Gov. Gavin Newsom’s chief disaster officer on Wednesday urged the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency to reconsider its decision to forgo post-cleanup soil testing for the Los Angeles County wildfires.
The request drew a swift response from FEMA: No.
Federal contractors are removing wildfire debris and a 6-inch layer of topsoil from properties burned in the Eaton and Palisades fires. But FEMA said last week that it would not order soil testing, a long-standing approach to ensure properties meet California safety standards for toxic chemicals
The decision alarmed California elected officials and residents who feared that fire-devastated properties could still contain dangerous concentrations of toxic chemicals in their soil.
Nancy Ward, director of California’s Office of Emergency Services, sent a letter to FEMA Wednesday calling on the agency to reconsider its decision.
“Without adequate soil testing, contaminants caused by the fire can remain undetected, posing risks to returning residents, construction workers, and the environment,” Ward wrote in the letter, obtained by The Times. “Failing to identify and remediate these fire-related contaminants may expose individuals to residual substances during rebuilding efforts and potentially jeopardize groundwater and surface water quality.”
The letter, addressed to FEMA’s federal coordinating officer Curtis Brown, is the first indication that California officials are displeased with the federal cleanup strategy. It comes as officials announced that federal cleanup workers had just completed the first cleanup of a property in the Palisades fire.
Responding to Ward’s letter, Brown said that soil testing jeopardized the speed and the budget of the cleanup.
“Soil testing would delay recovery by several months,” Brown wrote in his response. “However, FEMA does not prevent the State, local governments, or individual property owners from conducting soil testing if they wish to do so. FEMA will not reimburse the costs for soil testing unless testing shows that positive results are clearly attributed to the fires.”
Debris removal has advanced at a rapid pace as work crews deployed by the federal government aim to clear away debris from some of the roughly 16,000 buildings destroyed in the two wildfires to facilitate a quick rebuilding process. But some residents and elected officials have expressed concern at the thoroughness of the disaster response, including soil sampling.
For nearly two decades, federal or state officials have ordered soil sampling in response to every major wildfire cleanup in California. The procedure is intended to act as a safeguard to prevent residents from returning to lingering contamination.
During the cleanup of the 2018 Camp fire, about one-third of the properties still contained toxic chemicals in excess of California cleanup standards, even after 3 to 6 inches of topsoil was removed, according to a report by a state contractor. As a result, cleanup crews were dispatched back to those properties to remove more soil and follow-up testing.
In her letter, Ward said past soil sampling demonstrates that wildfire-related contamination can extend far beyond 6 inches. For this reason, Ward said soil testing is an indispensable part of the process.
But Brown, in his reply, made clear FEMA disagrees.
“This practice was tedious, inefficient, and a barrier to timely clean up and recovery,” Brown wrote in his letter.
Federal officials have said cleanup crews won’t return to remove additional layers of soil if contamination is found nor will they bring in clean soil to add on top.
“We encourage the state to conduct soil testing if they wish to do so,” Brown wrote, “but [we] are confident that our current practices speed up recovery while protecting and advancing public health and safety.”
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