The Palisades and Eaton wildfires that caused such damage and heartache in Los Angeles County have been thoroughly doused by two sets of rainstorms, with a larger storm bringing more rain today and tomorrow. Now, in the hope of moving LA toward recovery, a series of government agencies are engaged in an ambitious two-phase plan to clear the wreckage of homes, businesses, and other community structures, so that these thousands of burn sites may be returned to use, sooner rather than later.
Yet, while this two-phase removal plan is critically important, there is a third phase of this much-needed strategy that risks producing irreparable damage to a unique area of Topanga State Park, and the Topanga Lagoon.
Here’s the deal.
As those who lost their homes or businesses to the fires are aware, Phase 1 of the government’s recovery plan is being performed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and consists of removing the mountains of toxic waste that the fires birthed when January’s two largest conflagrations reduced more than 16,000 structures to rubble—with 6,837 homes and other buildings destroyed in the Palisades fire alone.
The staggering amount of toxic waste produced by those fire-destroyed structures, 5500 of them homes, mostly consists of ordinary items, things like propane tanks, paint cans, herbicides, pesticides, or the lithium ion batteries that are used in e-bikes, solar power back-up, electric cars, laptops, cell phones, and other electronics, at lease some of which are found in nearly every household.
In any case, as the EPA has made clear, it is impossible to do further clean-up until the poisonous debris is removed by “certified, trained, experienced hazmat techs.” Fortunately the EPA experts are applying their expertise to this toxic clean up at no charge to property owners.
Next is Phase 2, which kicks in after the EPA finishes its work and the affected properties are considered at least reasonably safe. At this point the Army Corps of Engineers shows up to put in motion the second stage of debris clean-up job, which is necessary before a site can be cleared for re-use. This service is also done for free by the pros if property owners opt in.
According to Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, nearly 99%” have opted for the Army Corps to remove the debris and contaminated soil rather than using private contractors.
Yet, one of the most challenging parts of accomplishing Phase One—which according to Lee Seldon, the newly-appointed head of the EPA, is the largest wildfire hazardous waste cleanup in the history of the the agency—is to locate sites where all this toxic waste may be stored while it is being sorted, regrouped, in some cases soaked in a specialized liquid, and eventually repackaged and finally loaded on trucks to be driven to a series of disposal facilities, where the toxic waste will theoretically safely remain in perpetuity.
(There is a separate list of worries regarding the topic of the permanent disposal. And there is also concern about how many inches of soil must be removed from the thousands of burn sites to make them truly safe for future use. But, those are topics for another time.)
Traveling toxicity
Ideally these post Phase 1 toxic waste sorting sites should be reasonably close to the communities most impacted by the fires, in order to cut the transportation time for the trucks full of waste driving from fire area to the sorting location. At the same time, the sorting site can’t be next to residential areas, and also it should not be located where the poisons could do harm to the environment around it.
The site selected to sort the toxic debris from the Eaton fire is Lario Park, a sizable property in Azusa owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Local residents are not thrilled by the arrival of the toxic debris at the park that—prior to the fires—was being used as a parking lot/staging area, where one could meet one’s friends in order to hike or bike on local trails.
“We were never consulted,” said Azusa mayor Robert Gonzalez who told reporters that he and his constituents are particularly concerned with the electric vehicle batteries. “These things are explosive, they’re hazardous, and yet you’re bringing them to our community,” a community that is approximately sixteen miles away from the site of the Eaton fire.
The Topanga Lagoon
When it came to the Palisades Fire, as mentioned above, the first place—and for a while the only place—that the EPA selected as their site for sorting tons of toxic waste is a unique section of Topanga State Park. To be more specific, the toxic sorting site is located where Topanga Canyon Blvd. meets the Pacific Coast Highway, putting it right next to Topanga Creek and the Topanga Lagoon, both of which are—among other things—part of a critical habitat for a wide variety of creatures including the endangered steelhead trout, which is the last known population of the species in the Santa Monica Mountains, and also for a far smaller endangered fish known as the tidewater goby.
According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), when the Palisades fire swept through Topanga Canyon, the trout and the goby were protected by the chilly waters of Topanga Creek. Then, when the first of the rains of late January threatened to carry ash, sediment and debris into the creek, which “could have suffocated and wiped out the trout population,” and also could have killed the tiny but intriguing tidewater goby. biologists sprang into action.
On two separate days, the steelhead trout population and that of the two-inch-long tidewater goby were each temporarily relocated, the trout to an undisclosed location, the goby to the Heal the Bay Aquarium in Santa Monica, with some also going to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach.
There are, however, plans for each species to eventually be returned to their Topanga Creek habitat, presuming that their habitat will still be intact.
The issue of the two fish is only one of a long list of reasons that environmental experts, and others, viewed the choice of the EPA to endanger this unique environment to be inexplicable.
So, what to do?
Word about the EPA’s choice spread quickly among Topanga community members and a wide variety of other LA County residents familiar with the lagoon and also with Topanga State Beach, the long beloved surfing beach located below it. Community members launched a petition objecting to the use of the site for toxic waste sorting. In short order, the petition gathered approximately 9000 signatures, and then more after that.
Various non-profits reached out to the EPA on the issue.
“The site chosen is an area of cultural and ecological significance,” wrote the leaders of the 40-year-old non-profit Heal the Bay, “and we stand with the surfers, swimmers, and local communities concerned about the potential for harm to this precious ecosystem.”
When the feds announced in early February that they had chosen an additional sorting site for the toxic waste produced by the Palisades Fire, those concerned with the Topanga site thought there might be reprieve. The second site was the sizable parking lot for Will Rogers State Beach, so maybe Topanga wouldn’t be needed..
However, although the Will Rodgers State Beach announcement produced demonstrations from beach goers and others, it brought no reprieve for the location adjacent to Topanga Creek, Topanga Lagoon, and Topanga State Beach.
The EPA officials with the power to change things were not moved by the pleading, petitions, and protests. Thus, the trucks of toxic waste began to arrive at the Topanga site.
Now that the matter was a done deal, the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains (RCD), reached out to local EPA representatives, in the hope that they could find a way to ameliorate the potential damage that the newly created toxic waste staging area might inadvertently wreak.
(RCD is a local agency known for its expertise in “resource protection,” and facilitating “public connections” with the variety of environments in the local mountains.)
“The Palisades Fire was truly devastating,” wrote the RCD to the EPA. “Our communities have been severely impacted. We recognize the importance of swift clean up, but know that this work must be done correctly to avoid additional severe and lasting adverse consequences.”
Toxic waste and heavy rains
“As rains continue,” a number of factors “are of grave concern,” wrote Rosi Dagit—RCD’s principal conservation biologist—in a separate letter to the EPA.
Dagit has initiated and overseen a long list of research and restoration projects throughout the Santa Monica Mountains. Among her other skills, she is a well known arborist, and the technical advisor for the CA Oak Foundation. (There’s lots more to her CV. But you get the picture. Dagit is the experts’ expert when it comes to these topics.)
In her February 5 letter to the EPI’s local spokesperson, Rusty Harris-Bishop, Dagit expressed the concerns of her fellow RCD members, and of other environmental specialists.
The “fillbanks on both sides of the creek are highly erodible and their collapse could cause the edges of the sorting facility to fall into the creek,” Dagit wrote.
The pre-rain photos that the EPI’s Harris-Bishop provided of the layout of the various elements of the Topanga sorting site in relation to the creek and creek beds, appeared to support these concerns. (See below.)
When WLA last talked to Dagit, she told us she was relieved to find that the EPA had moved the k-rails (see above), which are concrete barriers used in construction. As the above photo suggests, these generally useful barriers, if left in their original position at the sorting site, could become highly problematic should the creek bank begin to collapse during the newest rainstorm. So moving them back from the edge** was a good thing, said Dagit, who had been to the site to take some water sampling from the creek, which she does regularly, unrelated to the toxic waste issue.
The water samples will be turned over for testing to the Regional Water Quality Control Board and a list of other organizations and universities.
“Now we need to see what’s going to happen during the rain,” said Dagit.
In other words, this story is far from over.
So…stay tuned.
**Editor’s note: We mistakenly first wrote that the orange k-rails pictured above were “removed.” That’s incorrect. The k-rails were wisely “moved” back from their original position to a safer location away from the creek bed below.