LOS ANGELES _ Officials have long known that children across a swath of southeast Los Angeles County are exposed to brain-damaging lead from two distinct sources: pollution from a now-shuttered battery-recycling plant and lead paint in the walls of their homes.
The state has begun cleaning soil contamination from yards near the Exide Technologies plant in California's biggest-ever lead cleanup. But bureaucratic mistakes and a lack of cooperation between state and local agencies have blocked efforts to fix lead house paint, state records reviewed by the Los Angeles Times and interviews show.
The result, officials acknowledge, is that children in the area remain at risk of lead poisoning.
Failures occurred at multiple levels. State agencies let scarce lead abatement money slip away and refused to tell local officials which homes were in need of remediation. And the county health department, now in line to receive millions to remove lead paint from hundreds of homes, has not repaired any homes using federal grant money awarded for that purpose more than a year ago.
California regulators in charge of the project have repeatedly warned that unaddressed paint could recontaminate the soil and undo the taxpayer-funded remediation. But years into the cleanup, authorities have fixed lead paint at only a tiny fraction of the 21,000 housing units in the area.
The state blamed inaction on limitations in its authority and said other agencies must respond. County health officials cited funding constraints.
One obstacle has been longstanding antagonism between the state, which is responsible for soil cleanup, and the county, which has authority over paint.
Los Angeles County public health director Barbara Ferrer said there were "issues that the state has had _ legal issues, mostly _ about sharing some information with us that's stood in the way," but pledged to cooperate with state officials "to identify properties where it makes sense for us to start with the lead-paint remediation because the soil remediation has happened."
"We have an obligation for government to work here," Ferrer said.
The state Department of Toxic Substances Control said it is referring properties with flaking paint to state, local and federal authorities with greater power to address lead paint.
The department "is committed to partnering with these other agencies and affected residents to obtain resources to stabilize or abate lead-based paint hazards," department spokeswoman Rosanna Westmoreland said. "We're trying to do the best with the authority that we have."
Community leaders see the failure to address lead paint as another example of the state's slow, piecemeal approach to protecting the largely working-class Latino residents living near the former lead-acid car battery recycling plant. Gov. Jerry Brown's administration plans to remove lead-contaminated soil from the 2,500 worst-polluted properties surrounding the Exide facility and pass over thousands of others, an approach neighborhood groups and health officials say will leave behind a scattershot pattern of safe and contaminated land.
"There's no comprehensive solution and nobody will work together," said Jane Williams, who directs California Communities Against Toxics.
Tired of waiting for the government, Juanita Marquez is taking it upon herself to fix the lead paint peeling off the side of her Boyle Heights house.
"By the time they come around to do it, if they ever do, it will be too late," the retired tax preparer said. "If I wait for them, I don't think it will ever get done."
