Duarte, California – Not far from the place where Carroll lives, a rock extraction company polluted the air with dust in the San Gabriel valley, she said.
Now, while the crews were charred with Los Angeles forest fires, she is concerned about a new potential source of contamination: a site to treat the dangerous debris of the Eaton fire.
“I am concerned about the community and school districts here, where we have children,” said Carroll, a 23 -year -old duarte resident and former member of the local school board.
“We are dealing with the site with chemicals and dangerous materials,” she said. “Parents are absolutely worried.”
Carroll is among the residents of Duarte, Azusa and neighboring cities opposing the use by the Lario Park by the environmental protection agency in Irwindale as a temporary site to separate, pack and transport potentially dangerous materials from Eaton’s fire.
In ordinary times, people picnic, bike or drive horses on equestrian trails in the field belonging to the federal government. They are now worried about hazardous waste that could pollute the air or infiltrate the groundwater.
The flames that started on January 7 have charred thousands of buildings, cars and electronics in the Los Angeles region. The EPA began the enormous task of potentially eliminating hundreds of tons of dangerous materials from Eaton and palisades. This includes paintings, pesticides, solvents, tablet cylinders, ammunition and lithium-ion batteries of electric cars that could become toxic when burned.
“The removal of these materials should not be done at the cost of creating a toxic environment for communities already affected disproportionately by pollution,” said the County Supervisor of Los Angeles, Hilda Solis, in a press release .
Mainly Latin American communities adjacent to the site are exposed to higher levels of ozone pollution and particles than other regions, according to data from the California Office of Environmental Health Raced Assessment.
Experts recognize the concerns of residents, but say that hazardous waste is not necessarily harmful as long as safety measures are in place and that waste is not stored on site for years.
At the town hall on Wednesday, California senator Susan Rubio and local mayors oppose the Grilled State site and federal officials: How was the site chosen? Why were we not consulted or notified? Why are the toxic truck waste at 15 miles (24 kilometers) from the burning area and risk contaminating our communities? What tests will be carried out after closing?
Hundreds of residents piled up in the center of the show arts and spread in the corridor. They shouted “Stop it!” And sang “Let him Altadena!”
EPA coordinator, Tara Fitzgerald, told the public that sites closer to the Eaton burning area were used for emergency fire operations, including Rose Bowl and Pasadena Santa Anita Park. They chose the Lario Park site because it suited their needs and was available.
She stressed that EPA has done this work for years through the state.
“We did exactly the same” for Woolsey’s fires, Santa Rosa and Napa, said Fitzgerald, and “we had no impact on the community throughout the process”.
But Eaton and Palisades fires are unprecedented. Together, they set fire to the largest urban area ever recorded in California, according to an Associated Press analysis, and more than double the urban area consumed by Woolsey 2018 fire.
The EPA said that it would regularly monitor the air, sampled the soil, would use water trucks to control the dust and transport waste from the area daily.
The agency borders areas with plastic where materials are treated and use watles, earth berms and other items to control spills. Waste will be transported in the surface streets, and not on the highways, so trucks can travel at a slower and safer speed, EPA Celeste of EPA at the Comté supervisors council said. She said the site would probably be used for less than six months and that more areas are underway.
With these protective measures, the risks of contamination of groundwater, which takes a lot of time, are low, said Sanjay Moisséy, an associate professor of the UCLA who studied the effects of forest fires on water and soil .
“There are several feet of soil that the pollutant must cross, and this also requires a lot of water to piping the system,” said Mohanty. “And even if there are leeches, they would not migrate in the ground in a short time.”
The greater risks are soil and air pollution by possible dust emissions, he added, but they can also be attenuated.
The resident of Duarte, Laura Jasso, did not leave the reassured meeting and remained upset by the lack of transparency of state and federal officials.
“It is difficult to trust when they really did this behind our back,” she said.
While the crews continue to work, residents should be vigilant to what is happening on the site and ask how the materials are managed, on emergency intervention plans and truck routes and timetables, said Rachael Jones , professor and director of the Center of the UCLA for work and the health environment.
“The community has the right to know this information from EPA and the Army Corps,” said Jones.
Jasso said his community has committed to holding the EPA responsible for security.
“In the end, we don’t want to do it here, and we will continue to fight so as not to have it here,” she said about the site. “But the fact is that it is here right now. And so we simply have to recognize the security of our students, the concerns of our families. »»
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The Associated Press writer, Christopher Weber, contributed to this report.
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