REDLANDS, CA – A new report indicates that Environmental Chemical Corp., the main contractor employed by the U.S. Federal Government that is responsible for the ongoing cleanup efforts in the wake of the Los Angeles wildfires, has been accused of illegal waste dumping in the form of toxic ash and contaminated soil, putting the health and wellness of the California residents they are entrusted with serving at extreme risk.
The wildfires took place over the course of approximately one month in January 2025, and was made up of two separate fires in Eaton Canyon in the San Gabriel Mountains (the “Eaton Fire”) and the Santa Monica Mountains of Los Angeles County (the “Palisades Fire”); combined, these resulted in 29 deaths and nearly 16,000 structures being destroyed.
The aftermath was nearly as horrific, as the fire caused a variety of hazardous substances being left behind, including but not limited to arsenic, pesticides, copper from melted wiring, cadmium, benzo[a]pyrene, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and most notably lead.
According to government records obtained by the media, rushed workers employed by the contractor in question allegedly undertook “dangerous shortcuts” to dispose of hazardous waste left in the wildfire’s wake that could endanger thousands of residents who are poised to return to the sites of their former homes to begin the process of rebuilding the lives.
This has taken place despite the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers allocating a whopping $60 million towards employing overseers of cleanup efforts to ensure proper protocols were being adhered to in order to protect the environments devastated by the fires.
The records purportedly show that there were literally “dozens” of instances where personnel overseeing the L.A. cleanups pointed out workers who were disregarding safety practices in a manner that directly contributed to the spread of toxic wastes into surrounding areas.
Among the dozens of debris cleanup crews in question, employed by the Burlingame, California-based Environmental Chemical Corp., there were allegedly multiple accounts of violations when it came to the safe disposal of hazardous materials on their watch, reports say.
For example, one reports says that on April 30 of this year, an Environmental Chemical Corp., official ordered workers to transplant a significant amount of contaminated ash, soil, glass and other assorted debris from one property to another neighboring plot of land after the last dump truck had left for the day.
I questioned if this was allowable and then the crew dumped material into the excavator bucket and planned to move it on the lowboy with material in bucket. Don’t think this is allowed,” a federal supervisor said in a report, adding that the crews followed the orders in-part because they “were in a rush to get to the next site.”
Other examples of improper use of toxic debris include reportedly using contaminated soil to fill in holes and smooth out uneven property destroyed in the fires. Crews are also said to have worn contaminated boots when walking over cleared properties – which would have effectively undone the cleanup work already carried out – and sprayed and drained pool water contaminated by ash onto neighboring properties and into storm drains.
Under California law, the multiple alleged instances of improper dumping and misuse of debris are illegal, according to legal and environmental experts who had viewed the reports.
Obviously, there was some really good work done,” state Senator Ben Allen (D-Pacific Palisades) said regarding the state of the L.A. cleanup efforts. “But it appears that we’ve got some folks who are knowingly breaking the law and cutting corners in their cleanup protocol. We’ve got to figure out how widespread this was, and anybody who was responsible for having broken a law in this area needs to be held accountable.”
Media requests for comment from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were not returned as of press time.
