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As wildfire cleanup crews surge to nearly 1,200 workers, concerns about safety grow

February 7, 2025

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s army of wildfire cleanup crews has grown to nearly 1,200 workers as it races to meet a 30-day deadline set by the White House, but the rushed nature of the endeavor and the histories of the companies involved have sparked concerns.

The operation underway in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades is now the largest hazardous waste removal effort in the EPA’s history, officials said.

“We’re not going to wait days or weeks or months to ramp up,” said Lee Zeldin, the EPA’s newly installed administrator, in a statement. “We have over a thousand personnel on the ground to aid Californians, and our local, state, and federal partners, in Los Angeles’s recovery.”

The team has completed the first phase of cleanup at 1,153, or about 8%, of the 13,575 residential parcels affected by the Eaton and Palisades fires, as of Thursday, Feb. 6, according to the EPA. The second phase, which the Army Corp of Engineers will carry out, cannot begin on a property until the EPA has completed its work at that location. About 7,000 households have opted into that program so far and it is expected to begin next week, according to the county.

Processing sites criticized

The EPA’s faster ramp-up hasn’t gone smoothly and the Feb. 25 deadline is fast approaching. Residents and local officials in the San Gabriel Valley, Malibu and the Pacific Palisades have criticized the EPA’s opaque selection of the state and federal lands being used to process the hazardous materials before it is transferred to final disposal facilities, both within and outside of California. Officials have promised there will be no long-term effects from the use of the sites and will conduct soil sampling before and after to ensure areas are restored to their original state.

On the coast, residents protested the use of land in Topanga State Park, before officials announced a decision to open a second site in a parking lot at Will Rogers State Beach, but that also drew the ire of locals.

Farther inland, the selection of Lario Park, a federally owned property in Irwindale, for materials from the Eaton fire brought similar rebuke. The site is adjacent to the San Gabriel River and requires trucks to haul debris more than 15 miles through six cities. Officials have questioned why a site closer to Altadena wasn’t chosen.

Harry Allen, the EPA’s on-scene coordinator, told the Azusa City Council that additional staging areas are being sought closer to the burn area now that emergency personnel no longer need those locations.

The EPA has stressed it is taking precautions at all of the sites by sealing materials inside containers and bags and by using water to keep dust down. Protective flooring and waterproof barriers will be used to contain the waste.

Concerns about contractors

The deluge of contractors that have descended into those areas to bolster the EPA’s ranks has drawn additional concerns. One resident at the Azusa City Council meeting this week reported that some trucks transporting hazardous materials did not appear to have proper covers.

Additionally, at least one subcontractor has been fined repeatedly by the EPA and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control in recent years for violations relating to the handling of hazardous materials, according to public records.

Azusa Mayor Robert Gonzales visited Lario Park as part of a delegation of local officials last week and saw license plates from Oregon, Colorado and Washington. There, he learned how the process will unfold firsthand, though he still feels as though local communities are being kept in the dark.

“We’ve been in the dark since step one,” he said. “We don’t know who their contractors are, we know nothing. It is frustrating.”

The cities haven’t been included in any of the decision-making, he said.

“They’re expediting as quickly as possible,” Gonzales said. “My concern is, are you expediting it so quickly that human error could become a factor?”

The EPA hired two contractors, Environmental Quality Management and Weston Solutions, for $50 million and $26 million, respectively, to assist with the disaster cleanup, according to a federal spending database. Both companies have long histories with the EPA, including work on Hurricane Katrina, the space shuttle Columbia disaster and, more recently, the wildfires in Lahaina in Hawaii.

History of violations

Those companies then subcontracted the work out to meet the EPA’s huge demand. During a Jan. 29 townhall in Duarte, a resident accused one subcontractor, Clean Harbors, of having a history of environmental violations.

In November, the DTSC finalized a $125,000 penalty against Clean Harbors for more than two years worth of violations relating to the improper storage of hazardous waste at a facility in Wilmington, near Long Beach.

During inspections from 2018 to 2020, the DTSC found Clean Harbors had exceeded the waste storage capacity for certain areas of the facility, stored waste in unpermitted areas and containers, and failed to upkeep protective layers on the floor meant to stop spills and leaks from seeping into the concrete.

Records show the DTSC also fined Clean Harbors $52,000 for a facility in San Jose and $16,800 for another in the unincorporated community of Buttonwillow near Bakersfield in 2023.

Clean Harbors also has had its share of run-ins with federal regulators.

In 2021, the EPA reached a $25,000 settlement with the company for hazardous waste violations at a San Jose facility. The federal agency then hit Clean Harbors with another $270,412 penalty three years later for a Nebraska facility.

A Clean Harbors spokesperson and an attorney representing the company did not return requests for comment.

Another subcontractor, Patriot Environmental, was fined $10,640 by the DTSC for holding hazardous waste at a transfer facility for 141 days beyond the 10 days permissible under the law, according to a consent order.

Julia Giarmoleo, a spokesperson for the EPA, confirmed that both Clean Harbors and Patriot are subcontractors on the cleanup. However, neither is responsible for managing hazardous waste. The companies, like others involved, are providing manpower, she said.

If a company was fined in the past, Giarmoleo said, the EPA is “operating under the expectation that those violations were corrected.”

The amassed force is made up of about one EPA employee for every four contract workers, she said.

All contractors certified

All contractors and subcontractors are “certified to handle hazardous materials and hold other professional certifications specific to their job functions,” according to the EPA. Each attends a health and safety orientation and receives an overview of the standard operating procedure of the specific incident as well.

Anyone working on the clean-up effort is expected to follow federal standards and regulations. Ultimately, the EPA is the agency responsible for the hazardous materials removal and for ensuring all workers are operating to those standards, Giarmoleo said.

Zeldin, the new EPA administrator, was on the ground in Altadena on Thursday to talk to residents and officials and check on the progress on the cleanup efforts.

‘Lot of uncertainty’

Sam Kang, a Duarte councilmember, expressed his support for the recovery and said he understands the need for urgency, but he worries the rush will lead to mistakes that will impact the communities between Altadena and Lario Park as well as downstream if the river is impacted, he said.

Kang questioned whether sufficient training is possible in such a short time frame. He added that he is “baffled” by the EPA’s decision to work with a company fined for hazardous waste violations as recently as four months ago.

“This expansion is way too quick and they’re creating a lot of uncertainty for constituents,” Kang said. “Shouldn’t we take a little more time to clean it up safely, so we don’t jeopardize other people?”

The EPA’s quick standup of the site at Lario Park and the lack of communication with the neighboring municipalities in the beginning has shaken the confidence that some local leaders have in the agency, according to Gonzales, the Azusa mayor. He stressed that while the cities are opposed to the process, they still support the overall recovery efforts.

“You’re supposed to have confidence in the EPA because they’re the experts,” Gonzales said. “You want to believe that and you want to trust that, but they’re not getting out to a real good start here.

“There’s just a lot of mistrust now,” he added.

Staff writer David Wilson and correspondent Jarret Liotta contributed to this article.

Orange County Register

News Details

As wildfire cleanup crews surge to nearly 1,200 workers, concerns about safety grow

Processing sites criticized

Concerns about contractors

History of violations

All contractors certified

‘Lot of uncertainty’

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