After discovering the preliminary test Heavy metal levels rise On the house standing after the fire.
Supervisors Kathryn Barger and Lindsey Horvath Proposed a movement Preliminary test results Released last week The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has a lead level of up to 80% of the lead sample of Eaton burn scars.
The board voted 4-0 for the county’s $3 million on Tuesday $134 million settlement with lead paint manufacturers in 2018 Test the properties of both downwind and within 1 mile of the boundary of Eaton Burn Scars.
Lead is a heavy metal associated with serious health problems, including damage to the brain and nervous system, as well as digestive, reproductive and cardiovascular problems. Environmental Protection Agency.
Roux Associates, a private testing company hired by the county, collected samples from 780 properties from two burning areas over the four weeks between mid-February and mid-March. It tested 14 toxic substances commonly found after wildfires: heavy metals such as arsenic and lead; polyaromatics, such as anthracene and naphthalene; and dioxins.
Ruks found that more than one-third of the samples collected in Eaton’s burn scars exceeded California’s health standard of 80 milligrams of lead per kilogram of soil. Nearly half of the samples outside the Bourne scar boundary have higher lead levels than the state limit. In the southwest, the downwind at the fire border is between 70% and 80% exceeding this limit.
In the Palisades combustion zone, tests found that Adam Love, vice president and chief scientist at Roux, had little pollution except for some isolated “hot spots” of heavy metals and polyaromatics. Said last week.
Nichole Quick, chief medical consultant for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, said at the time that officials will ask federal and state to help further evaluate Palisades’ hot spots and conduct targeted lead tests with the county in affected areas underwind the Eaton Fire.
The county is currently taking responsibility for pollutant testing because era The federal government reportedly chose to get rid of nearly two decades of tradition that tested soil for destroyed property after the fire was cleaned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
After the previous wildfire, the Army will first scrape 6 inches of topsoil from the removed property and then test the ground below. If these tests reveal that toxic substances are still present on the property, it will scrape further.
Soil tests on 12,500 properties have shown that even after the first 6 inches of top soil were scratched by federal crews, nearly one-third still contained dangerous levels of contaminants.
Los Angeles County ordered testing from Roox to replace federal testing. So far, the county has announced only the results of housing, which are not eligible for cleaning out of the Army Corps of Engineers; the results of structural damage or damage to land parcels are still pending.
FEMA decided to skip the test after the fire in Los Angeles, frustrating many residents and officials, demanding Federal agencies reconsider.
“If there is no sufficient soil test, the pollutants caused by the fire may remain undetected, posing risks to the returned residents, construction workers and the environment,” the office of Nancy Services, the state director of emergency services, wrote in a February letter to FEMA. “The failure to identify and remediate these fire-related pollutants could expose individuals to residual materials during reconstruction efforts and could endanger groundwater and surface water quality.”
