Ascrap metal recycling facility is facing criminal charges in connection with allegedly contaminating the grounds of a Los Angeles high school with lead and other toxic pollutants.

Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón filed 22 felony and two misdemeanor counts against Atlas Metals, alleging the plant illegally disposed of hazardous waste, some of which was deposited on the grounds of the high school.

“The charging of Atlas Metal for their environmental crimes is a step toward justice for the children of Jordan High School and the community of Watts,” Gascón said in a public statement. “We must hold companies accountable for their actions that put our children’s health at risk.”

An arraignment in the case is set for Monday, June 26. The charges date back to 2020, but Gascón says the school has likely been exposed to toxic waste for decades. The school has been around since 1923, and the plant since 1949.

Students and local leaders have been protesting against the plant for decades. The plant has been a nuisance at best and dangerous at worst, students say.

“There were times we had this purple haze coming over the campus,” says 18-year-old Heaven Watson, a recent graduate. “Our baseball field was shut down, there were these really funky smells throughout campus, and huge booms.”

Jordan High, a 500-hundred-pupil facility in Watts, sits next to Atlas Iron and Metal Company, a scrap metal recycling facility. The haze comes from lead dust particles emitted by the plant, according to school district officials. Last year, testing commissioned by the district found lead concentrations in dust samples collected from campus were 75 times higher than what the Environmental Protection Agency defines as a hazardous threshold. Exposure to lead is particularly dangerous for young people; it can seriously impact the brain and nervous system, slow growth and development, and lead to learning and behavior problems.

Read the full article about environmental racism in Watts by Lucy Sherriff at YES! Magazine.