Terry Gonzalez-Cano thought she was doing the right thing as a mother by insisting her children play outdoors when they were younger, rather than spend all their time glued to the television set inside.

Instead, the Los Angeles resident now wrestles with guilt. She had no idea at the time, she said, that her Boyle Heights neighborhood had been contaminated with lead and other dangerous pollutants produced by the former Exide Technologies battery recycling plant less than 2 miles away in Vernon. So she and other parents took their then-young children to the park, where they would play, unknowingly, among contaminated soil.

“I know it’s not my fault, but as a mom, you take everything as your fault, and that tears me up — that I feel in some way that I was responsible for my kids getting sick — because I wanted them to play,” she said of her children, now ages 32 and 18.

About eight years after Exide shuttered its facility, federal and state lawmakers representing the L.A. area gathered in Boyle Heights on Friday to visit a home undergoing remediation. They called on the Environmental Protection Agency to designate the affected area a Superfund site — a move that would trigger the flow of federal dollars and additional assistance to help with cleanup efforts.

Sen. Alex Padilla, who grew up in the San Fernando Valley, said during a news conference that elected officials also are calling on the EPA to “hurry up,” noting that the families in this mainly Latino working-class neighborhood have waited far too long for justice.

He and other elected officials blamed the Donald Trump administration. In 2020, a federal judge allowed Exide, after the company filed for bankruptcy, to abandon its Vernon facility and walk away without making good on a previous agreement the company had reached with the U.S. Department of Justice during the Barack Obama administration to pay to clean up neighboring homes.

That left California taxpayers to foot the bill for the largest environmental cleanup in the state’s history, the group said.

“Shame on the Trump administration to think that this community doesn’t deserve better,” Padilla said. “These families have been poisoned. And it will take hundreds of millions of dollars — north of a billion dollars — in additional investments to clean up this neighborhood.”

State Assemblymember Miguel Santiago, D-Los Angeles, said every level of government has failed residents near the Exide facility. The good news, he said, is that the state has spent or committed more than $750 million to clean up the area, though he acknowledged that things have not been perfect.

“This area has not had the attention that it should have. We’re landlocked between freeways, and it’s rarely ever been fought for. But we’re fighting for it now,” Santiago said in calling for the Superfund designation.

U.S. Reps. Jimmy Gomez and Robert Garcia also spoke, echoing their commitment to fight for communities in southeast L.A. County that historically have suffered from environmental injustice.

The Exide battery recycling plant, which produced large amounts of hazardous waste, operated in Vernon for 33 years without a permanent permit before closing in 2015 under an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice that called on the company to demolish and clean up the facility — while allowing it to avoid criminal charges.

In 2020, a federal bankruptcy court and the Department of Justice permitted Exide to abandon the property without fulfilling the terms of the agreement. A court-appointed trustee with about $30 million in funds from the bankruptcy settlement was put in charge of remediating the site.

But lawmakers for the area say hundreds of millions of dollars more are needed to clean up nearby residential neighborhoods.

The California Department of Toxic Substances Control believes that lead, arsenic and cadmium spread over decades to nearby communities, contaminating schools, parks and thousands of homes in Boyle Heights, East L.A., Maywood, Huntington Park and Commerce.

Lead exposure can lead to cancer, miscarriages, developmental disabilities and other long-term health issues.

Gonzalez-Cano, the Boyle Heights resident, believes a cleanup would’ve happened much more quickly if the contaminated areas were in affluent neighborhoods.

Today, she said during the news conference, her brother has end-stage cancer, she herself has early stage cancer, and she believes her kids won’t be able to bear children of their own. She spoke also of family members and neighbors who have died.

“Having to watch your loved ones die a painful, slow death because of the lead, the arsenic … all of the other toxic chemicals. … And knowing that after they go, you’re next. …To watch this slow, painful death is tearing people apart,” she said.