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A burst hydrogen peroxide line at the Chiquita Canyon landfill injured one person Friday evening, according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
It wasn’t immediately clear if there was any resulting damage at the Castaic facility, but hazardous-material teams from the Fire Department were continuing to clean up as of shortly before 10 p.m., according to agency spokesperson Craig Little.
Firefighters initially responded to reports of an explosion at the landfill at 7 p.m. Friday, but Little said it was soon determined there was no explosion or fire. The issue was a mechanical failure of a small high-pressure hose during normal operations.
One landfill employee was taken to a hospital after the hose burst, Little said, but the extent of that person’s injuries were unknown.
He said no one else was injured in the incident.
Little said the burst hose didn’t appear to be related to any cleanup for a fire burning inside the landfill.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday ordered Chiquita Canyon to take immediate steps to protect the environment and human health, saying the smoldering facility poses an imminent danger to nearby communities due to hazardous liquid waste and noxious odors.
Scorching temperatures within the dump have increased and expanded since as early as May 2022, when a heat-generating chemical reaction is estimated to have started deep in the landfill. The reaction has caused pressure to build within the 639-acre facility at times, forcing contaminated, piping-hot water to burst onto the surface.
Federal environmental regulators have said this polluted water has contained cancer-causing benzene above federal standards. Officials and residents have also raised concerns that toxic fumes are drifting from the landfill to nearby communities and that polluted water has been discharged into nearby waterways.
Waste Connections Inc., the landfill operator, is trying to slow and eventually stop the chemical reaction by removing excess gases and liquid, according to landfill officials.
L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents communities surrounding Chiquita Canyon, said continued incidents at the landfill like Friday’s “clearly signal that a major change in management and leadership is needed immediately.”
“I have lost faith that the ongoing issues with the landfill will ever be resolved unless those long overdue changes are made,” she said in a statement.
The situation at Chiquita Canyon is only one of the county’s dumps facing increased scrutiny.
Sunshine Canyon in Sylmar, the only landfill larger than Chiquita Canyon in L.A. County, is dealing with a different environmental crisis: Water intrusion has fueled bacteria growth. The situation has brought months of putrid odors to surrounding communities.
This is a developing story. Times staff writer Tony Briscoe contributed to this report.
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Grace Toohey
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Sandwiches around the world excite Jeff Mauro, the Chicago native Food Network personality. Nowadays, the once and future Sandwich King isn’t globetrotting as much, and in 2024 he’s plotting a series of collaborations to showcase his gourmet food brand, Mauro Provisions.
One of those collaborations starts on Friday, February 16 with another Chicago native, Henry Cai of 3 Little Pigs. Cai, who recently opened in the South Loop — inside the Molly’s Cupcakes space, 1150 S. Wabash — will top his signature Chinese American fried chicken sandwiches with Mauro’s Honey G Pepper Relish, which is a finely chopped version of his giardiniera. Cai says it’s a perfect match, saying when you’re eating giardiniera, you sometimes don’t get all the ingredients in a bite. A finely chopped relish is easily spreadable with the spicy oil, carrots, and celery evenly distributed.
They mix the relish with honey for a savory, sweet, and crunch condiment. Mauro says the relish gives eaters “a natural high.” The sandwich comes with the relish and a thinly sliced cucumber salad. There’s also 3 Little Pigs’ hot mustard, mayo, and iceberg lettuce. It’s called “the Hot Mauro.” The sandwich is available for a limited time.
“It’s like a Chinese-Italian symphony,” Mauro says.
Cai says he wasn’t sure if he was being pranked when Mauro sent him a message via Instagram asking if he was interested in teaming up. Mauro says folks from around the world have an affinity for Chinese food in its different varieties. China may not have a huge history with sandwich culture — baos seem to fill that niche. But Cai fuses the food his father cooked for him growing up with his own ideas. Mauro says Cai has “a gift for frying chicken.”
“His is what this is like what I crave in a fried chicken sandwich, right?” Mauro says. “it’s balanced — it’s marinated chicken thigh and the coating is so good.”
Mauro was then left with figuring out how to add giardiniera to a fried chicken sandwich with Chinese spices and toppings: “When I started formulating the Honey G pepper relish, I just knew the flavors, the fermented quality, the oily quality, you know — the crunch — the color, the sweetness would lend itself well.”
Speaking with Mauro about combining Chinese and Italian food brought up memories of a Lincoln Park restaurant that opened in the ‘90s called Luigi’s of Hong Kong. The restaurant teased customers with a revolution with a menu that included pasta and pot stickers. There was also a location in suburban Lake Zurich.
Giardiniera is like a mystic art to Chicagoans, with companies closely guarding their recipes. Recently, Cai has been studying the sacred alchemy while preparing his own tribute to Chicago street food, combining Chinese hot pot with Italian beef. Think of it as a Chinese counterpart to Kasama’s Adobo beef sandwich with Filipino flavors. Cai knows he’ll need to include giardiniera in some form. Perhaps he has a new collaborator with Mauro.
Mauro has other collaborations on the way with Boar’s Head Cafe and others. Stay tuned for more information.
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Ashok Selvam
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Take a look inside our Parvo Puppy ICU! In June we partnered with Grounds & Hounds Coffee Co. and they donated all their proceeds from their Rescue Roast to our Parvo Puppy ICU to help us save even more little lives. We appreciate your support!
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She was crippled with worry about a little kitten in her neighborhood that was the last one left from a litter of outdoor cats. You see, this kitten wasn’t like the others. He was severely malnourished and paralyzed in his lower half, unable to control his bladder and bowels, and left to fend for himself.
The staff member went home to her girlfriend Cara, an avid animal rescuer, and told her the situation. They knew they needed to help because this life couldn’t help itself. So off they went to scoop up a little kitten they named Frankie. Cara wrote on the first day, “He can still move his legs but they are disfigured – we are hoping just from malnutrition and that they can be fixed. He had more fleas than I’ve ever seen on a kitten from all my years of animal rescue.”
When Frankie was examined, it was inconclusive as to what was causing his paralysis. What we do know is that Frankie was not born this way. His prior owner said, “One day he just seized up and never walked again.” Cara focused her energy on making Frankie stronger by making sure he was getting the nourishment and medicine he needed, fitting him for diapers for his incontinence, clearing him of his fleas, and building him a PVC cart so he can gain strength in his limbs. “He may never walk again but it won’t stop him from living a long, happy, healthy life with the right family.”
Cara got in contact with the Austin Pets Alive! P.A.S.S. (Positive Alternatives to Shelter Surrender) program to figure out how she could help without surrendering Frankie to a shelter. APA! gave her the tools she needed to care for him as she fostered him until adoption.
Frankie fit right in with Cara’s clan, particularly loving cuddling up to her foster sibling dogs.
Three weeks ago Cara wrote, “The perfect home for Frankie is out there, and what a lucky family they’ll be. We just have to find them,” and that she did. After 62 days, we’re thrilled to report he’s found the family to love him unconditionally, differently-abled legs and all.
When animals are paralyzed, they often are incontinent. Historically, incontinent cats were euthanized immediately at the shelter with the belief that no one would want them. We’ve proved time and time again that’s not true. “APA! has adopted out 13 incontinent kitties so far this year. Many of these cats went to first-time incontinent cat adopters”, says Allie Wassel, our Cat Matchmaker Team Lead. “Thanks to dedication from our fosters, marketing, and clinic team, we are continuing to educate the public about how manageable and adoptable these cats are!”
Your gift this Giving Tuesday helps save lives like Frankie’s. With all gifts doubled, up to $100k, until December 31st, you can have double the impact on pets like Frankie. At seven weeks old he was left alone, immobile, and diminishing day by day. But together with you, and advocates like Cara, these pets get the chance to find their people, who will love them unconditionally. Give the gift of hope this holiday season and donate today.
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If you’ve lived in Austin for more than a year, you might be wondering how we are doing over here at the Town Lake Animal Center with all this rain. Historically, our little 70 year old facility floods when we get these crazy Texas torrential downpours. This happens because the land around our buildings is higher than the kennel buildings that have sunk just a little every decade into the ground. Over the past decade of our inhabiting this facility, we have flooded many times in both minor and major ways. We have worked hard to prevent this issue year after year, and in the past 12 months we have made even more improvements to correct the problem. That is why you haven’t heard from us these past weeks — our drains are actually working better than ever! This has only been possible because of the generosity of donors and the City of Austin Water and Watershed Protection Departments.
But even with these improvements, our drains are still 70 years old, and there is only so much they can take.
What is happening right now with the weather is very much like what we experienced in 2015 right before the Memorial Day Flood. It rained for many days straight and the land was completely saturated. By the time the big downpour happened on Memorial Day, the only thing water could do was travel as runoff. While we were nowhere near the hardest hit, our kennels and buildings flooded and we had to do an emergency evacuation of our pets.
We are hopeful that the rain predicted over the next week stays light, but because it would be foolish to bet against Mother Nature, we are preparing for the worst.
Right now, we need your help to move our dogs to fosters and adopters as fast as possible in an effort to decrease the number of kennels being used. That way any dogs still left at the shelter can be moved to dry kennels, as some kennels may flood before others.
If you are interested in fostering a dog and giving them a dry place to stay out of the rain, please email [email protected] to be connected to the Austin Pets Alive! Dog Foster Team.
If you cannot foster or adopt a pet in need at this time, consider making a donation to support APA!’s future life saving efforts. You can also spread the word to your networks by sharing this blog or this Facebook post.
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