Cleanup crews in Los Angeles have cleared much of the millions of pounds of food left to rot after a massive warehouse burned for more than a week in June.
The smoke and lingering stench caused by the fire enveloped a nearby residential neighborhood for weeks, prompting legislative action, lawsuits and thousands of air quality complaints.
The remaining debris is expected to be completely removed and the Boyle Heights facility’s freezer cleaned and sanitized within a week, the South Coast Air Quality Management District said on Saturday in a statement. The removal marked “the =completion of a major phase of cleanup following weeks of persistent odors impacting surrounding communities.”
Lineage Logistics, which operated the cold-storage warehouse, confirmed the progress on its website, saying the company had spent more than 100,000 hours and over $100 million on the cleanup.
“No cleanup of this scale and speed has been executed before,” the company said in a statement on Saturday.
The announcement came too late for some residents, who have described not only sickening stenches but adverse health effects since the fire at the warehouse broke out on June 17.
“The best thing they can do to make right is not to come back,” Vivian M. Escalante, the president and chief executive of Boyle Heights Community Partners, a local nonprofit, said on Sunday. “We’re talking about the lives of people, and I feel that they’re not taking it seriously.”
On Saturday, Ysabel Jurado, the City Councilwoman who represents the area, accused Lineage of missing cleanup deadlines.
“That is overdue progress,” she said, “and it does not erase two months of odors, pests, and disruption.”
On Sunday, a Lineage spokeswoman did not answer questions about continued complaints and ongoing litigation, pointing instead to the earlier statement. The company has pushed back against the city’s deadlines, arguing that the size of the job was huge.
Several lawsuits have been filed in federal court, including class-action suits, alleging respiratory illness from smoke inhalation and financial losses because of business closures during the fire and cleanup.
Three community groups have given notice of intent to sue in federal court, accusing the company of failing to report the full range of chemicals emitted during the fire. Alma Marquez, the founder of Protect L.A. Now, one of the groups, said she and her family in nearby Monterey Park continue to suffer adverse health effects of smoke plumes that wafted into neighboring areas.
“ The headaches have not gone away. Our breathing is very belabored,” she said. “We’re still having a hard time with it.”
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