Rendering Company In Vernon Again Moves To Keep Inspector Photos Away From Public View

Baker Commodities, Inc. — the company that was the focus of an LAist investigation into hazardous odors last week — is asking a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to seal 80 photos that show inside its Vernon facility, along with court documents that describe the images and how they were obtained.

The backstory

The South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) shut down the rendering company, which recycles expired meat and animal carcasses, in September 2022, citing multiple violations of a rule that’s meant to keep odors from seeping into neighboring communities.

Soon after, Baker filed a lawsuit against the agency and its hearing board, calling for $200 million in damages and for the shutdown order to be tossed out. Baker has since been allowed to partially reopen in a limited capacity doing trap grease and wastewater treatment. The case is still pending.

If Baker’s motion is granted Friday at a scheduled hearing, the photos and documents would only be available to the judge and attorneys … not the public.

Baker’s attorneys also say in the motion that if the court grants their request, they will ask to have the images “redacted or removed” from videos that are publicly available on AQMD’s YouTube channel.

LAist published photos shown in some of those videos last week, which also appear in a gallery at the top of this story.

About this new motion

Baker Commodities, Inc. in Vernon.

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Samanta Helou Hernandez

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LAist

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The new motion comes after Baker’s failed attempt to keep photos from public view that were taken by an AQMD inspector who visited the facilities throughout 2022. Last October, the company’s lawyers filed an emergency motion to “immediately remove all photos that relate in any way to Baker's proprietary processes from the internet.”

Then and now, Baker’s attorneys argue that the photos contain “highly proprietary, competitively sensitive trade secret information that, if publicized, would impair Baker’s ability to effectively compete.” They also maintain that the inspector took the photos without permission.

Baker’s lead attorney and a spokesperson for the company did not respond to a request for comment. AQMD told LAist it cannot comment on pending litigation.

Many of the images in the videos are difficult to look at — the graphic photos showed a waste bin overflowing with hooves, as well animal bones scattered across the floor. Here’s how a former AQMD hearing board member described them at a recorded hearing from last September.

“Every picture virtually that we see is of equipment that is absolutely filthy,” said Dr. Allan Bernstein.

Baker lawyers at that hearing made the argument that the photos included trade secrets and that they hadn’t broken the odor mitigation rule. Bernstein responded: “It's mind-boggling to sit here and see anyone try to defend this position when we're all looking at these pictures with our eyes.”

More about those photos

In court documents, AQMD’s attorneys say their inspector Dillon Harris was granted permission to take photos from a handful of people at the Vernon facility, including two managers. Harris also testified that he was accompanied by Baker staff during his inspections, but “nobody from Baker informed him that the photographs constituted trade secrets or needed to be kept confidential.”

As part of the motion, Baker’s attorneys aim to seal the documents that describe these details.

David Pettit, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said restricting access to the photos could “make it harder for the public to understand the basis or the validity” of AQMD’s decision to shut down the rendering company.

Pettit said it’s not unusual for a court to seal documents where trade secrets are involved. During the past year of litigation over Baker’s shutdown, attorneys for AQMD have argued trade secrets weren’t violated because the company “made no attempt to designate the photographs as trade secret until the hearing," among other reasons.

David Loy, legal director of the California First Amendment Coalition, agreed that there can be exceptional trade secret claims. But he said that they should not be “abused to deprive the public of information that it would otherwise be entitled to.”

“The public has a right to monitor and oversee and verify. And it can't do that without access to the evidence,” he said.