The Brief

While thousands of families search for stability after losing their homes in the past week’s historic Los Angeles fires, many are suddenly confronting another crisis: the region’s long-standing shortage of affordable rental housing.

Now, that shortage has become much worse.

“Every time I call somebody about a listing, I break into tears,” said Tina Poppy.

Her Altadena house, purchased in 2019, was destroyed in the Eaton Fire. Poppy said her family had just finished extensively renovating it into their dream home.

Poppy said she, her husband, two kids and three dogs are temporarily staying at a home offered by a member of a local moms group on Facebook. But the family’s search for longer-term housing is turning up listings with fewer bedrooms, worse amenities and asking rents far in excess of her family’s previous mortgage payment.

“There's not much available for rent, and what is available is just disappearing immediately, and there's a lot of price gouging,” Poppy said. “It's so hard to believe that I'm fighting tooth and nail to get this house that I don't want.”

‘Astronomical' rent increases

Displaced families have been contacting LAist with multiple examples of rental listings that show huge jumps in asking rents in the wake of the fires.

LAist reported on one listing for a four-bedroom home in Bel Air that went up Saturday morning for $29,500 per month — a nearly 86% increase from the property’s advertised rent in September 2024. The listing agent told LAist she advised her client to put the home up for rent after the fires broke out.

“People are desperate, and you can probably get good money,” said the agent, Fiora Aston, with Compass. The listing was taken down later that same day.

“We're seeing astronomical rent increases,” said Chelsea Kirk, a policy and advocacy director with L.A.-based tenant rights nonprofit Strategic Actions for a Just Economy.

Over the past week, Kirk and her colleagues have been collecting data from public listings on post-fire rent increases. So far, she said they’ve collected more than 400 listings that appear to have increased rents above the 10% limit currently in place since Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an emergency declaration banning post-disaster price gouging, which included rental housing.

Kirk said she’s seeing increases hovering around 30% on average, but as much as 75% in some listings. When agents or landlords were called about these rent hikes, she said, some claimed they were unaware of the prohibition on price gouging. In some cases, she said, listings were taken down or the rents were lowered in response.

“Maybe it was a mistake and they didn't know it was illegal,” Kirk said. “But that doesn't mean it's not shameful that they wanted to price gouge during a crisis. Whether it's legal or not, it's definitely morally wrong.”

Rents are rising, and not just on mansions

Like the Bel Air listing spotted by LAist, many of the advertised homes are targeting the high end of L.A.’s housing market. The Palisades Fire destroyed thousands of homes in parts of coastal L.A. that tend to cater to wealthier households, like Malibu and the Pacific Palisades.

But dramatic price increases are also being found in more modest apartments. Kirk flagged one listing in L.A.’s Westlake neighborhood that was first listed for around $2,400 per month in October 2024, but increased to nearly $3,300 on Jan. 9.

Housing policy experts say L.A.’s rental market — which already had a severe shortage of affordable housing, particularly among units large enough for families with children — will likely be supercharged by the sudden influx of thousands immediately needing new housing.

Michael Lens, an urban planning and public policy professor at UCLA, said homeowners who’ve paid off their mortgages and long-term renters who were paying below market rates could particularly struggle to get back on their feet.

“Folks who haven't had to really think about where they're going to live next — who may have been living in, fortunately, stable housing situations for the last couple decades — are going to see a lot of sticker shock,” Lens said.

What happened after Hawaii’s fires

Even after the immediate scramble for new housing subsides, costs in Southern California could remain elevated for an extended period, housing economists say. A recent survey of Hawaiians impacted by the 2023 Maui fires found that one year after the disaster there, families were paying 43% more on average to rent housing of a similar size or smaller.

Trey Gordner, a data scientist with the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization, said Angelenos affected by the fires should anticipate a long road to recovery.

“It's going to be a bigger challenge for a longer time than I think many people are prepared for,” said Gordner, a co-author of the Hawaii study.

Landlord groups warn members not to price gouge

Dan Yukelson, CEO of local landlord advocacy group the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles, said the organization is compiling a database of available units, some with waived security deposits, for wildfire victims. He said the organization has also notified its members about the anti-price gouging limits in effect.

“If I saw somebody that had pricing before the emergency, and then you see it going up by more than 10%, they should be reported and prosecuted by the attorney general,” Yukelson said.

Under Newsom’s emergency order, it is also illegal to evict a tenant in order to rent at a higher price to someone displaced by the fires. But Javier Beltran, deputy director for the L.A.-based Housing Rights Center, said he worries some landlords will try anyway.

“Bad player landlords could not accept rent, or could start harassing, or even give just notices of termination without any legal basis, just to scare up tenants in order to move out,” Beltran said. “If [tenants] get any kind of notice within the next couple months, I would say they should seek some legal assistance.”

Beltran recommended tenants reach out to StayHousedLA.org, a coalition of legal aid providers funded by the city and county of L.A., for help if needed.

Displaced residents face unanswered questions

Meanwhile, many of the people now looking for a place to stay are renters who saw their apartments incinerated. Some are wondering if they’ll receive help covering the costs of finding another rental.

Tupe Asiata told LAist the Altadena townhome where she lived with her three sons may have survived the fires, but homes and businesses on the same block were destroyed. She’s not sure when it might be safe to return. She said she paid rent on Jan. 1, and her savings won’t cover the high monthly rent plus security deposit that landlords expect before tenants move in.

“We're having to depend on unknown resources,” Asiata said. “We've filled out the FEMA [application] online. Our stuff is pending. I've never been through anything like this, so I don't know what the time frame is of when help is going to arrive.”

Asiata said she was staying in an Airbnb rental with a relative’s family, who also lost their Altadena home in the fire. But she said that was only a short-term solution.

“My heart is broken,” Asiata said. “I'm very scared, because this isn't just myself. I have kids that are looking at me like, ‘Where are we going?’

“For the first time, I'm feeling like I don't know.”

Vicky Chon started canvassing on a recent Saturday morning in the Glenmoor neighborhood of Fremont, where the 1950s to ‘70s ranch homes line streets evoking names from that era: Mildred, Gertrude, Bonnie, Helen.

“I’m a teacher in Fremont Unified, and I’m here to talk about Prop 3, which is gonna help protect funding for our students in Fremont,” she said. More often than not, she gave her pitch to a Ring video doorbell.

Chon, the president of the Fremont Unified District Teachers Association and a sixth-grade teacher, grew up in Fremont, a city of 230,000 and home of the massive Tesla manufacturing plant in the East Bay. Wearing a bright red T-shirt with the teachers union’s apple logo, she carried her 8-month-old daughter in a snuggie encircling her neck, and a pile of door-hanger flyers in a free hand.

One side read, “Yes on 3. PROPOSITION 3 WILL STOP DEVASTATING CUTS TO SCHOOLS.” Prop. 3, on the November state ballot, would make permanent an existing higher income tax rate on the top 2% of California earners. In effect since 2012, it has brought in billions for schools and community colleges. Without Prop. 3’s passage, the surcharge will expire in 2031.

On the flip side of the leaflet, with a big check mark, is a photo of Richard Barrera, candidate for state superintendent of schools. It reads “RICHARD BARRERA IS THE REAL DEAL”. Barrera, an ally of organized labor, is the president of the San Diego Unified school board and is running for state superintendent of public instruction.

To those at home who opened the door, Chen would continue, “If we don’t pass Prop. 3, we could lose $20 million for our Fremont students.”

“So my baby can, you know, have the funding she needs for school,” she added.

Chon and the 68 other Fremont Unified teachers knocked on 2,533 doors as part of the California Teachers Association’s Sept. 19 day of action for Prop. 3; 1,150 teachers from 69 districts elsewhere in the state knocked on 36,509 doors. Combined, they set a one-day canvassing record, CTA said.

In the Sept. 24 filing to the California Secretary of State, the Yes on 3 campaign had raised $46.8 million, not counting donations under $1,000. The No on 3 campaign has raised $5,500 in total. The Family Business Association of California PAC gave $5,000 of the total.

The Yes campaign has raised $8,509 for every $1 of opposition dollars.

CTA, which led the signature drive to put Prop. 3 on the ballot, contributed $33.3 million – 71% of the total – while the CTA’s parent union, the National Education Association, donated $10 million. The California Federation of Teachers, the smaller of two California teachers unions, gave $1.75 million to go with the Service Employees International Union’s (SEIU) $1.5 million.

CTA’s elected 700-delegate State Council allocated the money in June, “not taking anything for granted,” said CTA President David Goldberg. CTA was less worried about the opposition than with the sheer number of 14 initiatives on the ballot. It’s been more important to raise awareness of Prop. 3 “above the noise,” he said.

Now, with five weeks to go before the election, he said, “I would assume there is enough for every scenario to win this,” including TV ads. ”It’s definitely an option.”

Two choices: a wealth tax and/or an income tax?

Prop. 3 is one of two tax-raising initiatives on the November ballot. The other, far more contentious one, is Prop. 40, which would create the nation’s first tax on the net worth of the state’s 200-plus billionaires.

The independent, nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that the one-time, 5% tax on most of the billionaires’ assets would yield tens of billions of dollars. But it also cautioned it could result in a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue if the richest of the rich follow the lead of Elon Musk and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and move out of state to cheaper tax states like Florida and Texas.

That’s one reason CTA opposes Prop. 40; the other is that TK-12 and community colleges would receive only 10% of the take from Prop. 40, a smaller ratio than the 40% that they already get annually as their share of the state’s general fund revenue under a constitutional amendment passed in 1988.

Prop. 3 would continue that ratio. The LAO projects that, depending on volatile income and capital tax revenue, Prop. 3 would continue to bring in $5 billion to $15 billion to the general fund with 40% — $2 billion to $6 billion — going to schools and community colleges annually.

A Prop. 3 surcharge of 1% starts with taxable income of $371,000 for single filers and $742,000 for joint filers. It would jump to an additional 3 percentage points for those single filers making more than $743,000 or $1.5 million for joint filers.

More than 50% support in a new voter survey

Conventional thinking of pollsters and veteran political observers is that multiple tax measures on the same ballot, especially complex initiatives like the wealth tax, could hurt the chances of all tax initiatives: Frustrated voters would throw up their hands and vote “no” across their ballots.

But, based on the Sept. 25 voter survey by the UC Berkeley Institute for Governmental Studies, that doesn’t seem to be happening; voters appear to be heading in opposite directions in support for Prop. 3 and Prop. 40.

Compared with a prior survey in August, support for Prop. 3 rose to 54% in favor, 34% opposed, and 13% undecided.

Support for Prop. 40 had fallen from above 50% in August to 45% in favor, 42% against, and 13% undecided, amid an onslaught of anti-Prop. 40 TV ads.

Although Fremont offers a small sample size — Democrats outnumber Republicans three to one in the Alameda County city — canvassing teachers said they heard widespread support for Prop. 3.

Nicole Black, a veteran kindergarten teacher, said someone came to the door in about half of the 50 houses she visited, with 20 of those indicating support, some asking for more information, and no one outright saying no. William Jung, a high school teacher, reported fewer conversations but proportionally higher support.

Vicky Chon encountered only one no — a shirtless man working in his garage who dismissed her with a flip of the hand, saying, “No more taxes.” But a woman who had said through her Ring doorbell video camera that she was driving her father to an appointment later was working in her garden and said she was all in. And an elderly lady with patchy English said, yes, she would vote for it, too.

No one wanted more details of Prop. 3 or asked about the wealth tax, so Chon and colleagues didn’t have to bring it up. They could stay on message: Prop. 3 will continue an existing tax. Voting yes will keep the status quo and prevent future layoffs of teachers.

In the coming weeks, voters can expect to be inundated with tens of millions of dollars worth of ads for, but mainly against, Prop. 40. Opponents have already spent $87 million — 85% of the $219 million total — compared with $32 million by the proponents.

Meanwhile, teachers will be going door to door every weekend, Goldberg said. “We always knew a lot would rest on our shoulders,” he said. “No other organization can match our capacity in every community.”

After a week of fierce competition, Bear 910 and Backpack have emerged as the final contenders to be named the heftiest bear of Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve.

There can only be one winner of Fat Bear Week, and it’s up to the voters to decide Tuesday.

The contest, which is in its 12th year, celebrates the resilience of the 2,200 brown bears that live in the preserve on the Alaska Peninsula, which extends from the state’s southwest corner toward the Aleutian Islands. Fat Bear Week was started in 2014 as an interactive way to inform the public about brown bears, the coastal cousins of grizzlies.

Last year’s winner, Chunk — known officially as Bear 32 — clinched his victory at an estimated 1,200 pounds. He was handily defeated in the first round of competition this year by Bucky, who went on to lose a faceoff against Backpack, known officially as Bear 89.

The event this year featured 16 bears vying for the heavyweight title in a single-elimination, bracket-style tournament. All voting is done online at www.fatbearweek.org, and a winner will be declared Tuesday evening after the final poll closes. The public can watch the bears on explore.org’s livestream cameras before deciding on their favorite.

“Fat bears are successful bears,” the nonprofit says on its website. This group gorges itself on the abundant salmon that return to the Brooks River starting in late June. It’s there that they can stuff themselves to accumulate the fat reserves they’ll need to survive the winter. To be featured in the contest, the bears must frequent the area around the river. Adult male brown bears typically weigh 600 to 900 pounds (about 270 to 410 kilograms) in midsummer. By the time they are ready to hibernate after feasting on migrating and spawning salmon, large males can weigh well over 1,000 pounds (454 kilograms). Females are about one-third smaller. The bears may each eat as many as 30 fish a day this time of year, working hard to eat a year’s worth of food in about six months.

During winter hibernation, the bears do not eat or drink and lose one-third of their body weight.

Fat Bear Week’s contestants also include five bear families, in recognition of the record high number of families and cubs at the river this summer. A mother must feed and protect her cubs while also eating enough calories to sustain herself through hibernation. Cubs often face the risk of attack by other bears due to territorialism or food scarcity.

Bear 132 and her three spring cubs advanced to the semifinals, but lost out to Bear 910.

Bear 132 has become one of the largest and most experienced mother bears at Brooks River, according to the nonprofit’s contestant profiles. In mid-July, one of her cubs became separated from the family for several days, wandering the river corridor alone. They were reunited a few days later.

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two bills Sunday designed to help his mental health court reach more vulnerable Californians.

But two other bills that would have made much bigger, and more controversial, changes to the program died without ever making it to his desk.

Newsom’s CARE Court launched in 2023 with the intention of getting the sickest Californians off the streets and into mental health care. Family members, first responders, mental health professionals and others can refer people suffering from psychosis into the court-based program, where a judge then sets up a treatment plan through the county.

But the program has struggled with lower-than-expected utilization since its launch, and every year legislators attempt to fix that by passing new bills that change the program in different ways. This year, Newsom signed bills by Senators Catherine Blakespear, a Democrat from Encinitas, and Steven Choi, a Republican from Irvine, which make it make it easier for first responders to get people into CARE Court, and for the loved ones of a CARE Court participant to provide information to their care team that might be relevant to their treatment.

Blakespear called it “incremental improvement.”

“I don't want to make it seem like these things are accomplishing more than they are,” she said. “But they are doing something. We are improving the system for people who need help the most.”

The bills that would have made bigger changes to CARE Court ended up left on the cutting room floor:

• Senate bill 1016, also by Blakespear, would have created a path for people who are too sick for CARE Court, which is a voluntary program, to potentially be referred to a conservatorship, which is an involuntary program. 
• SB 28, by Orange County Democrat Sen. Tom Umberg and Blakespear, also would have strengthened the link between CARE Court and conservatorships. 

The idea was to prevent people from falling out of treatment entirely if they are too sick to accept voluntary care.

Both died in the Assembly Appropriations Committee in August. It was a relief for their long lists of opponents, including Disability Rights California, who argued that the bills would have made CARE Court more coercive, and that forcing treatment is harmful and ineffective. But the bills’ deaths were a letdown for some families of people with severe mental illness, who are fed up with their loved ones languishing on the streets because they are too sick to consent to care.

In addition, SB 1242 – one of the two CARE Court bills Newsom signed into law – was watered down at the behest of activists before it hit his desk.

Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, a Democrat from Oakland and chair of the Appropriations Committee, blamed the price tag of the two bills that died for their failure. She also said the Legislature didn’t have enough details yet on what is and is not working about CARE Court.

"Those bills were very expensive and I think a little bit premature, because we don't know exactly what the challenge or issue is,” she told reporters in August. CalMatters has reported extensively about the challenges facing CARE Court, its participants, and affected families, for over a year.

Blakespear said the issue is a belief that people can’t be helped until they are ready to accept help: something she’s trying to chip away at. She’ll try again next year to strengthen the connection between CARE Court and conservatorships, she said.

“Just because of the way Sacramento works,” she said, “these philosophical shifts can be hard to accomplish.”

The California Public Defenders Association disagreed that CARE Court should be linked to coercive treatment, and opposed SB 28.

“Our experience has taught us that CARE works best when people have buy-in and choose to participate,” Stephanie Regular, assistant public defender for Alameda County and chair of the CPDA mental health and civil commitment committee, said in an emailed statement. “That voluntary engagement is not a weakness; it is part of why CARE works. Efforts like SB 28 that impose harsh consequences for inadequate participation risk undermining that success.”

How the new laws change CARE Court

A CalMatters investigation of CARE Court found the program has reached far fewer people than Newsom’s administration initially anticipated. After the program was watered down to remove its ability to compel people into treatment, many family members of people in the program are disappointed by its limited ability to help their loved ones. The latest state data, which goes through June 2025, found that of 2,216 petitions filed, 517 resulted in CARE agreements or plans, while another 984 were dismissed.

One of the new laws attempts to bring more people into the program by allowing firefighters, ETMs and other first responders to ask their county to refer someone into CARE Court. The idea is that first responders often encounter people who have a serious mental illness and need help, but they rarely have the time to go through the complicated, time-consuming process of filing a CARE Court petition themselves. Instead, they now can refer that person to the county, which then has 30 days to decide whether to file a CARE Court petition.

The other new law addresses a common concern from families of people in CARE Court: Once they refer their loved one into the program, they often are cut out of the loop, unable to give or receive information about their family member’s care. The original bill would have allowed whoever files a CARE Court petition to have more involvement in the process as treatment progresses. But it was amended after concerns about patient privacy.

Now, the law allows for one-way communication only – the petitioner can submit information about their family member’s location, condition, status or anything else that might aid in their treatment, but they can’t receive any information about their family member without that person’s consent.

That’s important, because someone with a severe mental illness participating in CARE Court might not be able to articulate in that moment how they are doing, said Suzanne Fidler, a delegate for the Conference of California Bar Associations, which sponsored the bill. But the person who filed the CARE Court petition, such as a family member, likely has close access to them and can give their treatment team important information, she said.

Paul Boden, director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project, which opposed the bill, disagrees.

“Families can say whatever they want to say and it will be taken in court as if it’s a diagnostic assessment,” he said. “And that’s dangerous.”

Another new law doesn’t directly relate to CARE Court, but instead seeks to improve the state’s conservatorship process. Also by Blakespear, SB 16 requires counties to develop procedures to train the people (such as clinicians or law enforcement) who place patients on involuntary mental health holds.

This year’s death of Umberg’s CARE Court clean-up bill — SB 28 — signals a shift in the tide, said Samuel Jain, a senior attorney with Disability Rights California, which opposed the bill. Umberg has introduced a follow-up bill to expand or change the law annually since he initially authored the CARE Court legislation in 2022. In past years, those bills have generally sailed through the legislature with near unanimous support.

Last year, Umberg expanded who qualifies for CARE Court by adding people who experience psychosis as a result of bipolar disorder.

At times, his CARE Court bills have been significantly changed late in the session, in a process known as “gut and amend.”

A legislative analysis submitted to the Assembly Judiciary Committee this summer said that the opponents of this year’s bill, SB 28, complained it had been substantially amended in June “after advancing through much of the legislative process as a different bill.” It continued: “This late-stage gut-and-amend approach continues a troubling pattern of advancing major CARE Court expansions without adequate opportunity for public input.”

“The Legislature is starting to do more of their own analysis of this and starting to stand on their own two feet and not just defer to the governor,” Jain said.

June Dudas, who has first-hand experience with CARE Court, said SB 28 and SB 1016 would have been game-changers if they had passed. Dudas helped her 85-year-old aunt submit CARE Court petitions in San Diego County for Dudas’ cousin, who was homeless and became violent when in the grip of psychosis.

Her cousin doesn’t realize he’s sick – a common symptom of schizophrenia known as anosognosia. That means he’ll never consent to treatment, Dudas said. As a result, his CARE Court case was officially dismissed twice. He was offered a place in CARE Court a third time, but turned it down and instead opted to go to jail for violating a restraining order against his mother.

“And it’s not just that his case is dismissed, he is dismissed as a human being,” Dudas said. “There are no other services offered to him if he doesn’t volunteer.”

Dudas’ cousin finally entered into a conservatorship in May — almost a year after his family first tried to get him into CARE Court.

Jocelyn Wiener and Yue Stella Yu contributed to this reporting.

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

A community-led effort that tested water runoff from the burned Lineage cold-storage facility found that elevated levels of metals made their way to the Los Angeles River.

The findings of increased concentrations of iron, zinc, chromium and lead are highlighted in a Sept. 22 report published by researchers and scientists from UCLA, UC Irvine and East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice. 

According to the report, members of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice noticed that the water firefighters sent to the flames — an estimated 12,000 gallons of water per minute — was draining into the LA River. 

That’s what spurred Emmanuel Carrera Ruedas, a member of East Yard, and Casey Cooper, a community scientist, to gather water samples and test the runoff for metals from building materials after the fire ignited June 17. The fire was knocked down June 24.

Carrera Ruedas and Cooper took samples from puddles outside Lineage, from an L.A. River drainage spout and from a containment boom before the water runoff went into the river. Samples were also taken about 150 meters upstream and 100 meters downstream from the L.A. River drainage line and near Cudahy Park, which sits alongside the lower L.A. River. A total of 42 samples were sent to a lab at Columbia University in New York. 

Major findings from downstream samples retrieved between June 19 and 24 show that average concentrations of iron, zinc, chromium and lead were higher compared to “previously measured maximum concentrations” in 2018-24 data from the Los Angeles River Watershed Monitoring Program.

Here’s what the report found:

• Iron concentrations were 23 times higher than previously measured
• Zinc concentrations were 11 times higher than previously measured
• Chromium concentrations were 2.4 times higher than previously measured
• Lead concentrations were 2.4 times higher than previously measured

A community-led effort that tested water runoff from the burned Lineage cold-storage facility found that elevated levels of metals made their way to the Los Angeles River.

Zinc concentrations from downstream samples were also found to exceed dry weather standards set by the California Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Metals such as lead have been found to affect human health and are known to contribute to brain damage, stunted growth and learning and behavioral problems, according to the report. Chromium, iron and zinc are of concern because they could affect aquatic life, such as fish, the report noted. 

Yoshira “Yoshi” Ornelas Van Horne, an exposure scientist and assistant professor with the UCLA Fielding School’s Department of Environmental Health Sciences, could not clearly say how exposure to these metals could have impacted people long-term “because we don’t know how often they may be going [to the river],” either to cool down or engage in other recreational activities like fishing.

Carrera Ruedas and Ornelas Van Horne presented their findings at a meeting of the Los Angeles Regional Water Board on Thursday. 

The meeting appears to be the first public forum where water quality issues related to the Lineage fire have been discussed.

“We need to stop river erasure,” Carrera Ruedas told the board. He also said he observed oil in the LA River long after cleanup of the estimated 25,000 gallons of crude oil spilled during a May 22 drilling incident in East L.A.

“We must include the river as part of our narrative … as part of our ecosystem because the river is alive and it deserves protection,” Carrera Ruedas said. “I hope together we can figure out how to make our river safer and cleaner for not just us, but for aquatic life.”

A community-led effort that tested water runoff from the burned Lineage cold-storage facility found that elevated levels of metals made their way to the Los Angeles River.

Jenny Newman, assistant executive officer of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, presented a summary of water quality data collected during and after the fire by the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation, which found elevated but “not alarming” concentrations of copper, lead and zinc were detected between June 17 and 26. 

Newman also summarized water quality findings from the County of Los Angeles Department of Public Works and Lineage.

Annelisa Moe, who oversees Heal the Bay’s water quality efforts, presented data showing a sharp increase in bacteria levels on June 24 and 25, compared to the pre-fire samples taken on June 11.

At the meeting, Laisha Angeline Atjun, of East L.A., urged that water quality findings be made accessible in one public space, in English and Spanish, “so that it can be digested by every member of our community.”

She told board members that word of mouth, instead of standard data, is how her community has been informed about the Lineage fire. Atjun said the river should be monitored during the rainy season. “The storms may flush out what’s still in the drains,” she said. 

Atjun asked for prevention and response, “so drains are contained and downstream communities are notified within hours.”

“Boyle Heights and my home East L.A. have already carried more than their share of pollution,” she said of the oil spill and Lineage fire. “Residents shouldn’t have to organize our own testing to know what’s in the river.”

Fatima Carrera, of Southeast L.A., lamented the river being treated as a dumping ground for natural disasters and what many see as an “appropriate way of getting rid of all our contaminants.”

“We’ve completely disconnected from the natural world around us,” Carrera added.

“I would like to see the development of a meaningful emergency response system that’s capable of protecting our communities during these disasters. … We’re not asking for special treatment. We’re asking for a basic right to have clean water,” Carrera told the board.

The post Community testing finds elevated levels of metals in LA River after the Lineage fire appeared first on LA Local.