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The primary federal contractor entrusted with purging fire debris from the Eaton and Palisades fires may have illegally dumped toxic ash and misused contaminated soil in breach of state policy, according to federal government reports recently obtained by The Times.
The records depict harried disaster workers appearing to take dangerous shortcuts that could leave hazardous pollution and endanger thousands of survivors poised to return to these communities.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers allocated $60 million to hire personnel to monitor daily cleanup operations and document any health and safety risks. The Times obtained thousands of government oversight reports that detail these federal efforts to rid fire-destroyed homes of toxic debris between February and mid-May.
The records, which were obtained on a rolling basis over several months, include dozens of instances in which oversight personnel flagged workers for disregarding cleanup procedures in a way that likely spread toxic substances.
The latest batch of reports — turned over to The Times on Dec. 1 — contained allegations of improper actions involving Environmental Chemical Corp., the primary federal contractor, and the dozens of debris-removal crews it supervised.
For example, on April 30, federally hired workers were clearing fire debris from a burned-down home in the Palisades burn scar. According to the Army Corps of Engineers, after the last dump truck left, an official with Environmental Chemical Corp., a Burlingame, Calif., company hired to carry out the federal debris removal mission, ordered workers to move the remaining ash and debris to a neighboring property.
The crew used construction equipment to move four or five “buckets” worth of fire debris onto the neighboring property. It’s unclear if that property was also destroyed in the Palisades fire, and, if so, whether it had been already remediated.
“I questioned if this was allowable and then the crew dumped material into the excavator bucket and planned to move it on the lowboy with material in bucket,” a federal supervisor wrote in a report intended to track performance of contractors. “Don’t think this is allowed.”
According to the report, the workers also left glass, ash and other fire debris on the property the crew had been clearing, because they “were in a rush to get to the next site.”
Experts who reviewed the reports said the behavior described may amount to illegal dumping under California law. Other reports obtained by The Times describe federal cleanup workers, on multiple occasions, using ash-contaminated soil to backfill holes and smooth out uneven portions of fire-destroyed properties in the Palisades burn scar. If that were true, it would be a breach of state policy that says contaminated soil from areas undergoing environmental cleanup cannot be used in this way.
The reports also cite multiple occasions where workers walked through already cleared properties with dirty boot covers, possibly re-contaminating them. The inspectors also reported crews spraying contaminated pool water onto neighboring properties and into storm drains, and excavator operators using toothed buckets that caused clean and contaminated soil to be commingled.
“Obviously, there was some really good work done,” state Sen. Ben Allen (D-Pacific Palisades) said about the federal cleanup. “But it appears that we’ve got some folks who are knowingly breaking the law and cutting corners in their cleanup protocol.
“We’ve got to figure out how widespread this was, and anybody who was responsible for having broken a law in this area needs to be held accountable.”
The Army Corps did not respond to requests for comment. An ECC executive said that without information such as the properties’ addresses or parcel numbers, he could not verify whether the accusations made in the oversight reports were substantiated by the companies’ own investigations or if any issues raised by the inspectors were resolved. Such specifics were redacted in the version of the reports sent to The Times.
“At a high level, ECC does not authorize the placement of wildfire debris or ash on neighboring properties, does not permit the use of contaminated material as fill, and operates under continuous [Army Corps] oversight,” said Glenn Sweatt, ECC’s vice president of contracts and compliance.
Between February and September, the Army Corps responded to nearly 1,100 public complaints or other inquiries related to the federal fire cleanup. Over 20% of grievances were related to quality of work, according to the Army Corps assessment of complaints.
Some of these complaints point to the same concerns raised by the inspectors. For example, a resident in the Eaton burn scar filed a complaint on June 19 that “crews working on adjacent properties moved fire debris and ash onto his property after he specifically asked them not to.”
Other property owners in Altadena filed complaints that crews had left all sorts of fire debris on their property — in some cases, buried in the ground.
The Army Corps or ECC ordered crews to go back and finish up the debris removal for some properties. Other times, the officials left the work and costs to disaster victims.
A Palisades property owner complained on May 7 that after the Army Corps supposedly completed cleaning his property, he found “parts of broken foundation [that] were buried to avoid full removal.” He said it cost him $40,000 to hire a private contractor to gather up and dispose of several dumpsters of busted-up concrete.
James Mayfield, a hazardous materials specialist and owner of Mayfield Environmental Engineering, was hired by more than 200 homeowners affected by the fires to remove debris and contaminated soil — including, in some cases, from properties already cleared by Army Corps contractors.
When Mayfield and his workers excavated additional soil from Army Corps-cleared properties, he said they occasionally uncovered ash, slabs of burned stucco, and other debris.
“All you have to do is scoop and you can see the rest of the house underneath the ground,” Mayfield said. “It was never cleared at all.”
After January’s wildfires, local health authorities warned the soil could be riddled with harmful pollutants from burned-down homes and cars, including lead, a heavy metal that can cause irreversible brain damage when inhaled or ingested by young children.
Soil testing has been standard practice after major wildfires in California since 2007. Typically, after work crews clear away fire debris and several inches of topsoil from burned-down homes, federal or state disaster officials arrange for the same contractors to test the soil for lingering contamination. If they find contamination above state benchmarks, they are required to excavate another layer of that soil and conduct additional rounds of testing.
But the aftermath of the Eaton and Palisades fires has been different. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has repeatedly refused to pay for soil testing in California, insisting the practice is not necessary to remove any immediate threats after the fires. The Newsom administration unsuccessfully petitioned FEMA to reconsider conducting soil testing to protect returning residents and workers. But as pressure mounted on the state to fund soil testing, the California Environmental Protection Agency secretary downplayed public health risks from fire contamination.
Indeed, the vast majority of wildfire cleanups in California are managed by state agencies. Since the January wildfires, California officials have been noticeably guarded when questioned about how the state will respond when the next major wildfire inevitably strikes.
Asked whether the state will continue to adhere to its long-standing post-fire soil sampling protocols, the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services wouldn’t directly answer whether it would pay for soil testing after future wildfires. Its director, Nancy Ward, declined to be interviewed.
“California has the most advanced testing systems in the nation, and we remain committed to advocating for the safe, timely removal of debris after a wildfire,” an agency spokesperson said in a statement. “Protecting public health and the well-being of impacted communities remains the state’s foremost priority.”
Some environmental experts and lawmakers worry that abandoning long-established wildfire protocols, like soil testing, may set a precedent where disaster victims will assume more costs and work to ensure that their properties are safe to return to and rebuild upon.
U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman (D–Los Angeles) called for the Army Corps to review the results of large-scale soil testing initiatives, including data from USC, to determine which contractors were assigned to clean properties where heavy contamination persists. Such an analysis, he said, might help the federal government figure out which contractors performed poor work, so that they they aren’t hired in future disasters.
“I’m going to press the Army Corps to look at where the testing indicates there was still contaminants and who is the contractor for that, to see whether there are certain contractors that had a high failure rate,” Sherman said.
“I want to make sure they’re … evaluating these contractors vis-à-vis the next disaster,” he added. “And, ultimately it’s in the testing.”
Throughout much of Altadena and Pacific Palisades, thousands of empty lots are awaiting permits to rebuild. But many property owners fear the possibility of contamination.
The Department of Angels, a community-led nonprofit formed after the January wildfires, surveyed 2,300 residents whose homes were damaged or destroyed by the Eaton and Palisades blazes. About one-third of respondents said they wanted testing but had not received it.
“The government abandoned testing and left us on our own,” one victim wrote. “We have each had to find out what is the best route to test and remediate, but without standardization and consistency, we are a giant experiment.”
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Tony Briscoe
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