LA County leaders unanimously approved a motion Tuesday to ask public health officials if they can widen their authority to shut down companies that produce unhealthy chemicals that go into the air.

“When a restaurant has repeated health code violations, the Department of Public Health can step in to shut down the restaurant for posing a public health hazard,” said Supervisor Janice Hahn, who co-authored the motion with Supervisor Kathryn Barger. “We should be able to do the same thing when a company’s toxic emissions are poisoning the air our residents breathe.”

In their motion, the supervisors propose that the department can go farther and they asked if county officials can evaluate the enforcement authority of Public Health.

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“Department of Public Health should be given similar authority to prevent chemicals from poisoning our communities,” the supervisors wrote in their motion.

Complaints about the chemicals in the air have come from residents in both supervisors’ districts recently. In August, the health department ordered several Paramount metal processing facilities in Hahn’s district to reduce emissions of cancer-causing hexavalent chromium. Two years ago, a massive natural gas lead from the Aliso Canyon natural gas fields in Barger’s district above Porter Ranch raised concern when thousands of people reported headaches, nose bleeds and other health concerns.

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Supervisor Hilda Solis said such authority would have helped given what happened last year in Maywood at an industrial plant where magnesium and other metals burned. The blaze and chemicals prompted the evacuation of hundreds of people and led Los Angeles County supervisors to declare a local emergency.

The county works with the Southern California Air Quality Management District, which fields complaints and conducts testing on such facilities. The agency’s hearing board can issue Orders of Abatement for facilities emitting high levels of toxins.

But some said the efforts by the SCAQMD didn’t go far enough.

“I have attended probably 100 SCAQMD meetings,” Jesse Marquez, founder of Coalition for a Safe Environment told the Board. He was among more than a dozen speakers, many of them residents of Paramount and Maywood who were in support of the motion.

“I have learned from AQMD meetings that even though they are an air quality regulator, what I have not seen them do is shut down repeat offenders,” Marquez said. “We have children and we have families who suffer the consequences of toxic air and hazardous materials.”

County departments have 90 days to return to the board with a report that outlines the feasibility of strengthening the enforcement authority of the Department of Public Health.