many other polluting sources.”
Between 2007 and 2010, 11 babies were born with birth defects in Kettleman City. The cause remains unexplained. Alatorre said: “We have no idea what caused those birth defect clusters. It could have been the dump. It could have been the pesticides, something in the soil, or something totally different.”
Industry Opposition and Regulatory Response
The California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance, a trade group representing the waste industry, raised concerns that the regulations could strain the state’s hazardous waste management system. California’s hazardous waste facilities have declined from more than 400 with permits to fewer than 100 still operating.
“We’ve had a decline in facilities to help manage the waste we generate in the state,” said Dawn Koepke, a lobbyist for the group. “All of that has added costs.”
The Department of Toxic Substances Control stated that the regulations will protect communities. “The enhanced transparency and consistency will foster greater public confidence in and understanding of DTSC’s permitting program,” the department wrote in its statement of reasons. “The proposed regulations will also lead to greater protection of public health and safety, and the environment.”
DTSC spokeswoman Alysa Pakkidis said the law “directs DTSC to consider additional permit criteria, not to create a single threshold for denial.” The department “reviews the entire application when making decisions,” she added.
The Exide Precedent and Path Forward
The 2015 law emerged from a scandal a decade earlier. Exide Technologies, a lead battery recycling plant, operated with more than 100 documented violations for more than 30 years near thousands of homes in Los Angeles County. Federal authorities eventually threatened criminal charges. The company settled, shut its doors, declared bankruptcy in 2020, and abandoned the property.
Regulators found that Exide Technologies had contaminated soil with lead and arsenic near thousands of homes. The crisis exposed what advocates saw as a fundamental failure: DTSC had permitted a facility that caused severe environmental harm without considering the cumulative health impacts on surrounding communities.
DTSC extended the public comment deadline for the draft regulations to February 3 after environmental advocates and state senators María Elena Durazo, Lena Gonzalez, and Caroline Menjivar pressed for more time. The department will host a public hearing on the same day.
“We truly value the communities we serve and strive to strengthen our partnerships with community members to ensure all Californians are protected,” DTSC director Katherine M. Butler wrote in response to Earthjustice.
A final permit for the Kettleman Hills landfill is expected later this year. Because the regulation is not yet final, it cannot apply to that facility. Environmental groups are also appealing recently renewed permits for other major hazardous waste facilities near homes, including two in Los Angeles County.
More than half of California’s hazardous waste facilities are located in vulnerable communities. Environmental advocates say stronger protections are essential.
“Scientific research backs up community concerns that pollutants add up in the body and worsen health impacts,” said Lara Cushing, an associate professor of environmental health sciences at UCLA. “We can’t consider each pollution source in isolation, because we know communities are disproportionately exposed to multiple different types of contaminants at the same time, and they can accumulate. Chemicals can interact with each other in the body, and none of that’s considered in the current rulemaking.”