EPA ends the first phase of removal of ruins in palisades, Eaton Fire Zones

In a large milestone for the fire brigade of Los Angeles, the officials announced on Wednesday that the US environmental protection authority ended the first phase of removal of rubble in the Altadena and Pacific Palisades Burn zones.

Dangerous household items, including propane tanks and lithium-ion batteries, were removed from about two thirds of the buildings destroyed in the fires, said the EPA. The 9.201s clarified buildings include 4,852 houses in the Eaton Fire Footprint and 4,349 in the Palisades Fire Burn Zone.

The other 33% of the buildings burned in January or about 4,400 buildings were pushed to the US Army Corps of Engineers to get additional clean -up work before the dangerous waste can be removed, said civil servants.

A record-breaking number of people worked on complying with the period set by the Trump administration according to the fires of the Trump government on February 25, said the EPA.

CHeree Peterson, the reigning regional administrator of the EPA, said 1,700 human-in-minds of the EPA employee and winner, the California states and around 200 activists of the military hats to remove around 300 tons of dangerous budget greening, including more than a thousand lithium-ion batteries.

The crews searched by hand in the household waste, including frequent household items such as bleach, color, drain cleaner, pesticides, weeds and aerosol sprays as well as lithium-ion batteries, propane tanks, ammunition and asbestos.

“This is the greatest reaction of the running fire with which the EPA is ever involved,” said Peterson.

The agency made its deadline despite the greatest storm of winter, which prompted some sludge flows and floods in the Eaton Fire Area, and forced the closure of some parts of the Pacific Coast Highway.

The milestone is a critical step towards reconstruction, since dangerous waste has to be removed before the crews can bring heavy machines to the real estate to start deleting the wreck.

The EPA opened four Staging areas to sort dangerous waste and temporarily keep it before it was sent to disposal in special facilities. The locations caused violent protests by residents who did not want this waste near their houses or protected waterways.

The EPA will close its temporary locations in Lario Park in Irwindale and in Will Rogers State Beach in Malibu within three weeks, said Peterson. She said the agency had to carry out final soil tests at both locations to “ensure that there is absolutely nothing”.

The processing locations on the Altadena Golf Course and the former Motel from Topanga Ranch on the Pacific Coast Highway remain open to sorting, warehouse and ship waste found during the Clearance of the Army Corps, Peterson said.

The approximately 4,400 remaining properties, which were not deleted by the EPA, mainly have structural problems that have made it unsafe for the crews by hand after dangerous waste and looking for the top corps of the Army Corps, Eric Swenson, for the army corps.

He said some houses had deep cellars that are inaccessible because the stairs are burned and have other walls that are still standing, but are at risk of collapse. He said the Army Corps would use heavy machines to remove curved walls and other dangers before starting the search for dangerous household items.

The Army Corps will use the same process as the EPA to find and remove dangerous waste, said Swenson. The crews absorb the objects by hand, place them in sealed containers and let them drop out at the EPA processing locations, he said. Lithium-ion batteries are picked up by the EPA, he said.

The residents can check the status of their property with the interactive map of the EPA.