Sandbox: United against the unmitagatable
by Chelsea Schreiber
There’s been a lot of talk lately about Metro’s plan to extend the C Line/K-Line/Green Line down the old BNSF right-of-way (ROW) through Lawndale, Torrance and parts of North Redondo Beach. Some people still think this is just a debate about where to put a train. It’s not. This is a conversation about public health, environmental justice, and whether we — as a region — are willing to stand up for our neighbors when they are facing a threat they cannot fight alone.
To understand the stakes, you have to understand what lies under the ground Metro wants to dig up. The soil along the ROW contains arsenic, creosote, lead, and other toxins from 100-year-old railroad ties. These chemicals have been sitting in the soil for generations. And according to Metro’s own environmental report, disturbing that soil will create particulate matter that is “unmitigatable.”
That word should stop everyone in their tracks.
Unmitigatable means the dust cannot be filtered away. It cannot be controlled. It cannot be contained. No fence, no tarp, no promise in a document will keep it out of our air. Once that soil is disturbed, those particles — including lead and arsenic — will move through the wind, into backyards, onto playgrounds, across streets, and directly into the lungs of anyone who breathes the air in the South Bay.
This isn’t just a Lawndale problem.
This isn’t just a Redondo problem.
This becomes everyone’s problem the moment a shovel hits the ground.
Particulate matter travels far beyond the project footprint. Anyone who has lived through the wildfire season knows how quickly smoke moves. Toxic dust behaves the same way. These particles are microscopic — small enough to lodge deep in the lungs, small enough to cross into the bloodstream, small enough to impact brain development in children. And unlike wildfire smoke, this isn’t temporary. Construction would last for years.
We should not be releasing lead and arsenic into the air in 2025.
Not near homes. Not near schools. Not anywhere.
And yet that is exactly what the Hybrid ROW option guarantees.
This project would also push freight tracks closer to homes and introduce a new curve — increasing derailment risk in an already vulnerable corridor. It would disturb active fuel pipelines that run beneath the ROW. It would destroy Lawndale’s only meaningful green space in one of the most park-poor cities in the county. These are not minor inconveniences. They are serious, region-wide safety and health issues that will have consequences for decades.
What makes this even harder to grasp is that there are better options available.
Hawthorne Boulevard is a viable, conventional transit corridor that does not require digging up toxic soil, shifting freight tracks, or placing families at risk. And Metro’s own documents show that modern bus rapid transit could meet mobility needs without endangering an entire neighborhood. When safer, cleaner, more equitable alternatives exist, why would anyone choose the one option guaranteed to do the most harm?
So why should someone living in Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, El Segundo, or Rancho Palos Verdes care about what happens in Lawndale?
Because environmental injustice anywhere harms all of us.
Because we do not get to call ourselves a community if we look away while our neighbors are exposed to toxins we would never allow near our own homes.
Because this project does not reflect the values we say we hold — not as parents, not as educators, not as workers, not as people who care about the health of our region.
And because on January 22, the Metro Board will vote on whether to certify or reject the FEIR — a deeply flawed document that greenlights this harm. We need the entire South Bay to show up, speak up, and stand together. The cities of Lawndale, Redondo Beach, and Torrance will all provide free buses so residents can attend.
This is our moment to say:
We do not poison communities for convenience.
We do not dig up toxic soil next to homes.
We do not repeat the mistakes of the past.
Not here. Not now.
The South Bay deserves better.
And we are strongest when we defend one another. ER