WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin stated that the agency has completed its work to safely dispose of household hazardous materials from areas burned by the catastrophic Los Angeles County wildfires.
The Phase 1 hazardous materials mission was completed in record 28 days, in less than the 30 days timeframe set by President Donald Trump in an Executive Order.
This effort has been the largest wildfire hazardous waste cleanup in the history of the EPA.
At the direction of the President, EPA partnered with the U.S. military and U.S. Department of Homeland Security to develop and execute a response plan. Under EPA leadership, crews identified and cleared hazardous materials from 13,612 residential properties and 305 commercial properties, paving the way for debris removal and other stages of the recovery effort to move forward.
EPA teams have also removed 1,038 electric vehicles and bulk energy storage systems.
Administrator Zeldin traveled to Los Angeles on February 6 to survey damage and meet with EPA personnel on the ground.
'Together with the support of our partners, more than 1700 staff identified and then cleared hazardous materials from properties in both fire footprints, finishing just 29 days after beginning our work in the field,' said EPA's Incident Commander Tara Fitzgerald.
EPA crews also worked to remove and safely dispose of more than 1000 lithium-ion batteries from vehicles, homes and other battery powered products. EPA established staging areas to safely sort and package hazardous materials collected in the Eaton and Palisades fire areas for final disposal. EPA will conduct post-operations soil sampling at each staging area to ensure that there was no impact.
'There is still a long road ahead for thousands of residents who lost everything just a few weeks ago, but EPA is proud to do our part in the recovery process. The community will rebuild stronger than ever before,' said EPA Administrator Zeldin.
EPA said in a press release that due to the presence of unsafe conditions at the property, hazardous waste removal crews could not complete Phase 1 work, and it has been deferred to Phase 2.
One of the worst wildfires in U.S. history raged from January 7 to 31 in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and San Diego County in California. The wildfires killed at least 29 people, forced more than 200,000 others to evacuate, and destroyed more than 18,000 homes and structures. The wildfires burned over 57,000 acres of land in total.
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