City leaders, residents protest plans to dispose of fire debris in Calabasas Landfill

Dozens of individuals gathered outdoors the Calabasas Landfill in Agoura Hills on Saturday morning to protest plans to dump as much as 5,000 tons of particles per day as a part of a large cleanup operation following the devastating Los Angeles County wildfires final month.

“Allow us to be poisonous free,” chanted the group, which included youngsters and households. “No dumping!” they cried out.

The protest comes because the U.S. Military Corps of Engineers this week began the second phase of cleanup from the Eaton and Palisades fires, which destroyed greater than 9,400 buildings in Altadena, and greater than 6,800 in Pacific Palisades.

The Calabasas Landfill is one in every of no less than seven nonhazardous waste landfills in Southern California permitted to just accept waste — together with chimneys, hazardous timber and hearth particles and ash — from this newest cleanup part.

The Military Corps may begin hauling particles to the landfill as early as Monday, in response to town of Calabasas. To accommodate particles removing, the county final week permitted a waiver extending the landfill’s hours of operation and growing the every day tonnage restrict from 3,500 tons per day to five,000.

The demonstration got here a day after the Calabasas Metropolis Council sent a letter to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors, expressing its “robust opposition” to any hearth particles being transported to and disposed of on the landfill, which is close to neighborhoods, faculties, senior housing, parks, wildlife corridors and different delicate places. Within the letter, the council implored county, state and federal officers to discover different disposal choices, together with redirecting waste to low-population areas outdoors the state.

“The Metropolis Council is compelled to echo public sentiment that the urgency of the restoration part and efforts to remediate one catastrophe is laying the inspiration for future public well being and environmental catastrophes that may have an effect on Calabasas residents,” metropolis leaders wrote. The council has directed the Calabasas metropolis legal professional to hunt injunctive aid on the state or federal degree, they wrote.

The U.S. Environmental Safety Company started the first phase of the hearth particles cleanup Jan. 28, eradicating hazardous supplies comparable to paint, cleaners and solvents, oils, pesticides, lithium ion batteries and asbestos from the burned areas.

The company is transporting hazardous supplies to non permanent staging areas: Lario Park in Irwindale and the Altadena Golf Course for particles from the Eaton hearth, and the previous Topanga Ranch Motel and Will Rogers State Seaside for the Palisades hearth. The particles will then be sorted, secured and packaged for transport to permitted disposal amenities.

Residents and leaders from L.A. County’s foothill communities have raised concerns in regards to the well being and environmental dangers that could possibly be posed by the Lario Park web site, with leaders from the cities of Duarte, Azusa, Irwindale and Baldwin Park final month expressing their joint opposition to using the positioning.

The EPA mentioned it might take steps to make sure security on the Lario Park web site, together with air high quality monitoring, using a water truck to suppress mud and emissions, and continued environmental testing of the positioning after it closes.

The hearth ash and particles collected through the second part of cleanup might be carted into lined vans and pushed to approved landfills — which, together with the Calabasas Landfill, embody the Simi Valley Landfill, the Azusa Land Reclamation web site, Badlands Sanitary Landfill in Moreno Valley, El Sobrante Landfill in Corona, Lamb Canyon Landfill in Beaumont and Sunshine Canyon Landfill in Sylmar.

The cleanup will embody 1000’s of contractors from the Military Corps and personal corporations working to get rid of as a lot as 4.5 million tons of fireside particles.

The demonstration Saturday was organized by Protect Calabasas, which additionally plans to hunt an injunction to halt dumping of fireside particles on the landfill whereas the difficulty strikes by means of the courts.

Throughout the occasion, the group marched down Misplaced Hills Street, holding indicators with hand-scrawled slogans like, “Hearken to the moms!! No poisonous dumping in Calabasas!” and ultimately arriving at a close-by Erewhon market.

Among the many protesters was Kelly Rapf Martino, a mom of two and member of Defend Calabasas who lives in a neighborhood on the base of the landfill. She is very involved about dangerous asbestos particles probably ending up on the dump.

“We’re very involved in regards to the microscopic particles which might be within the ash and particles being dumped right into a landfill in a residential group,” she mentioned.

She pointed to feedback made by Col. Brian Sawser from the Military Corps through the Calabasas Metropolis Council assembly Wednesday. He defined that earlier than starting the cleanup course of, the Military Corps would stroll the bottom of each property, in search of any seen hazardous supplies, after which chip check each home for asbestos. If any asbestos had been discovered, he mentioned, they might abate the whole web site in response to state and federal rules and take away any asbestos-containing supplies, which might then go a waste stream not headed for the Calabasas Landfill.

Nonetheless, he informed the council, he couldn’t be 100% sure that hazardous supplies wouldn’t find yourself within the landfill, saying: “I taught chance and statistics at West Level so I’ll be hard-pressed to be 100% sure in something.”

“We’re only a bunch of mothers trying to defend our children, our faculties, our well being, not wanting this to grow to be some enormous factor in 20 years when a bunch of children are sick and we’ve got to sue for damages,” Rapf Martino mentioned. “We’re attempting to cease that earlier than that occurs.”

Members of Defend Calabasas are calling on residents to protest outdoors of the landfill once more Monday morning, when vans hauling hearth particles may begin arriving.

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This story initially appeared in Los Angeles Times.