The Brief

Yorba Linda is a small, sunny city southeast of Los Angeles. It’s perhaps best known for being the birthplace of President Richard Nixon.

But in the past few years, Yorba Linda has picked up another distinction: It’s home to the nation’s largest per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) water treatment plant of its kind, according to the city. PFAS, sometimes called "forever chemicals," are a type of chemical used to waterproof and stainproof manufactured products, like some nonstick cookware and upholstery.

“This December will be [three] years we've been running, and we’re the largest PFAS treatment plant using resin,” said J. Wayne Miller, former board president at the Yorba Linda Water District, for whom the plant is named.

Across the country the Environmental Protection Agency estimates there are thousands of water systems, serving around 100 million people, that have harmful levels of PFAS in their drinking water. Under an EPA rule finalized in April, affected water districts will have to take action to clean their water supplies.

Why Yorba Linda is a leader

In Orange County, the Yorba Linda treatment plant and others around it provide examples of how it can be done. The plant took over a long, narrow strip of the water district’s parking lot, not quite the length of a football field. A series of giant tanks sit atop a concrete platform.

“Honestly, they look like large propane cylinders,” said Todd Colvin, chief water system operator for the district.

Tanks to remove PFAS from drinking water at the Yorba Linda Water District's treatment plant have taken over a strip of the parking lot.

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Each tank looms about 10 feet tall and can hold around 4,500 gallons. There are 22 of them, arranged in a double row, painted pristine ivory white. The tanks are packed half-full with a kind of resin — special polymer beads — that pull PFAS out of the water.

Every gallon of water pumped from the district’s wells now passes through a few of these tanks for treatment, before going to the homes and businesses of 80,000 people.

The Yorba Linda Water District built the largest PFAS water treatment plant of its kind because it had a big PFAS problem. In February 2020, the water district had to take all of its wells offline because they were drawing groundwater contaminated with PFAS.

PFAS are a large class of man-made chemicals, some of which have been linked with various health problems, such as weakened immune systems, high cholesterol and certain cancers.

In Yorba Linda, all 10 of the district’s groundwater wells exceeded California’s recommended PFAS levels, which took effect in 2020 — 40 parts per trillion for PFOS and 10 parts per trillion for PFOA, two common PFAS chemicals. Water providers in the state that exceeded those limits had to stop using contaminated water or notify the public.

Those state limits, established four years before the EPA set national limits, put California’s cities ahead of the curve.

“I thank my lucky stars we were on the front end of that,” said Mark Toy, general manager of the Yorba Linda Water District.

Filtration plants cost less than imported water

The next city over is Anaheim, home to Disneyland. A few miles from Space Mountain, a paved industrial lot houses the second-largest PFAS water treatment plant of its kind.

“This would be a little bit larger than a basketball court,” said Mike Lyster, spokesman for the city, estimating the footprint of the 20 filtration tanks at this site.

Lyster said there was a brief time when Anaheim had the largest PFAS treatment plant.

“Kudos to Yorba Linda,” he said. “We're glad to see somebody else beat it because that means somebody else is addressing the issue.”

Anaheim is a larger city, and the public water utility there can provide water for upwards of 500,000 people a day. Back in 2020, when California’s PFAS rules came into effect, Anaheim took 14 of its 19 wells offline for excess PFAS.

If high levels of PFAS are found in drinking water, a water provider can switch to a source without the chemicals in it or filter them out.
At first, both Anaheim and Yorba Linda swapped mostly to water imported from northern California and the Colorado River that met the state standards. But water from those sources can cost twice as much as local groundwater.

Lyster said Anaheim’s water expenses went up by about $2 million a month.
So Anaheim and Yorba Linda fast-tracked construction of those big filtration tanks, to get their wells back in action.
The new EPA PFAS standards are even stricter than California’s: no more than 4 parts per trillion each for PFOA and PFOS, and additional limits for several other PFAS chemicals.
By the EPA’s standards, Anaheim’s remaining wells are now considered contaminated. Lyster said the city will expand its PFAS treatment capacity to comply with the federal rule by 2029. All told, building PFAS filtration for all 19 of Anaheim’s wells is projected to cost $200 million.
Anaheim and Yorba Linda are part of the Orange County Water District — a public agency that manages the region’s groundwater and that helped to design, fund and build the PFAS filtration plants.

Across Orange County, more than 100 wells have exceeded the EPA’s new standards. Fixing the problem in the county is expected to cost $1.8 billion dollars over 30 years, according to OCWD.

Pollution from the past is still present

Where is all the PFAS coming from? In Orange County, one of the primary culprits appears to be the Santa Ana River.

Almost a hundred miles long, the Santa Ana River flows through mountains and canyons, the cities and suburbs of San Bernardino and Riverside. Along the way, it picks up PFAS.

“We find it in some of just the natural runoff that goes into the river during the winter, during storms,” said Jason Dadakis, executive director of water quality and technical resources at the Orange County Water District. ”We also detect some PFAS coming out of the sewage treatment plants upstream.”

There’s also the legacy of factories and military bases in the area.

PFAS is found in runoff that makes its way into the Santa Ana River during the winter, says Jason Dadakis, executive director for water quality and technical resources for the Orange County Water District.

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In Orange County — the Santa Ana River’s last stop before the Pacific Ocean — some of the river water gets diverted to ponds where it can seep into the ground and refill the groundwater, which may have contributed to the contamination, Dadakis said.

And while the PFAS problem in Orange County is currently confined to the northern and central parts of the groundwater basin, Dadakis said wells that aren’t contaminated today could be in the future, based on how water moves underground.

“We know that we may have to be prepared to install additional treatment on those wells as they become impacted,” he said.

Orange County has a head start on solutions. But with the size of the PFAS problem across the country, its claims on having the largest PFAS treatment plants of their kind in the nation could soon be eclipsed.

The official start of summer is just around the corner, but temperatures are already beginning to heat up this week.

If you're at the beach today, temperatures are going to stay on the cooler side, with highs from 68 to 73 degrees in L.A. County, and between 70 and 77 degrees along the Orange County coast.

However, be careful in the water — forecasters say there's going to be dangerous rip currents and breaking waves from elevated surf up to 6 feet tall. Those conditions will last through Thursday.

Elsewhere, we're looking at highs of between 78 and 86 degrees for the valleys and up to 89 degrees for the Inland Empire.

Over in Coachella Valley, temperatures could climb up to 104 degrees. Stay hydrated!

Californians have been here before: The polls close and one candidate appears to be out of the running — only to see their fortunes shift as more mail-in ballots are counted.

It's happening in the races for L.A. mayor and California governor as the votes continue to be counted in the primary election.

More and more Californians are voting by mail, and people who turn their ballots in closer to the deadline tend to skew more progressive. There are an estimated 140,000 outstanding vote-by-mail ballots in L.A. County that still need to be counted, and about 92,000 in Orange County.

A not-unusual flip

In the mayor matchup, Spencer Pratt, a former reality TV star, had a significant runner-up lead over L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman when polls closed June 2. But Raman had been steadily picking up votes as results rolled in, taking over the second spot from Pratt as of Sunday. By Monday, the Associated Press called the race for Raman. She will face incumbent Karen Bass in the November general election.

The race for L.A. mayor started to noticeably shift last week. More than 140,000 ballots were processed Friday, and once they were added to the total, Raman had inched closer to TV personality Spencer Pratt in the race for second place. Most if not all of the ballots were vote by mail, according to estimates based on results from the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder / County Clerk.

Nearly 157,000 more ballots were processed by Saturday, about half of which were vote by mail.

Raman was nearly 22,000 votes ahead of Pratt as of Monday.

It’s been a similar story in the governor’s race. Republican Steve Hilton was in the top spot with a lead of a few percentage points over Democratic challenger Xavier Becerra last Tuesday. Becerra has now eclipsed Hilton by about 202,000 votes and is headed to the November runoff. It was unclear who would be joining Becerra in the general election as of Monday.

Vote surges that flips races and advance lower-ranked candidates to the general election aren’t new (which is why you may hear some refer to Election Day as election week or election season).

In 2024, for example, L.A. City Council District 14 incumbent Kevin de León wrapped up election night ahead of his challengers, but the lead eroded in the days following.

Ysabel Jurado, a tenants rights attorney that was endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, picked up enough votes to overtake de León and eventually win the general election.

Voting by mail is more popular with Democrats than Republicans, and California accepts those ballots up to a week after the election (as long as it was postmarked on or before last Tuesday).

Changes in the results have started to slow down and should continue to drop off after Tuesday's deadline.

When to expect new numbers

Updated vote totals are being released as ballots continue to be verified and counted.

The drops continue this week and are expected around 4 p.m. today through Friday, according to the registrar-recorder.

The updates will become more infrequent starting next week as the number of outstanding ballots dwindle. Drops are expected around 4 p.m. June 16 and 18, as well as June 24 and 26.

How to tell if your ballot has been counted

You can track when your vote has been received and counted through the Where’s My Ballot? tool.

You can sign up to get notifications through that tool, but some voters have been reporting delays, which the Registrar-Recorder’s Office said it’s aware of.

County officials saw a “large volume” of vote-by-mail ballots around Election Day, which could lead to slight delays, a spokesperson told LAist in an email. Those ballots need to be processed and scanned before notifications can be sent.

L.A. County also has its own vote-by-mail tracking tool that may update quicker. You can check the status of your ballot here.

Orange County has a similar tool for tracking your ballot, which you can find here.

How to stay up-to-date

You can sign up to get the latest L.A. County ballot count updates sent straight to your email inbox here. You can sign up for Orange County updates here, and from the California Secretary of State here.

You can also find them on our L.A. results and O.C. results pages.

You can also sign up for Make it Make Sense here, LAist’s newsletter about the primary election results.

Something unusual is happening with only a few days remaining before the U.S. men's national team opens its World Cup campaign against Paraguay: Tickets for the match are not sold out.

Although numbers fluctuate regularly, FIFA's ticketing website still shows 132 tickets left to sell for a game that's set to take place in Los Angeles on Friday. Meanwhile, resale platforms such as StubHub and SeatGeek — and FIFA's own marketplace — also show thousands of tickets on sale.

The number is even higher for Canada's opening match against Bosnia Herzegovina in Toronto on the same day, with 226 tickets left in FIFA's website and a high number of tickets available in resale markets.

That's unusual for high-profile events such as the opening matches of the World Cup — traditionally among the hardest to get tickets in the tournament. This year will feature three hosts in the U.S., Canada and Mexico — but so far only Mexico's opening match against South Africa on Thursday looks to be virtually sold out.

Ticketing experts widely agree on the reason: the prices. FIFA dramatically jacked them up for the tournament — especially for high profile games. The most expensive regular seats for the U.S. opener against Paraguay are priced at $2,735 — more than the final cost for the 2022 World Cup final — while the cheapest are $1,120.

Even President Trump said he wouldn't pay those prices.

"I would certainly like to be there, but I wouldn't pay it either, to be honest with you," Trump told the New York Post in a recent interview.

The other two remaining games for the U.S. national have far fewer tickets available, given that prices are well below the ones for the opening match.

Prices have also fallen sharply

There are not only plenty of tickets left to sell — a number of them are also available below FIFA's face value. According to Ticketdata, which tracks prices across the resale platforms, the cheapest pair of tickets for the opening match for the U.S. and Canada was $951 as of Monday morning, while in FIFA's resale platform, tickets were available for as low as $690.

Other games across the 104-match tournament also still have many tickets left to sell — despite FIFA President Gianni Infantino's claim that every match is "already sold out." That's especially the case for lesser well known teams such as the Jordan against Algeria match, which still had hundreds of unsold seats in the FIFA's web site.

Demand for high-profile tickets such as Argentina and Portugal was far higher, however, with many of those games looking largely sold out.

Will the opening matches sell out?

Whether eventually the U.S. and Canada opening matches will sell out is hard to answer. Throughout the sales process, FIFA has closely guarded how many tickets it has actually sold and how many are left to sell, making it virtually impossible to gauge.

In addition, like other teams, FIFA could also sell tickets in other platforms including third-party ones such as SeatGeek, which can further obscure how many tickets are left to sell.

FIFA and organizers, however, are hoping for a surge in excitement that leads to a last-minute rush of sales for the opening matches as well as for those such as Jordan against Algeria that look far from being sold out.

Ben Shields, a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, says perceptions so far of the tournament have been shaped by how expensive tickets and travel has been for a tournament taking place across an entire continent.

That, he says, "does not seem to sit well with many."

But that could change.

"The hope or bet — for FIFA is that once the matches start — and the greatest players in the world compete for the most prestigious prize of them all, the sport as business lens will fade into the background and the World Cup will be seen and experienced as the enduring global institution that it is," Shields says. "We shall see."
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Orange County’s top elected leaders on Tuesday are set to discuss what to do with $3.7 million recovered from the Andrew Do corruption scheme.

Do is now serving a five-year sentence in federal prison after he admitted to accepting bribes in exchange for awarding millions in tax dollars meant to feed needy seniors and people with disabilities in his district.

As part of the plea deal, Do acknowledged taking more than $800,000 in bribes through his two daughters, including a down payment on the house his youngest daughter Rhiannon Do later forfeited to resolve the criminal case. The scheme was first uncovered by LAist.

Federal officials recovered money from seized bank accounts and two properties connected to Do’s scheme — including the Tustin house his daughter bought.

The county Board of Supervisors is expected to publicly discuss plans for the recovered funds as they make decisions on the overall county budget at their meeting Tuesday. Public comment will also be taken.

What to do with the money?

Ahead of Tuesday’s discussion, Do’s successor said the funds should support residents of his former district who were deprived by Do and his alleged co-conspirators.

“For the past five years, every other district in Orange County has benefitted from the same community funds to support their cities, nonprofits, civic projects which strengthens their communities,” Supervisor Janet Nguyen wrote in a mass email to constituents last week. “However, our district went without because Do stole what belonged to our residents.”

“This money was stolen from the First District, and it must come back to the First District,” Nguyen added.

Nguyen was Do’s mentor and former boss more than a decade ago, before the two had a bitter falling out by 2016.

She encouraged residents of her district to send letters to the board and to speak during public comments.

Several county supervisors told LAist they supported a similar approach, one in which the recovered money goes to support the original intended recipients: seniors and people with disabilities in Do’s former district. Some supervisors have since advocated a broader view of how they’d want to use the money, noting that it was meant to address disruptions caused by the pandemic. Now that years have passed since the initial COVID-19 outbreak and lockdowns, some supervisors argue community needs have changed.

“We are so many years on, and the problems that money originally was to address (mostly Covid impacts) are now behind us, that I think we should have a discussion about how and where to spend it,” Supervisor Don Wagner told LAist via text message in March. “The budget is so tight and the needs so great across the county.”

Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento said he’d work toward a fair distribution of the funds to best serve residents, with a focus on current needs.

“We will definitely consider what areas of the County were harmed by Do’s scheme, but we must also remember that the funds were intended for relief efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic, a threat we are no longer facing,” he said in March. “We also need to consider addressing the current needs of residents with any dollars returned to the county.”

Millions more haven’t been recovered, at least yet

The amount of taxpayer money recovered so far is less than half of the $7.9 million Andrew Do admitted was diverted from specific meal contracts.

In a lawsuit seeking to recover funds, the county alleges the total amount lost in the scheme was even larger: $13.25 million. The county’s suit — scheduled for trial in November 2027 — covers all of the money Do gave to two nonprofits accused in the scheme, Viet America Society and Hand to Hand Relief Organization.

That leaves more than $4 million — and possibly much more — not yet recovered.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office noted they have an ongoing criminal case against Do’s alleged co-conspirator Peter Pham.

“Assuming we obtain a conviction in that matter, we would expect to seek restitution,” the spokesperson, Ciaran McEvoy, said.

Pham left the country on a flight to Taiwan in late 2024 and remains a fugitive, according to McEvoy. The case against him also includes charges against another alleged co-conspirator, Thanh Huong Nguyen, who led the Hand to Hand nonprofit.