Despite repeated warnings that wildfire debris may contain dangerous substances, civil servants have been told that Eaton and Palisades are not designed to handle high concentrations of toxic chemicals. Preparing to throw away millions of tons of contaminated ash and tile bleaches from the fire.
For weeks, Los Angeles County leaders have been urging residents to avoid the ashes of wildfires. Public health officials say they suspect that brain damage heavy metals and cancer-causing chemicals have been stolen from thousands of incinerated homes and cars.
Usually, when these toxic chemicals are discovered at high levels of solid waste, they are disposed of in landfills of dangerous waste – usually located far away from densely populated areas, Specially designed environmental protection to prevent leaks that could affect nearby residents.
The trash cans pass each other on the path to the Simi Valley landfill in Ventura County. There, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced this week that toxic ashes from schools destroyed by the Eton fire will be dumped.
(Melmercon/Los Angeles Times)
However, each year when disasters attack California, a series of emergency and disaster exemptions have led to potentially contaminated debris (including wildfire ash) being handled in landfills that usually only handle trash and construction debris. They are handled in landfills.
In the aftermath of the most devastating wildfires in US history, government agencies have not split their plans to dispose of an estimated 4.5 million tonnes of burnt debris from the Eton and Palisades fires. For two weeks, staff have been plagued with questions about where the fragments are heading, and they mostly refuse to answer.
At a press conference this week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began carrying toxic ashes to the Simi Valley landfill in Ventura County, as federal cleanser crews removed debris from several schools damaged by the Eton fire. It has announced that asbestos and concrete have begun to be removed from azusa land reclamation. Los Angeles County.
However, local, state and federal authorities have refused to name all landfills that are expected to receive wildfire debris. Los Angeles County Public Works Director Mark Pestella said last week that four landfills were designated to accept disaster debris but did not identify them. He walked through these statements this week, with the department identifying 17 facilities in Los Angeles County and one facility in nearby Ventura County that could accept this waste, but the disposal site was ultimately It added that it will be decided by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Atradena’s house destroyed by Etonfire.
(Allen J. Scheven/Los Angeles Times)
However, in addition to the Simi Valley landfill and the Azusa Land Reclamation site, Times has learned that at least five other non-hazard waste landfills have taken steps to accept this waste. I learned that. Calabasas landfill in Agra. Elsobrante landfill during the coronavirus pandemic. Lamb Canyon Reclaimed Land in Beaumont. Sunshine Canyon Reclamation Site in Sylmer.
Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a disaster declaration to promote wildfire debris disposal, with state environmental regulators temporarily suspending solid waste disposal regulations, and these landfills suffered wildfires Allows to accept shards of the Second, these landfills (many of which accept city waste) are urgently to expand daily waste tonnage, extending opening hours and accepting potentially contaminated fire wreckages. I applied for the exemption.
In the past, state environmental regulators have issued violations dumping hazardous waste, including lead-contaminated soil, into these landfills, citing the risks pose to groundwater.
On their part, officials overseeing the cleanup say it is the greatest benefit of the public to clean up dangerous ashes and debris from residential areas as quickly as possible. The Simi Valley and Calabasas landfills had previously accepted disaster debris from the Woolsey Fire, which destroyed more than 1,600 buildings in 2018.
“Ash and debris from wildfires are fire damage materials that are different from normal household waste, but do not meet the classification of “hazardous waste” under federal regulations,” Army spokesperson said. Susan Lee, the man.
At least three times, the California Department of Toxicology Control hired consultants to assess the levels of heavy metals in wildfire ash from burnt homes. In all three reports (from 2003, 2007, and 2015), state contractors deemed that ash from their hometown sites to sufficient heavy metals, including brain-damaged lead, to be hazardous waste, by California standards. I discovered that it can happen.
The truck is queued at San Fernando Road in Sylmer, waiting to be converted into a Sunshine Canyon landfill in 2023.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
Southern California residents and environmental groups have expressed concern about the safety of transporting this material through the community and the ability of local governments to properly dispose of toxic substances.
Eric Pfefferman, who lives about a mile south of Sunshine Canyon, worries that he and his neighbors are drifting into the neighborhood with dangerous ashes and soot stirring, leaving wildfire wreckage buried nearby. I said that. .
Sunshine Canyon, Louisiana County’s largest active landfill, is located above Granada Hills and Sylmer neighborhoods. This is Mountain Pass, known for its strong winds that regularly blow away sour odors due to excessive sulfur pesticide emissions, and is crushed into the community below.
Last year, the South Coast Air Quality Control District cited Sunshine Canyon for more than 60 violations due to excessive air pollution and annoying odor violations. Phefferman said he recently pulled his son away from Van Gogh Elementary School due to foul smell and pollution.
They also routinely monitor potentially dangerous gases such as methane and sulfur dioxide, but usually there is no equipment to detect toxic contaminants in wildfire ash, such as lead and asbestos.
“The Sunshine Canyon landfill shows that it is not possible to dispose of household waste that is already going to the facility,” Pfefferman said. “Adding toxic drugs from wildfires with known heavy metals and pollutants is contrary to all common sense. Complicate one disaster and avoid creating another.”
Community concerns were heightened by the accelerated pace of cleansing dangerous waste. Initially, the plan was for the US Environmental Protection Agency to spend three months on the project. But last week, President Trump signed a federal order to reduce cleanup times for 30 days.
“What happens if you skip or miss a lithium-ion battery from a cell phone battery or a portion of a car battery? Pheferman says the recently closed Chiquita Canyon landfill near Santa Clarita has been in a chemical reaction. I asked him if he was handling garbage that was burning deep underground.
The EPA crew in White Hazmat suits will soften the ruins of the Palisade fire burning home.
(Robert Gautier/Los Angeles Times)
The Army says there is a plan. Cleanup workers use water to control dust, Colonel Elix Wenson said, and said they would wrap the ashes in plastic bags and transport them by truck in plastic liners and tarps. Pestrella, the county’s director of public works, also said landfills that accept wildfire ash are equipped with liner systems to prevent contaminants from leaking into the groundwater.
However, these precautions have not subdued the concerns of some residents.
Wayde Hunter is the chairman of the North Valley Coalition of relevant citizens and has long said that Sunshine Canyon mismanaged operations in the northern San Fernando Valley. Now he worries that landfills will be zero above ground due to dangerous experiments where government officials blur the line between dangerous waste facilities and what constitutes city landfills. It’s there.
Hunter said the decision to place untested but likely dangerous waste in Sunshine Canyon is to have proximity to landfill housing and to prevent landfill liner systems from being damaged due to an earthquake. He said it did not take into consideration the possibility of groundwater contamination.
“Why they make it [nonhazardous waste] “The landfill” “is because they don’t want the kind of material they’re trying to push into them right now,” Hunter said.
Quickly removing fire fragments gives relief to the disaster-treated communities of Altadena and Palisades in the Pacific, but Hunter says that civil servants have been forced to have his community and other potential waste sites in Southern California. I hope to consider any potentially scattered fallout.
“We feel those people,” Hunter said, referring to the neighborhood where wildfires have been damaged. “But by the same token, [cleanup and disposal] It must be done appropriately. You can’t throw away something like this in every landfill. ”
Source link
