California sues metal foundry company over toxic emissions in Latino, Black neighborhood
The state attorney general's lawsuit accuses the foundry's owners of failing to warn the local community about its toxic chemical emissions and the exposure risks they pose.
The state of California is accusing the owners of an East Oakland metal foundry of emitting “highly toxic,” cancer-causing chemicals into the surrounding Latino and Black neighborhood, according to a new lawsuit.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a complaint on Tuesday against McWane Inc., a waterworks and monitoring products maker that owns the AB&I Foundry, a pipe-fitting factory located in East Oakland, as originally reported by the East Bay Times.
According to Bonta’s complaint, the foundry’s owners have violated the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, also known as Proposition 65, by failing to warn the local community about its toxic chemical emissions and the exposure risks they pose.
“The East Oakland community near AB&I Foundry is adversely affected by pollution to a greater extent than 91% of the state,” the complaint said.
The lawsuit also accused the foundry of failing to eliminate emissions of hexavalent chromium, a carcinogen that can cause multiple forms of cancer when inhaled.
The state attorney general said hexavalent chromium harms California’s natural resources and damages the surrounding community’s health.
“We’re filing this lawsuit to ensure AB&I does right by the East Oakland community in which it operates and takes action to eliminate emissions of these toxic chemicals,” Bonta said in a press release about the lawsuit.
East Oakland is 66% Latino and 21% African American, with 85% of households there living below the poverty line, according to the lawsuit. The state attorney general said roughly 10 schools can be found within a mile of the foundry, which also sits near multiple homes and numerous homeless people.
A spokesperson for AB&I Foundry told theGrio that the factory “operates in compliance with environmental regulations, standards and voluntary commitments as a basic prerequisite of its manufacturing processes.”
“We believe we are, and always have been, operating in full compliance with Proposition 65 and will be cooperating fully with the Attorney General’s office to demonstrate this compliance,” the company said.
This is the second time AB&I Foundry’s owners have been sued in the last few months.
Communities for a Better Environment, a local environmental justice group, sued McWane in December for exposing the East Oakland community to a carcinogen “without proper notice.”
The group’s attorney, Tyler Earl, said AB&I Foundry has been polluting in East Oakland for decades. Communities for a Better Environment has been sounding the alarm about the foundry since 2008, according to Earl.
“It’s a step forward to see the state recognizing the harms they’ve been causing with their operations so close to the Black and Latino communities in East Oakland,” Earl told theGrio on Wednesday.
Last year, regulators with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District found 20 sources that emit one or more toxic air contaminants at the AB&I Foundry, according to an April 2021 draft health risk assessment report.
The cancer risk for workers at the foundry was four times higher than what the local air district considers acceptable, according to the report. Local residents’ cancer risk was two times higher than the acceptable limit, the study showed.
Additional reporting by Chauncey Alcorn
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