Evacuees Face Higher Taxes After Cleanup

WESTMINSTER — Three years ago, Ed and Lavonda Heredia allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to demolish their Sowell Avenue home of 19 years to accommodate the cleanup of one of the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites.

They’ll receive a new home of similar size at government expense, but the Heredias learned they’ll also get something else in the bargain: higher property taxes. By law, the Heredias and four other families were stripped of their Proposition 13 protection against ballooning taxes when they gave up their homes--even though they greatly aided the cleanup effort by their sacrifice.

“We were pretty upset,” said Ed Heredia. “We never imagined by cooperating with the government this would happen.”

On Friday, the Heredias joined Assembly Republican Leader Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) at a press conference where Pringle announced he is proposing an amendment to the state Constitution that would allow the Sowell Avenue families to retain their previous property tax rate.

“It’s an issue of fairness,” Pringle said. “They’ve suffered enough. They don’t need to suffer a tax penalty too.”

Pringle’s amendment would guarantee that the property tax of a homeowner forced to rebuild or relocate their home due to environmental contamination and cleanup would remain the same. The proposal requires two-thirds support in the Legislature, and then must be approved by voters statewide.

A similar provision was written into the state Constitution years ago to lock in the property tax of homeowners who were victims of natural disasters, Pringle said.

A constitutional amendment is an unusual step, but is the only way to change the way Proposition 13 is carried out, Pringle said. Without the amendment, Sowell Avenue families estimate their annual property taxes would jump from about $600 to as high as $2,500.

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The amendment applies to residents throughout the state, but it was specifically written for Sowell Avenue residents.

The Sowell Avenue saga began in 1936, when the Long Beach-based Ralph Grey Trucking Co. dumped petroleum waste into four open pits in a field near Sowell Avenue, according to EPA records.

It was deemed one of the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites and added to the list of Superfund sites in 1992. The designation meant the federal government picked up the more than $20-million tab for cleanup.