This story first appeared on The LA Local.
The deadline set by Mayor Karen Bass for the removal of all rotting food from the Lineage Logistics cold storage facility in Boyle Heights is fast approaching.
“To no surprise to anyone, the work is not done,” Bass said at a virtual community meeting Thursday evening.
Bass earlier on Thursday told The LA Local that all of the approximately 88 million pounds of food that had been stored inside when the facility caught fire in June was expected to be removed by Friday. In the Zoom meeting Thursday evening, she said after her deputy mayor toured the warehouse, it was clear that wouldn’t happen.
“Lineage is a multibillion-dollar company with the resources to meet this deadline, but we know now they will not. … How far away from meeting the deadline, it’s anyone’s guess,” she said.
City Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who represents District 14 where Lineage is located, said in a press release Thursday afternoon that the cleanup efforts would not meet the deadline.
“I fully support the Mayor leveraging all the enforcement, cost-recovery, and accountability tools available to make clear that when the City establishes a public-health deadline, corporations are expected to meet it – and there are consequences when they do not,” Jurado said in the statement.
LA County Supervisor Hilda Solis echoed the need for accountability.
“I am disheartened and disappointed that Lineage’s cleanup remains incomplete, despite actions that the County of Los Angeles has taken at my direction to accelerate the process,” she said in a statement.
The company’s reports on the cleanup progress, similarly, have not appeared to be on pace with meeting Friday’s deadline. And some residents believe the putrid air they’ve had to live with for months will linger indefinitely despite the bureaucratic goal posts being met or moved.
Here’s what we know about the final phase of cleanup.
What is the deadline?
Soon after a fire broke out on the roof of the 500,000-square-foot cold storage facility on Los Palos Street on June 17, the managers cut the power to the two massive refrigerated rooms in the building. While firefighters took about a week to contain the blaze, the millions of pounds of food inside quickly began to rot in the summer’s heat.
Bass on June 29 issued an executive order requiring the removal of all remaining food in 45 days, or Friday, Aug. 14. Food cleanup began in early July.
Meanwhile, residents of Boyle Heights, East LA and several other neighboring communities who were left to deal with the putrid odors, have made more than 4,000 air quality complaints to regulators since early July.
It’s not the only deadline Lineage Logistics faces.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District, which regulates air pollution in the region, issued 19 notices of violation alleging the odors created a public nuisance. Last week, the agency ordered the company to meet dozens of cleanup and air quality control standards, including enforceable requirements for food removal and full facility cleaning.
That agency set a separate deadline of weeks for the food and other material to be removed before the remaining freezer room is fully sanitized.
What’s been cleaned up so far?
The freezer that was extensively damaged by fire has been cleared. The remaining freezer held the vast majority of the rotting food that has been polluting the air in nearby neighborhoods.
Lineage Logistics has for weeks reported on its website about its progress toward 100% cleanup.
Residents can get a sense of their pace for cleanup by tracking their reports:
- Aug. 7: 85% of food waste had been removed
- Aug. 11: 92% of “bulk food cleanup” was completed
- Aug. 12: 93% of food had been cleaned up
It’s unclear how exactly Lineage is arriving at these measurements and how the city or some other agency is independently verifying this progress.
Will they meet the deadline?
Lineage is clearing between 1 and 1.5% of food each day, according to their progress reports. This roughly aligns with the weekly goal AQMD ordered Lineage to maintain, 10% or 8.8 million pounds of food removed each week.
At that pace, it is unlikely they’ll be able to remove the remaining 7% of food waste in the next 24 hours.
Unless they significantly accelerate, this puts full food cleanup somewhere into next week. That revised timeline better aligns with the one Dominic DiCarlo, vice president of global safety and compliance for Lineage, outlined during the AQMD hearing last week.
DiCarlo added that the company expects to spend between $80 and $100 million on the cleanup and related expenses, which has been described as continuing around the clock.
Lineage did not respond to The LA Local’s request for more information about their progress toward the mayor’s deadline on Thursday.
What happens if they blow the deadline?
Jurado expressed frustration with what residents have had to deal with.
“For nearly two months, families in Boyle Heights have lived with unbearable odors, flies and pests, truck traffic, uncertainty, and disruption to their homes, businesses, and daily lives,” she said. “They were told there was a deadline, and they had every right to expect that deadline to mean something.”
Bass’ executive order did not provide details on what would happen if Lineage does not meet the Friday deadline for clean up. But at the virtual community meeting Thursday, she said called on the city’s attorneys to pursue civil litigation and added the city was even considering putting a lien on the warehouse property to reimburse the city’s costs responding to the disaster.
“We want the community to be made whole as though this tragedy never happened,” she said.
Bass was previously among several local elected officials who had pushed AQMD to levy fines on Lineage for its air pollution violations, which it did not do. She has pushed city agencies to prevent Lineage from reconstructing the facility and continuing its business there. Local lawmakers have also introduced legislation that could increasingly regulate similar businesses in the future.
AQMD can levy penalties if Lineage does not meet its deadlines for cleanup in the coming weeks.
What are residents saying?
As it became clear Thursday afternoon that Lineage would likely miss the cleanup deadline, Alma Marquez of Protect LA Now demanded long-term housing for residents impacted by the fire and for their homes to be cleaned and tested.
Marquez wondered what kind of consequences Lineage could face by missing the deadline, especially after air regulators have failed to require Lineage to pay any financial penalties.
“Is the mayor going to fine them? … Is the state going to come in and actually hold people accountable?” she told Boyle Heights Beat.
“The families that we have been organizing with are absolutely angry, disheartened, frustrated, saddened of how they’ve been treated, not just by the corporation … but the community feels very disappointed in how the government, that’s supposed to be the buffer between the corporation and the public, has not protected the public,” Marquez continued.
Meanwhile, residents on Prado Street were still hopeful that cleanup would be finished by the deadline.
“Ojalá,” that’s what Irma Soto said when she was asked if she believed workers would finish in time. “I hope they finish so this could all end.”
“It smells horrible,” she added as the stench emanated from the neighborhood early Thursday afternoon.
Soto said she’s been seeing more trailers picking up debris lately. Her neighbor said there appears to be more nighttime work near the facility recently.
“Who knows if they’ll finish, but they are working faster,” the neighbor said.
