A Watts community expressed anger and frustration Tuesday following another explosion at a metal recycling plant right next to a high school.
Students and officials at Jordan High School in Watts have been complaining about the Atlas metal recycling center for more than two decades with metal projectiles and metallic dust flying onto school grounds.
Further unnerving the community, Monday’s explosion was the second one at the Atlas site since 2002.
“The community is just exhausted from the continuing hazards that are being deployed,” Thelmy Alvarez, a member of the Watts Labor Community Action Committee, said.
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The metal recycling plan has been the subject of multiple lawsuits, including one from the Los Angeles Unified School District.
“That plant should not be so close to a school,” LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said. “We are investigating, and we are working collaboratively with the district attorney.”
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office has also filed two dozen criminal charges against Atlas.
But with the court cases still pending, the Watts community questioned, after decades of delays and inaction, whether the metal recycling plant will ever face consequences.
“It is beyond time that this facility is removed, relocated, shut down,” Alvarez said. “It does not belong there. It has never belonged there.”
Representatives of Atlas did not respond to a request for comment.
