AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
It's a massive cleanup operation facing a deadline this week. President Donald Trump gave the Environmental Protection Agency just 30 days to remove hazardous waste left by the devastating wildfires in California. Millions of tons of ash and debris were created after the fires tore through the Pacific Palisades and Altadena, burning thousands of homes and properties to the ground. But now some residents are protesting against the decision to dump hazardous materials at local landfills. Tony Briscoe is an environmental reporter with the Los Angeles Times and joins us now. Welcome to the program.
TONY BRISCOE: Thank you for having me, Ayesha.
RASCOE: The amount of debris makes this one of the biggest cleanups in California's recent history. So just how much progress has been made?
BRISCOE: Yes. So we're nearing the completion of the first phase of this cleanup. And so that is the hazardous materials removal by the EPA. They've cleared about 7,000 of the 13,000 properties. And I think that there are serious concerns about the amount of time that federal cleanup crews have been given. In concept, you know, it's great if we can remove as much hazardous materials. You're talking about things like batteries, pesticides, firearm ammunition, propane tanks - anything that can't normally go to a local landfill from these properties.
But there's serious questions about the thoroughness of the cleanup because this really paves the way for the longer cleanup - the second phase, where you're removing ash, rubble and debris. The last thing you want is for a bulldozer or an excavator that's removing a lot of this ash and rubble to encounter something that could potentially explode or catch fire because that endangers workers.
RASCOE: The EPA handles kind of the first part of that cleanup that you were talking about, the visible hazardous materials, and then it's the Army Corps of engineers that handles that second phase that you're talking about. And how long does the Army Corps have to do that?
BRISCOE: So they're aiming to finish within a year, which, in relation to past major wildfires - it's a really staggering clip that they're operating under. I mean, I believe it was 18 months for the cleanup of Lahaina, and we're trying to cut that down by a significant portion with a lot more properties. And you also have to realize that a lot of this stuff contains chemicals that there is no safe level of exposure to. So people are concerned about the way it's being handled, where it's going.
And so what we've seen recently is for, you know, that Army Corps side of the cleanup, folks who live near these local landfills that typically don't accept high levels of toxic chemicals - communities rallied and actually were protesting and objecting to the decision to take what we know contains toxic chemicals to nonhazardous waste landfills.
RASCOE: One of the issues that has been raised is that the federal government is refusing to test soil under properties burnt to the ground. Why is that significant?
BRISCOE: Yeah. So for pretty much every wildfire in the last 20 years in California, they follow a specific set of protocols meant to ensure wildfire survivors are returning to clean properties. They are removing the hazardous materials. They remove the ash and rubble that's left behind, and then they remove an initial layer of topsoil. And then they do soil testing to make sure that the soil that they leave behind doesn't contain an excess level of chemicals above California's cleanup standards because the last thing that you want is for people to rebuild or to go back to properties that are still contaminated.
In this instance, FEMA is not paying for soil testing, which has caused quite an uproar. A lot of folks didn't realize that. State officials are really concerned. They're urging them to reconsider. But it seems that FEMA says that they are unwilling to do this because they believe that there might be legacy contamination, and they don't believe that any contamination that might be left behind is tied to the fires.
RASCOE: What can residents expect to happen next?
BRISCOE: After the first phase, we will move on to the second phase where homeowners have the decision to opt into that federal cleanup. They can also choose to hire private contractors. It's really moving at a lightning pace. But after debris, ash and soil is removed in this second phase of the cleanup, you know, there's no restrictions on rebuilding. Actually, rebuilding permits are being applied for right now. They have a center for that. So we could see rebuilding very soon after. The question is, will large swaths of these communities still be contaminated, and we still don't know the answer to that.
RASCOE: That's Tony Briscoe, environmental reporter with the Los Angeles Times. Thank you so much for joining us.
BRISCOE: Thank you for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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