The Los Angeles County Supervisors Council will allocate $ 3 million to help owners near the Eaton burn area test for lead contamination, after preliminary tests have found high levels of heavy metal on standing houses after fire.
Kathryn Barger and Lindsey Horvath supervisors proposed the motion After the results of the preliminary tests Released last week By the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, led lead levels over the state health standards in up to 80% of soil samples taken under the wind of the Eaton burning scar.
Tuesday, the council voted 4 to 0 to lead $ 3 million from the county $ 134 million regulations 2018 with lead bread manufacturers To test the residential properties which are both in the wind and unless a mile of the burn scar limit Eaton.
Lead is a heavy metal linked to serious health problems, in particular damage to the brain and the nervous system, as well as to digestive, reproductive and cardiovascular problems, according to the Environmental protection agency.
Roux Associates, a private test company hired by the county, collected samples of 780 properties in the two burning areas in four weeks from mid-February to mid-March. He tested 14 toxic substances commonly found after forest fires: heavy metals such as arsenic and lead; polyaromatic hydrocarbons such as anthorane and napthal; and dioxins.
More than a third of the samples taken from the Eaton burning scar have exceeded the California health standard of 80 milligrams of lead per kilogram of soil, found red. Almost half of the samples just outside the burn border had lead levels above the state limit. And under the wind of the fire border, in the southwest, between 70% and 80% of samples have exceeded this limit.
In the burn area of the palisades, the tests have found little contamination beyond certain “hot spots” isolated from heavy metals and polyaromatic hydrocarbons, vice-president and main scientist of Roux, Adam Love said last week.
Nichole Quick, chief medical advisor to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, said at the time that officials would ask for federal and state aid to further assess the hot spots of palisades and work with the county on targeted lead tests in the areas affected by Eaton’s fire.
The county assumes for the moment the responsibility of the tests of contaminants because, as, as Time reported that the federal government has chosen to break in a tradition of nearly two decades of soil testing on destroyed properties cleaned by the US Army Corps of Engineers after fires.
After previous forest fires, the body of the army would first scratch 6 inches of topsoil from cleaned properties, then test the soil below. If these tests revealed toxic substances always on the property, it would scratch more.
After the devastating fire of the camp in paradise in 2018, the soil tests of 12,500 properties revealed that almost a third still contained dangerous levels of contaminants even after the first 6 inches of topsoil were scratched by federal crews.
The county ordered tests in Roux instead of these federal tests. Until now, the county has not announced the results only standing houses, which are not eligible for cleaning the body of army engineers; The results of land plots with damaged or destroyed structures are still pending.
FEMA’s decision to skip the tests after the fire storms of the has frustrated many residents and officials, some calling the federal agency to reconsider.
“Without adequate tests, the contaminants caused by the fire can remain not detected, posing risks to return residents, construction workers and the environment,” wrote the director of state emergency services, Nancy Ward, in a February letter to FEMA. “The fact of not identifying and correcting these fire -related contaminants can expose individuals to residual substances during the reconstruction of efforts and potentially compromise the quality of groundwater and surface water.”
Tony Briscoe and Hayley Smith staff editors contributed to this report.
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