Miquel Dominquez, a 51 year old minority small business man, is a resident of East Los Angeles and is just one of the thousands of the 94% Hispanic residents in the area (Census 2000). In 2013 notices from the state toxic substances department began appearing on his door steps about a company that was barely heard about, Exide Technologies (photographed below) which is a battery recycling plant that has been in the community since 1922. Soon enough community activists began knocking at his door explaining how exide, 5 minutes from his home, has been polluting the soil with toxic chemical for decades, since 1992. At the beginning of 2015 state officials pronounced that no longer is it safe for him to not wear shoes outside his house, to not let his children play outside, and for pets in the area to not track dirt, after a soil test that shown the high levels of chemicals prevalent in the soil. Talking about this subject with Dominquez he stated, “The people in this area are vulnerable”, with a conclusion that “it didn’t …show more content…
Exide has violated environmental standards since it has opened and not till 2015 had the company finally been shut down. Even though the doors have been shut the consequences of their violations will stay in the community for many more years to come as they go through the decontamination process. State Inspectors that look to see if companies like Exide are following regulations have witnessed in the 15 acre Battery recycling plant fluid gushing from wastewater treatments over 10 years ago, saw battery acid flowing into a manhole, lead waste stored in open containers, and even large cracks in the floor meant to contain chemicals. From 1996 to 2013 state inspectors documented all this illegal activity during their walk throughs and did nothing of it even those these were all considered level one threats meaning they imposed a significant threat to human health and