HACLA bought the old factory site in 2008, intending to build a new housing facility on the parcel. The agency planned to move residents around during the construction to allow building and demolition to happen in waves. At the time of the purchase, the new parcel of land still housed fuel oil and gasoline storage tanks, storage areas for waste oil and other unidentified liquids, a furnace that was used to melt iron scraps, and spots of stained soil from oil spills, according to an internal HACLA memo from 2010.
It was almost by accident that knowledge of the site’s contamination became public. In 2012, the LA Human Right to Housing Collective submitted a public records request to investigate what it saw as an abnormal number of evictions happening at Jordan Downs.
But those documents revealed more than evictions. The files contained memos from the years after the factory site was purchased between high-level HACLA executives describing potential contamination on the site from its past uses, as well as the possibility that contamination had migrated into the existing residential areas where people — including the Perez family — were already living.
“Over and over and over, I kept seeing this questionable and concerning information around the factory site,” said Thelmy Perez, a coordinator at the LA Human Right to Housing Collective.
One internal memo to the director of development at HACLA urged the agency to do a full assessment of the site and create a remediation plan. The documents showed it would have cost about $10,000 to fully test the land that was already inhabited, a fraction of the $31 million HACLA spent to buy the factory site. That testing wasn’t carried out.
On top of the concerns about the factory’s contamination of the soil, the LA Human Right to Housing Collective has raised red flags about two different plumes of potentially contaminated water underground. One plume is the result of a pipeline breach that occurred decades ago a block north of Jordan Downs, releasing gasoline fuel, which is being cleaned up by its owner Exxon Mobile. But the other has been found directly under the new plot of land and no one has claimed responsibility for the spill or cleanup. “Because it does not have a responsible party, it has been identified and is just sitting there unmitigated,” Thelmy Perez said.
In 2014, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) finally tested 30 soil samples taken from Jordan Downs, but advocates characterize the testing as very limited. The analysis found that lead concentrations in the soil ranged from 22.8 parts per million (ppm) to 145 ppm. At 80 ppm or above, the state determines a cause for concern for health risks. Fourteen of the samples exceeded that level, although the threshold has no regulatory heft and is only advisory. The analysis also found that cadmium levels exceeded the threshold in 13 of the 30 samples, with one sample seven times higher the state’s threshold for concern.
But HACLA decided not to clean up Jordan Downs: The month after it published that analysis, it issued an update to the community saying that it had determined no further action was required. As an explanation, its fact sheet said that the tests revealed contamination “at the same level as soil found in urban Los Angeles.” It also said that because the average of the samples it tested for lead came to 81.3 ppm, it was “essentially the same as the screening level.”
Jenny Scanlin, the director of development services at HACLA, said in an emailed statement, “The safety and health of Jordan Downs residents is HACLA’s constant and primary concern” and reiterated the position that its own testing has shown “that there is no immediate or long-term risk to human health and safety on site at Jordan Downs.” She added, “All potential contaminants tested for were at levels either of non-detect or at levels consistent with the same metals and chemicals found in soil or air throughout the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area and not considered actionable.”
A spokesperson for the DTSC said in an email, “The demolition project is not under DTSC oversight,” noting that it has requested that HACLA conduct further testing and has received some results that it is reviewing.