EPA addresses public concerns over location of Eaton fire hazardous waste staging area

By David Wilson, SCNG staff writer, and Jarret Liotta, correspondent

At this point, Azusa’s City Council can’t stop the sorting of hazardous fire debris at the Lario Staging Area, but on Monday night its members asked representatives of the Environmental Protection Agency to at least provide residents with answers and assurances to their concerns.

A number of people brought questions and concerns to the council’s regular meeting about the federal officials’ decision to use the parcel of government-owned land along W. Foothill Blvd. to sort hazardous materials from the Eaton fire.

EPA crews have been collecting hazardous materials from homes and businesses within the footprint of both the Palisades and Eaton fires during the first of two phases of  the debris-removal process.

Phase two will be the much larger effort led by the Army Corps of Engineers to remove the remaining debris.

Residents and local officials alike have expressed consternation, saying they were left outside of the decision-making loop.

“To a fault, yes, we were not communicated with and we can pound this table and complain that we should have been told, but at the end of the day it has to be done,” Mayor Robert Gonzales told Harry Allen, the EPA’s on-scene coordinator for the site.

“For me, I hope tonight that I can relay a message … We need assurances … We need to have a long-term commitment … I want a commitment that you’re not gonna forget about Azusa when you pack up and leave,” Gonzales said.

“You’re doing the work but who’s checking that work?” he said.

Talking through a presentation that included some short video clips of workers loading materials, Allen said there would be no long-term effects from use of the location, with air and dust tests taking place during the operation, with the Army Corps of Engineers, which manages the site, maintaining water-quality tests.

“The decision itself was made by President Trump, directing us to get this job done,” Allen said, within a 30-day window, by Feb. 25, in part to support homeowners returning to their residences as soon as possible.

“We looked at many sites between the Eaton footprint and where we are now … sites that are open, that are flat, that we can get trucks in and out of,” he said, explaining that some potentially suitable locations closer to the fire were already being used by different emergency personnel.

“Now that they’re leaving, we’re re-evaluating those sites to try to get them,” Allen said, noting that in order to get the job completed within the required timeframe, they definitely need additional staging areas to collect and sort the fire debris.

“We have to go to 6,600 properties in the Eaton fire footprint alone … It’s gonna be a long haul no doubt,” he said, with only two or three percent of the project done at this time.

Allen said things move quickly at the site itself, with material sorted as soon as it arrives. As designated containers are filled, they’re immediately loaded onto trucks, and once each truck is filled it leaves the site to take the materials to the appropriate processing facilities.

“We’ve done a lot of these staging areas … It’s become something that we’re particularly proficient at,” he said, noting there are hundreds of people working on the effort.

“It’s going to be a little longer than 30 days,” he said, but he doesn’t expect it to drag on for the five months the work took following the 2023 fires in Maui, Hawaii.

“We don’t expect that here because we were ordered to do it a lot faster,” Allen said.

Earlier Monday, Allen walked members of the media through the cleanup of two neighboring properties in Altadena, near Lake Avenue and Las Flores Drive.

While deadlines are often set in the wake of natural disasters, Allen called the timeline for the EPA on the Southern California fires particularly aggressive compared to the Lahaina response because the priorities were different.

“The desire was to do things slow and methodical there to respect the culture and also in that situation they didn’t let anybody back in because they wanted to protect particular cultural artifacts they wanted to protect the area so we were able to operate in there with a little more freedom,” Allen said.

Contractors, covered head to toe in personal protective equipment combed through the rubble of two homes and placed hazardous materials into bags. A worker suiting up to enter the burned zone used duct tape to seal his pants legs and sleeves.

Allen said hundreds of contractors as well as engineering consultants have been brought in to meet the time crunch.

On Monday, 24 EPA crews were spread across the Eaton fire footprint looking for materials such as paint, cleaners, solvents, oils, batteries, ammunition and pesticides. In addition, lithium-ion batteries need to be safely removed from items as small as digital cameras to electric vehicles.

Across the street from the homes crews worked on Monday was a burned out vehicle marked with blue tape in the shape of a lightning bolt indicating it had a lithium battery removed.

Each crew is made up of six to eight people. Each property can take anywhere from a couple hours to a whole day. The goal is for each team to complete several properties per day. The crews are working 12 hours a day several days a week.

Despite assurances, some residents remain cautiously concerned about bringing the materials to Azusa.

“The reality is that we don’t know what the long-term effects will be … the unintended consequences, things they are not planning for that, 20 years from now, our children are going to have to be dealing with,” resident Daisy Hernandez told the council.

“I’m really concerned … I strongly and totally and absolutely oppose the operation in our city,” she said.

Amy Cunningham of Azusa said she lives right near the site.

“A lot of older people live in that area and it’s not good for them,” she said. “It’s not good for me or my kids, either, to breathe that.”

“Why can’t they put that debris over there?” she said. “Why does it have to come to Azusa?”

Others also questioned the quality of the work of the contractors working with the EPA, with one reporting anecdotally that the trucks carrying materials have, in some cases, not been properly covered.

“It gets windy right there where they’re doing the operation,” Jose Aguilar of Duarte said, noting it was possible unhealthy materials could escape.

“It’ll be too late … How can they control whatever debris is flying all over?” he said. “Also, if it rains, how are they gonna control all of that?”

EPA representatives explained that there was covering on the ground under the main tent, where most of the work was being done. There were barricades to prevent water from going to or from the work area.

“I want to give you my commitment that I want to make it right and make it a positive experience,” Allen said.