The Brief

In 2017, after the Tubbs Fire blazed through parts of California’s wine country, a Santa Rosa resident returned home to one of the few structures left standing in his fire-scarred neighborhood. He turned on the tap and reported that the water smelled like gasoline.

Sampling identified the source of the odor as benzene, a compound found in petroleum products. One sample contained 8,000 times the amount of benzene that the Environmental Protection Agency allows in drinking water.

After ruling out the usual culprits for benzene contamination, such as a gasoline spill or leaking underground storage tanks, utility staff were left with a startling realization: The wildfire had contaminated the water system.

Typically, state regulators support and guide how public water systems address contamination. But this threat from wildfire was new.

No guidance or protocol existed for Santa Rosa’s water system to follow. Staff at Santa Rosa Water started reaching out to experts with experience responding to chemical spills, including a Purdue University engineering professor named Andrew Whelton. Whelton replied with exceptional interest, said Emma Walton, then a deputy director at the utility.

Since then, at least eight wildfires have contaminated public drinking water systems across the United States, and Whelton has become the de facto national authority on response and recovery.

He has rushed from his home in Indiana to the side of utility managers from Colorado to Hawaii who were facing some of the most stressful infrastructure crises of their careers.

He has clashed with California regulators over specific protocol and recommended managers test for more contaminants than regulators there require. Last year, Whelton published a blueprint for how water utility staff can look for and decontaminate their systems. Utility managers say it provides a resource in an area where federal and state guidelines are lacking.

It’s hard to describe how complex it was before we had this resource, because you were doing a lot of guessing on what was right and wrong,” said Kurt Kowar, a utility director who sought Whelton’s help in the aftermath of Colorado’s Marshall Fire in 2021. “And now, there’s no more guessing.”

Jonathan Leung, director of water quality at Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said his staff referred to this playbook to make their recovery plan after the LA fires earlier this year.

Armed with this tool, LADWP was able to restore water service in two months.

Firefighters spray water onto a burning property in Altadena, California, during the LA wildfires earlier this year.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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‘He wrote back, I think within 30 minutes’

The benzene found in Santa Rosa’s water is one of many VOCs, or volatile organic compounds, that can enter municipal water systems when the buildings they’re connected to are destroyed by wildfire.

VOCs are a broad category of chemicals known for their ability to off-gas. They’re found in household and industrial products, including paints, pesticides, dry cleaning agents and petroleum fuels. They also form during natural processes such as volcanic eruptions and forest fires.

Before the Tubbs Fires, experts understood that wildfires can contaminate water sources through soil erosion and runoff. Events in Santa Rosa revealed that wildfires can also contaminate water systems at the pipes that bring treated drinking water to buildings.

Experts say it works like this: damage to structures and excess demand for water cause depressurization. This creates a vacuum in the distribution system that can pull contaminants into service lines, water mains and connecting fixtures. Plastic pipes can also degrade at high temperatures, causing chemicals in the plastic to leach into the water. The contamination can be distributed unevenly in damaged areas, making it difficult to catch without sufficient sampling.

The Environmental Protection Agency regulates about 20 VOCs in drinking water that harm human health. Benzene, for example, has been linked to anemia, a decrease in blood platelets, and an increased risk of cancer. The agency limits benzene in drinking water to 5 micrograms per liter.

California has a lower allowable maximum at 1 microgram per liter. If a million people consumed contaminated drinking water at this concentration over a 70-year period, the chemical would cause between six and seven cases of cancer, according to California regulators.

But national drinking water standards set by the EPA do not account for this newly understood mode of contamination from wildfires. Water utilities routinely monitor for VOCs as the water leaves the treatment plant, upstream of where wildfire contamination is likely to occur.

In 2018, after the Camp Fire engulfed more than 90% of Paradise, Kevin Phillips needed answers to some pressing questions. The Paradise Irrigation District had just confirmed the presence of benzene in its water system and Phillips, the district manager, wanted to know if it would permanently contaminate the pipes. A contact at the University of California, Berkeley, suggested his team reach out to Whelton.

“[Whelton] wrote back, I think within 30 minutes, a list of things we should look for and how we go about this,” Phillips said.

Purdue professor Andrew Whelton in his office on the school's campus.

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Benjamin Thorp

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APM Reports

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In his response, Whelton recommended that Paradise begin by flushing the distribution network to remove any contaminated water currently in the pipes. But, he cautioned, success depended on the types of materials the water came into contact with, the concentration of chemicals in the water, the water temperature and other factors.

“Plastics would be my biggest concern,” Whelton wrote. “Once you flush away the contaminated water, chemicals absorbed inside the plastic will then begin to leach out into the clean water.”

The speed at which the chemicals leach out of the plastic determines how long decontamination takes, regardless of flushing, Whelton added.

About a month later, Phillips flew Whelton and a small team from Purdue to Paradise to assist.

“From that point on, he was really kind of our go-to expert when it came to water contamination,” Phillips said.

This would not be the last time Whelton would steer a besieged water utility through such a crisis.

Debris left behind by the Camp Fire in Paradise, California.

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Danielle Venton

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KQED

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About three years later, the Marshall Fire plowed through several neighborhoods in the town of Louisville, Colo. Kurt Kowar, director of public works and utilities in Louisville, said state regulators told him their agency didn’t have the expertise to address this kind of contamination.

Instead, they suggested that he call Whelton, whom Kowar then looked up on Twitter. Kowar said Whelton called within a half hour of receiving Kowar’s introductory email.

By the end of their conversation, Kowar said he knew what he needed to do next. “That’s when I said, ‘I’m gonna buy you a plane ticket. You’re gonna get on a plane. You’re gonna come here tomorrow, because we got to figure this out.’”

Whelton, who had just returned home from a business trip, immediately headed to the airport, booking a redeye flight on his way there.

Colorado’s Marshall Fire destroyed some homes while leaving others intact.

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Hart Van Denburg

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Colorado Public Radio

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‘We need to train these leaders … to help themselves’

The next morning, Whelton, Louisville water system staff, state regulators and others Whelton had recommended met in a nondescript conference room to make a plan.

From his seat in the back of the room, Whelton noticed their questions were similar to the ones utility staff in Santa Rosa and Paradise had posed when they were going through their respective water contamination crises.

This time, Whelton decided to take notes.

Whelton had worked for the U.S. Army on water infrastructure security before going into academia. The experience left him a firm believer in establishing military decision-making frameworks to address emerging disasters.

He decided to turn their questions into a similarly styled manual for water utility recovery in the aftermath of a wildfire.

He started putting together a concept of operations, or CONOPS, plan for water distribution system testing and recovery. The name was a nod to his military experience.

With funding from the Water Research Foundation, a nonprofit that serves water utilities, Whelton and two other Purdue researchers published the guide in 2024 to help utility managers “get from Point A to Point B with an evidence-based approach,” Whelton said.

The report outlines the responsibilities of different parties during disaster response, from water utility staff to public health officials to state drinking water regulators. It also helps utility managers determine their options after a system tests positive for contamination.

Prior to the CONOPS, such information was spread out “on websites or in news articles or in people’s heads,” Kowar said.

The EPA issued a seven-page document in 2021, but it reads like a “high-level guidance,” Kowar said. The CONOPS plan “is a much more thorough, vetted document” that takes the guesswork out of recovery efforts and reflects industry best practices, he said.

During the 2023 wildfires in Maui, the CONOPS plan got its first test run with Whelton, Phillips and Kowar present.

“I have no interest in doing this for the next 10 to 20 years,” Whelton said. “We need to train these leaders, operators and engineers in communities to help themselves in times of crises.”

VOC contamination tends to occur in areas where water systems lose pressure and structures connected to the water system are damaged. Photo from a flyover of neighborhoods affected by the Marshall Fire. Courtesy Hart Van Denburg | Colorado Public Radio]

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Hart Van Denburg

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Colorado Public Radio

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‘If somebody would have shown me a draft’

In 2024, California law began requiring water utilities to test for benzene contamination whenever a wildfire of 300 or more acres damaged or destroyed structures connected to a water system. California appears to be the only state with mandated testing after wildfires.

But according to Whelton, California’s law is not protective enough because it only requires water systems to test for benzene and not other VOCs.

The idea that a single chemical could be “the panacea for a complex issue is bonkers,” he said. “If somebody would have shown me a draft of what actually got promulgated, I would have made clear that the code as written is going to result in potentially unsafe water for people.”

While benzene is the most common VOC found in water after wildfires, data from previous fires show that other VOCs can contaminate drinking water after wildfires, too. Sometimes those VOCs are present even when benzene isn’t.

This happened in about a quarter of the samples taken after the Marshall Fire, according to Corona Environmental Consulting, a local agency that worked on the response.

Regulators at the California State Water Resources Control Board who weighed in on the law have said benzene is an adequate indicator for VOC contamination, nevertheless.

Darrin Polhemus, deputy director of the state water board’s drinking water division, acknowledged that other VOCs will sometimes show up in samples where benzene is not present. But he said that benzene has the highest signal of all the VOCs based on sampling data.

“Because of that, what we believe is that if you can manage for benzene, you’re basically managing for all of them,” Polhemus said, chalking the differences in perspective up to risk perception. “We’re dealing with the practicalities of cost and time and how to manage that compared with getting people back to their homes.”

While Whelton disagrees, he said he is glad that “California decided that it’s important that people have their drinking water tested after a wildfire.”

[CAPTION: Andrew Whelton holds a piece of fire-damaged water infrastructure in his lab. Benjamin Thorp for APM Reports]

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Benjamin Thorp

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On the ground in Los Angeles

After the January wildfires, Leung, the director of water quality at LAWDP, said his team opted to test for a broad panel of VOCs even though state law only required them to test for benzene.

Of the 482 samples they took, Leung said, VOCs were detected without benzene present about 11 percent of the time, but “at levels far below the drinking water standard.”

Leung said his counterparts at the public water system in Oakland, California, sent him Whelton’s plan in the days after the fires. It was a document Leung said he found himself returning to as he began thinking about the water system’s next steps.

Screening for and removing wildfire contaminants is “not necessarily intuitive,” he said.

In the past, water utilities have thought their water systems were clean after analyzing samples taken immediately after flushing, only to have contaminants show up later as chemicals that had adhered to plastic pipes leached back into the water.

Leung said he took care to make sure that the water sat in the pipes for 72 hours before collecting samples, even though the water system used mostly metal pipes.

He said Whelton’s plan helped him understand how different pipe materials absorb, retain and release VOCs, which cleaning strategies to use, and which areas of the water system to prioritize. Since LADWP’s water system had mostly copper, steel and galvanized iron water lines, Leung realized there was less concern about chemicals adhering to pipes.

This, to Whelton, is proof that the CONOPS plan is working.

The plan empowered water utilities in Los Angeles County to address the threat of contamination head-on, Whelton said. “They actually read the plan, they used it, they called us on the telephone or webinar, and then they made decisions for themselves and were able to find their way out of that disaster.”

Whelton said he worries that some people outside of California may see VOC contamination as “a California problem,” even though wildfires are increasingly intersecting with urban communities because of climate change. And outside of California, it is completely discretionary whether a water system tests for contamination after a wildfire, Whelton said.

Effective disaster response depends on who’s in the room making decisions and the information they have access to, Whelton said.

Whelton takes heart in the fact that public servants such as Walton, Phillips and Kowar have “stepped up when they were not legally required to,” and in doing so helped create the CONOPS plan.

“I drove the effort, but it was because of everyone else coming together [that] we were able to deliver,” he said.

The most striking view off one of San Luis Obispo County’s winding coastal roads is not the lashing ocean waves of the Pacific Ocean or cows plodding out from the shade of a California live oak tree.

It is two enormous concrete domes that come into focus along a final climb that began 7 miles back at Avila Beach. The land sinks away, and what looks like a small town emerges, showcased in a palette of grays, whites and terracotta.

This is Diablo Canyon, California’s last operating nuclear power plant.

Just years ago, the plant was slated to close, and employees worked to decommission it, until a 2022 about-face by Gov. Gavin Newsom led the state to extend its operations to 2030. Now lawmakers in Sacramento are talking about allowing it to operate even longer, potentially to 2045.

But local groups, some of whom have protested the plant since its construction, are banging the drum ever louder about their concerns for safety or a catastrophic meltdown, as well as the danger posed by spent nuclear waste at a site near several seismic fault lines.

Meanwhile, academics are furiously analyzing how much keeping Diablo Canyon open would cost and if it would support or hinder the state’s clean energy transition. And business groups are lining up in support.

So when PG&E offered press tours earlier this year, KQED accepted. The nuclear power plant has not garnered this much attention in years, but now, once again, all eyes are on Diablo Canyon. What does it look like inside?

Out on the water

PG&E’s Diablo Canyon Power Plant tour started on a boat in a protected marina just south of the reactors. This, and another cove just outside the breakwaters, are the site of a key piece of the plant’s cooling system — and a major concern for environmentalists, who argue it hoovers up and kills marine life and have called it “the most destructive facility” along California’s coast.

Dipping a hand in Diablo Cove, the water is lukewarm, not the frosty standard for the ocean in these parts.

That’s because Diablo Canyon draws 2 billion3-2.5 billion gallons of ocean water daily — enough to fill more than 3,000 Olympic-size swimming pools — into the plant to cool equipment, and discharges the water back into the ocean typically 16 to 17 degrees hotter.

The warmer water makes it feel as if a chunk of Southern California’s coast has been lobbed off and transferred north.

Out on the water, there was a hotbed of animal activity: a floating sea otter and chubby seals sunning themselves on rocks.

There were other species too — sea bass, stingrays, and California’s state fish, the garibaldi, which typically live farther south along California’s coast, but have moved here.

Diablo Canyon staff said the warm water leads to essentially no change to the environment. Because fishing and other activities are not allowed within 2,000 yards of the plant, it’s a “de facto marine sanctuary,” said Tom Jones, a senior director in charge of future planning for Diablo Canyon.

But the California Coastal Commission, the state agency tasked with protecting the coastline and its natural resources, reported in 2025 that the plant’s cooling system kills almost two billion larval fish annually, plus other organisms that aren’t measured.

While adult populations may be abundant in Diablo Cove, the commission wrote that adults often appear far from where they spawn, and their presence here may be the result of productive marine habitats nearby.

The commission also warned that removing eggs and larvae near Diablo Canyon leads to “a significant reduction” of species dozens of miles from the plant.

“These planktonic organisms,” wrote the commission, “constitute the base of the food web in California’s coastal waters.”

To the turbine deck

We donned hard hats and safety equipment and passed through heavy security to enter the “protected area,” which consists of spaces closer to the nuclear reactors.

We entered the turbine deck, an industrial building the size of two-and-a-half football fields. It was hot and loud on the deck, with a slight vibration underfoot.

The steam-driven turbine inside is an enormous semi-cylinder that looks like a horizontal steel pipe cut in half, and spins a generator to produce electricity.

The PG&E guide pointed out the window at a containment dome, where uranium atoms are split apart, releasing huge amounts of heat.

A cascade of effects follows: the heat warms water and creates steam, the steam travels through pipes to turn the turbine, the turbine connects to a generator, which makes electricity that’s then sent across the grid and delivered to about three million Californians.

Nuclear generates nearly 9% of the state’s energy supply, part of an energy mix that includes gas, hydroelectric, solar, wind, geothermal and even small amounts of coal.

While California’s demand for electricity has been flat for years, it’s now growing with the adoption of electric vehicles, people swapping gas appliances for electric ones, and data centers.

The debate to keep Diablo Canyon open is spurred, in part, by this uptick in demand. Maureen Zawalick, senior vice president and chief risk officer at PG&E, said stepping into the turbine deck reminds her of the end uses of all this power: “safety in hospitals, kidney dialysis, stop lights and everything else.”

California is walking its economy across a tightrope.

The state’s growth in the 20th century was built on a foundation of fossil fuels, but leaders see its future as being powered by the buildout of renewables like solar and wind, along with batteries to store excess power.

When heat waves strained California’s power grid and caused rolling blackouts in 2020, state lawmakers and Newsom voted to extend Diablo Canyon’s operation.

Now, as electricity bills continue to rise and demand is forecast to grow, proponents argue that keeping the plant open even longer can help California wobble across the precarious middle of the tightrope.

The simulator

We shed our safety gear and headed to the training building, with classrooms and an exact replica of the control room, called the simulator.

It was cool and quiet again as employees completed a training exercise, manipulating switches, lights and screens on a semicircle of vertical boards. Zawalick said the simulator’s seafoam green walls are meant to inspire calm, but its very existence is due to nuclear disasters that have occurred elsewhere in the U.S.

Simulators became a requirement for all nuclear power plants in 1979 after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania. The partial meltdown was the most serious nuclear accident in U.S. history and was caused by both human and equipment failure.

Practicing in a replica of Diablo Canyon’s actual control room is meant to train workers with the muscle memory to handle a variety of emergencies.

Employees spend 20% of their time in the Diablo Canyon simulator training for everything from planned refueling to routine maintenance to major emergencies.

Spent nuclear fuel

To finish the tour, we drove uphill and farther from the ocean to find dozens of hulking concrete cylinders that contain spent fuel, called “dry casks.”

The nuclear material is the concern of resident groups who fear an earthquake or terrorist attack could destabilize the storage and spew radioactive waste into the ocean or nearby communities. People living nearby are mailed annual emergency preparedness documents and have access to a free dose of potassium iodide, which protects the thyroid gland against radiation.

Linda Seeley has rallied against Diablo Canyon for decades as a member of the anti-nuclear nonprofit Mothers for Peace.

“As much as I would love it if nuclear waste were not toxic and lethal to a thousand generations in the future, that’s not the fact. The fact is that it is toxic,” she said.

Once fuel has been used inside the plant, radiation levels are dangerously high and have the potential to kill an exposed person in minutes.

The spent fuel spends 7 to 10 years next to the reactors in “wet storage,” a large pool of water treated with chemicals. The liquid absorbs heat and decays of the uranium, which has high levels of radiation.

The nuclear material is then packed into the double-lined, stainless steel and reinforced dry casks, roughly 20 feet tall. Each is bolted to a 7.5-foot-thick, steel-reinforced concrete pad designed to withstand earthquakes. The fuel requires special handling for tens of thousands of years.

Diablo Canyon is located roughly 3.5 miles from the Hosgri fault, which presents the main seismic risk to the plant. Another fault, the Shoreline, is closer to the plant, but smaller. Some seismologists are concerned that a quake along the faults could cause a meltdown.

The U.S. government is legally obligated to take ownership of all commercially spent nuclear fuel, but because the government has not yet built a permanent place to put it, the fuel is stored at the power plant.

Current solutions like Diablo Canyon’s dry storage casks, while they may be thorough, are only licensed until 2064 by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Zawalick said PG&E is confident in the storage of Diablo Canyon’s spent fuel, though. She pointed out that nuclear power is “the only energy source that knows exactly where every ounce of our waste is.” The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and PG&E monitor the spent fuel on a daily and annual basis. “It’s secured, it’s inspected, it’s audited, it’s sampled. I’m a fan of all energy sources, but I don’t know where solar panels are sent when they’re done, and batteries, and all of that.”

Zawalick pointed to the powerful transmission lines carrying energy created here out to millions of Californians: to illuminate rooms for special and mundane occasions, preserve food in refrigerators, run air conditioners, and warm their shower water.

Order and safety come up frequently on the Diablo Canyon Power Plant tour: background checks, armed guards, seismic protective measures, reminders to hold on to handrails when on steps. The result is a calm and kempt environment, situated on a hillside overlooking the Pacific.

But underneath the serenity lie the inherent risks of nuclear power, especially when sited near seismic fault lines. Diablo Canyon has been the source of passionate debate as long as the idea of it has existed. And any effort to keep it operating longer will be no different.

And with that, the tour was over, and the guides returned to their work. A cow made its way slowly across the access road, with no idea of its contentious neighbor.

We all need a good story to start the week, and this one is the best. Pasadena Humane has rehomed its last dog rescued from the Eaton Fire. Artemis, a German shepherd, is happily in his forever home, and now we can all sleep a little easier. What a good boy!

Music this week includes the last of the free spring lunchtime concerts at the Colburn on Tuesday, May 5. Licorice Pizza has more picks, including Meshell Ndegeocello at Blue Note on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday, Sports are at the Roxy, Saults are at the Teragram, Waxahatchee and MJ Lenderman play Disney Hall, and over at the Grammy Museum, there’s a screening of the Ann Wilson documentary In My Voice, followed by a conversation with the Heart legend herself. Thursday, The Dear Hunter will be at the Glass House.

And, happy Cinco de Mayo! Food and drink specials and community celebrations abound on Tuesday.

Elsewhere on LAist.com, you can catch up on Larry Mantle’s recent interview with Mayor Karen Bass, create a route to see the best street murals around L.A., and grab a ticket to see a live taping of NPR’s Wild Card with Rachel Martin and Tracee Ellis Ross at the Crawford on Thursday, May 7.

Events

Spaceballs

Tuesday, May 4, 6 to 10 p.m.
Griffith Observatory 
2800 E. Observatory Road, Griffith Park
COST: MEMBER ADMISSION, $45, MEMBER ADMISSION, $50 WAITLIST; MORE INFO

I don’t even really have to say it, do I? Griffith Observatory is hosting a very special screening of the best spoof of all time ever (don’t @ me), Spaceballs. In celebration of the upcoming sequel, Spaceballs: The New One (tbd if that was necessary), star Josh Gad will be on hand and the evening includes parking, drinks and snacks, and photo ops. It’s currently waitlist-only … may the Schwartz be with you.

Cinemasianamerica

Through Thursday, May 7
Laemmle Royal
11523 Santa Monica Blvd., West L.A.
COST: FROM $11.50; MORE INFO

Just in time to kick off Asian American Pacific Islander Month, director Quentin Lee has put together an exciting screening series at the Laemmle Royal, featuring 30 years of Lee’s work. The Cinemasianamerica series runs through May 7 and includes screenings of Ethan Mao, The People I’ve Slept With, The Unbidden, Rez Comedy, and Last Summer of Nathan Lee. The series will wrap with Comedy InvAsian III, a sneak preview of Lee’s stand-up showcase. Most screenings include a Q&A with Lee and fellow cast members.

Core Samples

Through Tuesday, June 30, by appointment
UCLA Architecture and Urban Design
1317 Portola Plaza, Perloff Hall 1118, Westwood
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

L.A. has a wealth of architectural and modern building feats, many of which we have more access to than any other city, given our (relative!) youth. UCLA’s School of Architecture has some of this history on display, including posters from talks by Frank Gehry and John Julius Norwich and archival materials, including VHS tapes, faculty portraits, 35mm slides of student work, travel photographs, office drawings, and posters. It uses a classroom space to allow visitors to explore, so since the exhibit is also a working teaching archive, you do have to make an appointment.

Netflix Is a Joke Festival

Through Sunday, May 10
Netflix Is a Joke Festival 
Multiple locations 
COST: VARIES; MORE INFO

WANTAGH, NY - SEPTEMBER 10: Comedian Pete Davidson performs onstage during Oddball Comedy Festival at Nikon at Jones Beach Theater on September 10, 2016 in Wantagh, New York.

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Where to even begin with all the incredible comedy listings for this year’s Netflix Is a Joke Festival? Whether you’re a theater person (see: Rachel Bloom guesting with Theater Adult on May 7), a fan of roasts (head to the Forum for the Roast of Kevin Hart on May 10), an SNL superfan (Pete Davidson at the Wiltern on May 9) or a podcast junkie (Girls Gotta Eat at the Palace Theatre on May 7), there’s a show for you. I didn’t even mention the 40th Anniversary of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse with the B-52s and Danny Elfman (May 4) or the Lizzo show at the Greek (May 7)! Pretty much every venue in L.A. has a comedy show this week – it might be harder not to see comedy. So find your favorite (or someone you’ve never heard of!) and get a taste of the L.A. and international comedy scene right here.

Anissa Helou x Now Serving: For Lebanon

Monday, May 4, 7 to 8 p.m.
727 N. Broadway #133, Chinatown 
COST: FROM $11.49; MORE INFO

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Now Serving

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L.A. Times restaurant critic Bill Addison hosts this conversation with James Beard-winning cookbook author Anissa Helou at cookbook store Now Serving in Chinatown. Helou’s latest is Lebanon: Cooking the Foods of My Homeland, celebrating the diversity of dishes from the Mediterranean country.

TROLLS: A Field Study 

Through Sunday, October 4
South Coast Botanic Garden
26300 Crenshaw Blvd., Palos Verdes Peninsula 
COST: FREE WITH GENERAL ADMISSION ($18); MORE INFO

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South Coast Botanic Garden

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South Coast Botanic Garden

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Thomas Dambo’s oversized trolls are as cute as they are creepy. Twelve of those giants made entirely of reclaimed wood have made their way across the pond to guard the South Coast Botanic Garden until October. Walk through this fairytale land with admission to the gardens or plan a special guided weekend Troll Trek.

A bill moving through the state legislature would require independent evaluations of any new education initiative that costs at least $500 million a year or $1 billion in one-time spending.

The proposed requirement is part of a larger bill that would restructure the role of the state superintendent, an elected position that currently oversees the California Department of Education.

“That means that as we make massive investments, as have occurred in the last several years, like universal transitional kindergarten, that there is a built-in independent check to tell us what is actually working,” Assemblymember David Alvarez, the bill’s author and chair of the assembly subcommittee on education, said at a hearing a few weeks ago.

While research shows a child’s early years are critical for learning, in February, reporting by LAist found the state had no formal plans to evaluate transitional kindergarten — a new grade for 4-year-olds in the public school system that was fully implemented this year.

 ”For TK, as you've covered well, you know, it's nonexistent,” Alvarez told LAist.

The state has spent billions on the program, including $3.9 billion to administer it this fiscal year.

The amendments to the bill also follow reports from the research group Policy Analysis for California Education, as well as the Legislative Analyst’s Office, that recommend reshaping the role of an elected state superintendent to include evaluation duties. But Alvarez said he thought it was crucial to take the legislation a step further and include a fiscal trigger to make evaluations mandatory, and envisions the requirement to apply to new state spending.

How would reviews work?

The bill as currently written only applies to new initiatives, but the superintendent would have authority to order reviews of existing programs like transitional kindergarten.

"I'm hopeful that as we engage more with the administration on this issue, that there's an interest in evaluating a program like this one of this magnitude and others,” Alvarez said. Other existing programs include the Community Schools Partnership Program, a wrap-around services initiative, and the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program.

The bill would allow for the independent evaluations to be done by outside research organizations.

“I really see this as the opportunity to really cement what I think is a good governance practice, long-term,” he said. “ Resources are limited, and we don't have an infinite number of dollars to do all the work we want to do, so we’ve got to make sure that dollars are being used in the best way that serves the most number of students.”

Have thoughts?

A subcontractor on the LAX Automated People Mover project owes a group of workers unpaid wages and benefits, according to a grievance filed by the union representing the workers.

An arbitrator held a hearing on the matter last December and formally sided with the union in his decision, which was released in March.

The International Union of Elevator Constructors, Local 18, had argued in a grievance filed in May 2025 that subcontractor Alstom Transport USA has been paying people who have been preparing train vehicles for passenger service and testing parts at a lower rate than what’s outlined in a labor agreement governing the project.

The union said in a statement to LAist that it is “satisfied” its claims were backed by the arbitrator and that the decision reflects the power of collective action.

The union added that this isn’t the end of the fight since Alstom has “already shown that they don’t intend to comply with the arbitrator’s award.”

The arbitrator noted in his decision there is some uncertainty as to how many workers would be affected since some of them were hired directly by Alstom and others through third-party firms. The union says there are 28 total workers who, regardless of how they were hired, should be compensated for their work and estimates Alstom owes them millions in wages and benefits.

A spokesperson for Alstom said it is “reviewing the arbitrator’s recommendations.”

“Alstom remains committed to reaching a fair and competitive wage and benefit package that recognizes the valuable contributions of our employees,” the spokesperson said.

LINXS did not respond to a request for comment.

Disputes in large-scale capital projects are not uncommon. This is one of many surrounding the Automated People Mover and not the only one to involve subcontractors working on the project. Earlier this year, LAist reported about how the main contractor, a group of companies called LINXS, is engaged in legal battles with two of its other subcontractors.

Another dispute between the city and LINXS has recently intensified and could also lead to litigation.

The project labor agreement

At the heart of this dispute is the collective bargaining agreement that sets wages for on-site construction work, establishes dispute procedures and ensures there won’t be work stoppages over labor issues on capital projects owned by Los Angeles World Airports, the city agency that oversees LAX. The project labor agreement was first forged in 1999 and, in 2020, the airport’s board renewed it for an additional decade.

LINXS agreed that it would be bound to the agreement and “shall require all of its subcontractors … to be similarly bound,” according to a copy of the arbitrator’s decision the union shared with LAist.

The union has claimed that the Alstom employees were doing work that is covered by the agreement and that they should be paid accordingly.

Alstom, according to communications cited in the arbitrator’s decision, said it never signed a document called a Letter of Assent, which formalizes a company’s obligation to follow the project labor agreement, and that, even if it did, its employees’ work isn’t covered.

The arbitrator’s decision

David Weinberg, the arbitrator, said the testing and commissioning work Alstom employees did is covered by the project labor agreement. Weinberg added that Alstom consented to abide by the agreement when it signed a contract to work with LINXS.

“Not signing the Letter of Assent does not absolve Alstom of its contractual obligations to LINXS or to the Union under the [Project Labor Agreement] due to the pass-through provision,” Weinberg wrote in his decision.

Weinberg said that the Alstom employees should get paid the national wage and benefits rate for the International Union of Elevator Constructors for any hours of work completed starting 60 days before the union filed its grievance. Weinberg also ordered Alstom to provide the hours of work completed on-site.

Weinberg said in his decision that if Alstom does not comply, LINXS would be on the hook, though for a smaller amount. LINXS would be liable to pay for any hours of work starting 60 days before Nov. 4, when it became a formal party to the grievance.