The Brief

The L.A. County Department of Public Health has found high levels of lead in the soil of properties that burned during January’s fires and have now been cleared by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The county initiated the testing after the Army Corps said it would not do the testing itself, breaking with a longstanding practice of the federal government doing that work. Army Corps officials said removing up to 6 inches of topsoil would be enough to eliminate hazardous chemicals.

But ongoing testing is finding that is not necessarily the case.

The county hired environmental consulting firm Roux Associates Inc. to sample soil at 30 properties — 15 in the Eaton Fire burn zone and 15 in the Palisades — that had been cleared by the Army Corps.

The results were most worrisome in Altadena, where about 27% of the samples had lead levels above California’s residential safety standard. (No amount of lead exposure is considered safe, but state health standards aim to reduce risk of exposure.)

In the Palisades burn scar, fewer than 3% of cleared properties had lead levels above California’s safety standard.

Lead levels were lower on cleared properties as opposed to properties that had not yet been cleared by the Army Corps: 44% of samples taken from unscraped properties in Altadena had elevated lead levels, while 12% of samples taken at unscraped properties in the Palisades had higher levels.

“While the U.S. Army Corps doesn't decrease the risk in the Eaton area down to zero, it does reflect a significant improvement,” Adam Love, the vice president and principal scientist for Roux, said at a virtual community meeting Thursday.

In mid-April, the county released preliminary testing results showing elevated lead levels in soils of properties downwind of the Eaton Fire.

The county did not share data showing how far above health standards the samples were, saying the data had yet to be finalized. California’s state standards for residential properties say lead levels should not exceed 80 parts per million. The federal EPA’s standard is 200 parts per million.

An aerial view of Altadena showing several cleared properties amongst many more awaiting to be cleared of debris and rubble from the Eaton Fire on April 7, 2025.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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The county will update the latest testing data on a dashboard tracking air, soil and water testing in the burn zones.

USC researchers have been doing their own testing with property owners as well, finding some samples that are more than three times the standards.

Professor Seth John, who is spearheading that effort, said the team is starting to shift its focus to understand levels of contamination between cleared versus uncleared properties. (If you’re concerned about how the fires affected your soil, you can get involved with the project here.)

Why the disparity between Altadena and the Palisades?

The reason for the difference between the lead levels in the Palisades and Eaton burn scars is not clear.

“The honest answer is we don't know,” Love said. “ It could be related to the difference in the housing stock and the fact that the houses in the Eaton area are more likely to have lead-based paint.”

Love said it could also be a result of ongoing debris clearing dislodging ash, causing lead and other toxic metals to once again settle on cleared properties.

Or, Love added, it could be that lead was already there. It’s not uncommon to find elevated lead levels in Southern California soil because of the region’s industrial history and past prevalence of lead in fuel and paint.

“ There's a lot of different things that could explain why, but we can't just from the data that we collected,” Love said.

That’s why he and county officials said soil testing should be a part of every rebuild plan, and property owners should target that testing to areas that will be exposed and used, such as playgrounds, outdoor eating areas, gardens or walkways.

But fire survivors worry that could lead to additional debris removal needs and even more costs as they try to rebuild.

Testing downwind and blood tests

The county is also launching a large-scale free soil testing effort on May 19.

“This is targeted specifically to homes downwind of the Eaton Fire, where we saw the most significant findings from the soil sampling,” said Dr. Nichole Quick of the county’s Public Health Department.

Quick said about 26,000 eligible homes will receive a postcard invitation to participate.

The program is expected to run through December.

Residents can also get their soil tested free through USC, which is researching how the fires may have affected soil.

Meanwhile, Quick urged residents, especially those with young children, to take advantage of free blood tests. She said you can ask your doctor for a lead blood test, which is covered by most insurance plans, including Medi-Cal. You can also call (800) LA-4-LEAD (524-5323) to schedule a free test through Quest Labs.

You can also go to one of the upcoming county blood test clinics for a free test:

• May 17, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., 23519 W. Civic Center Way, Malibu.
• May 24, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., La Pintoresca Park, 45 E. Washington Blvd., Pasadena

NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen were ensconced in the Orion space capsule when they dropped into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego at 8:07 p.m. Friday. The USS John P. Murtha is stationed near the splashdown zone to help recover the crew.

The USS John P. Murtha is stationed near the splashdown zone and will help recover the crew. A team will head out to the floating capsule and install an inflatable raft just below Orion's side hatch. The crew will be examined by a flight surgeon, then helped out of the capsule. From the transport ship, they will hitch a ride back to Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Risk of reentry

There's always risk when returning from space. Glover said that he has been thinking about this portion of the mission since he was selected for it back in 2023, and he's been looking forward to it ever since.

"We have to get back," he said from the Orion capsule Wednesday. "There's so much data that you've seen already, but all the good stuff is coming back with us. There's so many more pictures, so many more stories, and, gosh, I haven't even begun to process what we've been through."

To get back, the capsule must hit the atmosphere at a precise angle.

"Let's not beat around the bush," said Jeff Radigan, Artemis II's lead flight director. "We have to hit that angle correctly. Otherwise, we're not going to have a successful reentry."

All eyes will be on the heat shield — this is the piece of hardware beneath the capsule that protects the crew from the extreme temperatures during reentry. NASA tested it out on Artemis I, the previous, uncrewed mission, and found that the heat shield wasn't performing as designed.

NASA mission planners and the Artemis II team worked on a way to mitigate that risk. Instead of "skipping" through the atmosphere like Artemis I, this mission would hit the atmosphere steeper and faster, limiting the time the spacecraft spends in those fiery, energetic moments of reentry.

"It's 13 minutes of things that have to go right," said Radigan. "I have a whole checklist in my head that we're going through of all the things that have to happen."

Mission success

The Artemis II mission is a key flight test for Orion, and thus far, mission managers have been pleased with the results. The spacecraft has taken humans farther from Earth than they've ever been, breaking a record set by Apollo 13 astronauts in 1970.

The crew tested the manual control of the spacecraft, which will be needed for future missions that will dock with a lunar landing system. The mission tested the spacecraft's life support systems and ability to keep four astronauts comfortable within the confined space.

Artemis II returned humans to the moon for the first time since the Apollo program over 50 years ago. And while some astronauts back then did see the far side of the moon, the Artemis II crew was able to observe it from a vantage point never before seen by humans. Their images and geological notes will help better determine what the moon is made of and where it came from.

While some of the astronauts' observations may help scientists understand the distant past, others will help mission managers better plan for the future. Case in point: The crew tested out the very first toilet to go to the moon, and it quickly ran into issues during flight. Multiple times during the trip, the crew had to use manual urinals instead. The issue, NASA said, was not with the toilet itself, but the system that dumps the urine overboard when it gets full.

The Orion capsule will return to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida after the mission, where engineers will examine the spacecraft after its flight, including a closer look at the spacecraft's plumbing. The team will be picking apart the spacecraft to see how it performed — and make any necessary changes ahead of the next mission, Artemis III, set to launch next year.

An L.A. city official sounded the alarm Friday that homeless service providers may go bankrupt or have to lay off staff over major reimbursement delays that still haven’t been fixed by the region’s homeless services agency — despite promises two years ago to fix it.

The L.A. Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) is late in reimbursing more than $50 million to shelter, housing and other service providers — much of which is more than 90 days overdue — according to a report it issued last month. One service provider said LAHSA is more than 90 days late in reimbursing more than $12 million in invoices to their organization.

”Everybody involved with contracting is frustrated, is angry, is exhausted," said John Wickham, the lead city staff member who presented about the issue to the city council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee on Friday. Wickham said the frustrations are shared by all of the city departments that deal with LAHSA, as well as LAHSA staff and service providers.

Wickham said he’s heard that some service providers may be considering layoffs or even considering filing for bankruptcy because of the delayed payments.

“ When payment delays occur, [service providers] are forced to make difficult decisions that everyone is experiencing right now,” said David Carpio, the chief operating officer for Veteran Social Services, Inc.

Those decisions, he said, include reducing available beds, limiting intake of new people for services, increasing wait times, ending projects — which he said leads to increased homelessness and burden on the city for emergency services calls.

Sharon Sandow, a spokesperson for the city housing department, said the department has paid LAHSA upfront — known as “advances” — so it has cash on hand to pay service providers. Sandow said the city has, at times, borrowed money from the General Fund to make advance payments to LAHSA.

Wickham said advanced payments from the city to LAHSA were being passed “ back and forth and around and around in circles.”

“ I actually haven't been able to get to the bottom of that myself,” Wickham said when asked why that’s happening. “Nobody [can] understand that.”

Wickham said he and colleagues have held over 100 meetings with officials to try to understand how the city contracts for homeless services, but some aspects were still unclear.

Officials promised to get payments back on track two years ago by streamlining their processes. Councilmember Nithya Raman, who has chaired the council’s homelessness committee for the past few years, said on Friday the city is “stuck” and has not fixed the issue.

“We don't have the ability at the city to manage this process any better than we did last year or the year before. We have just not moved forward at all,” she added. “It is extraordinarily frustrating, and those same issues persist at LAHSA that we've been discussing. So we're literally in the same place that we've been for two years.”

What LAHSA leaders say

The agency’s CEO, Gita O’Neill, told the committee the delays are “unacceptable” and that LAHSA is working with a consultant to improve its processes. LAHSA’s chief financial officer, Janine Trejo, said LAHSA “is accepting responsibility,” while she also pointed at the city for what she described as delays in the city finalizing its agreements to fund LAHSA and payments to LAHSA.

Mayor Karen Bass oversees the city agencies that pay LAHSA and is the only elected official on LAHSA’s governing commission, which she has served on for more than two years. She did not respond to a request for comment through a spokesperson on Friday’s discussion of the payment delays. Raman is running against Bass in the June primary election for mayor.

What’s next

Following up on City Council requests from years ago, the council committee plans to decide next Wednesday whether to recommend pulling all of the city’s funding out of LAHSA and having a different agency manage it. It will then go to the full City Council for a decision.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday is expected to consider, a motion aimed at assessing the impact of the growing number of data centers in the region.

The centers have drawn criticism for their potential health and environmental effects on surrounding communities, and for the amount of energy they use.

Around the country, the growth in the number of data centers — which house servers, storage systems and other technology — has been driven in part by the proliferation of artificial intelligence, which has drastically increased the need for critical internet technology infrastructure.

There are already more than 70 established data centers in the county, with that number likely to grow as developers approach cities and the county to create additional facilities, according to the motion authored by Supervisor Hilda Solis.

“Establishing local regulatory oversight of data center placement and operation is needed to ensure community and environmental health and safety is protected,” the motion states. “As newer centers expand in scale and complexity, their energy use and environmental footprint is also increasing, with little community engagement on the potential impacts on residents’ health and wellbeing.”

A representative of the data storage industry raised concerns about the motion, which calls for a moratorium on data center development in unincorporated L.A. County that would be initiated “as applicable.”

“What concerns me most with the motion is the inclusion of a moratorium,” said Khara Boender, director of state policy for the Data Center Coalition. “That sends a strong signal as to whether they are welcome in those areas.”

Data centers ‘underregulated’

Solis’ motion calls on various departments including public health, public works and fire to provide findings regarding the health, environmental and safety impacts of data centers on neighboring communities, the impact on electrical and water resources and a review of how other jurisdictions around the county are regulating data centers within urban areas.

It also calls for a community education and outreach campaign to inform residents on potential impacts of advancing technologies.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, has said the data center industry is under-regulated and accelerating at a speed, scale and concentration that is impacting energy systems, water supplies, air quality, community health, land use and public finances.

A recent report by the group said state and local policymakers are at the forefront of this expansion, “uniquely positioned to guide it in ways that reflect local priorities and community needs, especially in the absence of federal guidelines.”

A fact sheet from the council said unrestricted buildout of data centers could come with big consequences including:

• Higher household water and energy bills
• Water scarcity 
• Increased water, air and noise pollution

The motion by Solis quotes a 2026 report by Community & Environmental Defense Services that showed pollutants emitted from data centers may adversely impact the health of individuals living as far as 0.6 miles from the site.

Boender, of the Data Center Coalition, said concerns about data centers have been overstated. In addition, she said data centers have “a lot of positive economic impacts associated with them.” She cited a Pricewaterhouse report that found one job in a data center creates six jobs in the broader economy.

Support for state legislation

In addition to asking county staff to assess the impact of data centers, the Solis motion calls on the county to support state legislation that directs the Public Utilities Commission to create a special rate structure for large-scale energy users and requires these users to pay for upfront transmission or distribution upgrades.

The county Board of Supervisors is expected to consider the motion during its regular meeting Tuesday. For more information, click here.

Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, one of the leading candidates for California governor, came under increasing pressure Friday to drop out of the race following a report by the San Francisco Chronicle that he sexually assaulted a former female staffer. Swalwell denied the allegations.

Several other Democratic candidates called for him to immediately drop out, including Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan and former Controller Betty Yee, who called the allegations “sickening.”

Swalwell had racked up endorsements across the Democratic establishment, and at least one labor union and one politician who was backing him suspended their support swiftly Friday afternoon.

The Chronicle reported that a woman who worked in Swalwell’s Castro Valley office claimed to have had sexual encounters with him while she worked for him and alleged he sexually assaulted her when she was intoxicated. The report comes after weeks of rumors that Swalwell had inappropriate interactions with staff for years. On one instance in 2019, the woman said she became intoxicated after Swalwell asked her for drinks and woke up in his bed in a hotel room, feeling the effects of intercourse.

"These allegations are false and come on the eve of an election against the frontrunner for governor. For nearly 20 years, I have served the public — as a prosecutor and a congressman and have always protected women. I will defend myself with the facts and where necessary bring legal action,” Swalwell said in a statement Friday.

In recent weeks, two social media influencers began posting online what many people had considered rumors about Swalwell’s behavior with women. The influencers said they had spoken with several young women with whom Swalwell had behaved inappropriately. CalMatters has not independently verified the claims.

Swalwell pushed back hard against the allegations this week, telling reporters at a town hall in Sacramento on Tuesday that they are “false,” that he had “never” had a sexual relationship with anyone who worked for him. He suggested the allegations were politically motivated.

“I don’t want there to be any question in the minds of Californians,” he said. “I’m offering myself also as somebody who is fearlessly going to stand up for Californians on the toughest issues and not flinch.”

An attorney for Swalwell sent cease-and-desist letters to some of the women, one of the influencers, Arielle Fodor, wrote online. The attorney, Elias Dabaie, did not respond to a request for comment on the Chronicle story but confirmed to other news outlets the letter’s authenticity.

On Thursday night, Swalwell canceled a planned town hall in Southern California. Swalwell began calling groups that have endorsed him Friday morning to tell them of an upcoming story in the Chronicle, and denying the story, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke to CalMatters.

At least four of his senior campaign staffers, including a top consultant who helped him court labor support, abruptly resigned before the news report.

Swalwell’s top two Democratic competitors in governor’s race, Tom Steyer and Katie Porter, on Friday avoided calling for him to drop out, though both issued statements commending the woman in the Chronicle story for coming forward.

Some groups that have endorsed Swalwell declined to comment on the allegations when reached by CalMatters, saying their board members needed time to digest the news.

For others, the exodus was swift. U.S. Rep. Jimmy Gomez, a Los Angeles Democrat who chaired Swalwell’s campaign, resigned from the role Friday and called on Swalwell to drop out. He called the allegations “the ugliest and most serious accusations imaginable.”

“My involvement in any campaign begins and ends with trust,” he said in a statement. “The congressman should leave the race now so there can be full accountability without doubt, distraction, or delay.”

The powerhouse union California Teachers Association immediately suspended its support of Swalwell, calling the allegations against him “incredibly disturbing and unacceptable” in a statement by President David Goldberg. “Our elected board will be meeting as soon as possible to follow our union’s democratic process to determine next steps.”

Another heavyweight union that endorsed him, Service Employees International Union California, suspended at least one ad buy in support of Swalwell following the accusations.

The California Medical Association, another backer, was convening an emergency meeting of the board, and “takes these allegations extremely seriously,” said spokesperson Erin Mellon.

CalMatters' Yue Stella Yu contributed to this report.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.