Lead contamination: Exide Technologies facility: community liaison.

The Lead-Acid Battery Recycling Act of 2016 creates in the State Treasury the Lead-Acid Battery Cleanup Fund and requires that the fees collected pursuant to the act, except for specified administrative expenses, be deposited into the fund. The act requires that moneys in the fund be expended for specified purposes, including for investigation, site evaluation, cleanup, remedial action, removal, monitoring, or other response actions at any area of the state contaminated by the operation of a lead-acid battery recycling facility, as specified. Existing law requires the Department of Toxic Substances Control to establish a Lead-Acid Battery Recycling Facility Investigation and Cleanup Program, which is responsible for identifying areas of the state that are eligible for expenditure of moneys from the Lead-Acid Battery Cleanup Fund for the purposes stated above. Existing law requires the program to provide public notice of the initiation of the investigation or site evaluation of any area reasonably suspected to have been contaminated by the operation of a lead-acid battery recycling facility, and to provide notice and an opportunity for comment upon completion of an investigation or site evaluation if the program has determined with reasonable certainty that the site has been contaminated by releases from the operation of a facility known to have been a lead-acid battery recycling facility. This bill would create in the California Environmental Protection Agency, under the direction of the Secretary for Environmental Protection, the position of community liaison. The bill would provide that the duties of the community liaison include, but are not limited to, community outreach and dissemination of information relating to cleanup of the lead contamination in the areas surrounding the Exide Technologies facility in the City of Vernon and coordination with the Department of Toxic Substances Control to address issues raised by residents affected by the lead contamination in the areas surrounding the Exide Technologies facility.