Toxic waste cleanup from fire under way
Mop-up’s first stage involves heavy metals, chemicals, asbestos
What California officials are calling the state’s biggest disaster cleanup in decades began this week with crews in masks and white Tyvek suits taking aim at the toxic remnants of the Camp Fire.
Burned gas stations, melted cars and entire neighborhoods reduced to scraps of heavy metals, fiberglass and asbestos left a lethal film on the 240-square-mile area burned by the massive fire. That will be the first order of business for the mop-up teams. Next will be the concrete, steel and debris of nearly 14,000 charred homes.
The colossal effort to clear Butte County of the rubble, and make way for recovery of the town of Paradise and its neighbors, is expected to last at least a year. The trucks and trains being mobilized for the work are prepared to take out as much as 8 million tons of material — almost four times what was removed from
last year’s Northern California fires.
In addition to the sheer scope of the mission, the challenge for cleanup crews will be preventing noxious debris from permanently scarring the region’s air, soil and water.
“One may think that an individual container of bleach is innocuous,” said Steve Calanog, an incident commander for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “But when you multiply that container by the number of homes destroyed, the volumes are appreciable. We all have lots of things that, if they’re out in the environment, pose a risk.”
The EPA, one of many agencies involved in the joint state-federal effort that’s expected to cost a few billion dollars, had about 150 people on the ground this week, but that number will grow as the removal of hazardous materials picks up.
Volunteers with the nonprofit Friends of Butte Creek aren’t taking chances on what might end up in the waterway at ground zero of the Camp Fire. In recent days, the group’s members have attempted to shield Butte Creek from the drainage of surrounding communities, insulating it with about 3 miles of protective straw bales, known as wattles.
The creek is home to a resurgent population of spring-run chinook salmon whose young recently hatched. Now, the inch-long fish are having to deal with the pesky runoff from recent storms. Fire-induced pollutants in the storm water threaten to taint the larvae of insects and crustaceans that the salmon eat, and sediment flushed into the creek could topple gravel beds that the fish live on.
“What we’re concerned about are ash flows and debris flows and the toxic chemicals coming off the homes,” said Allen Harthorn, executive director of Friends of Butte Creek.
The population of salmon here has been stressed by low water flows in recent drought years, though Harthorn said he’s hopeful the fish can weather the latest trial brought on by fire.
“When their numbers get down, it gets harder for them to successfully spawn and reproduce,” Harthorn said. “But the fish seem to be very resilient and they’re able to rebound very successfully.”
Scientists have begun running tests on Butte Creek and other waterways to look for contaminants. They’re also testing soil. The results are pending.
The Feather River, which provides water to the State Water Project and sits on the eastern edge of the Camp Fire’s perimeter, is believed to have been affected much less by the burn.
“We know a lot of chemicals exited Paradise. We just don’t know what happened to them and where they are in the watershed,” said Jackson Webster, an assistant professor of civil engineering at Chico State University, who is among those doing the sampling.
Cleanup officials are also keeping an eye on how potentially damaged septic systems in Paradise could harm the landscape. The town of 27,000 is one of the largest in California without a centralized sewer system.
The Camp Fire, which ignited Nov. 8, virtually wiped out Paradise as it tore from the mountain community of Pulga to the Chico city limits. The 153,336-acre blaze was contained Nov. 25.
At least 85 people died and an estimated 18,793 structures burned. The fire is the deadliest and most destructive in California history.
Calanog, with the EPA, said his hazardous-materials crews learned a lot from their work in Sonoma and Napa counties after last year’s Wine Country devastation.
“It’s both similar and very different here,” he said.
The debris they’ve started clearing is virtually the same. But there’s a lot more of it and it’s harder to transport from the more rural Paradise area, which is accessible only by narrow, two-lane roads.
Once the toxic material is disposed of, the large-scale removal of buildings will begin.
The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, which is overseeing the cleanup, expects both trucks and trains to be operating in earnest by the second week of January. Rail service from Chico will allow crews to get more debris out and move it to more waste facilities, according to the agency.
“We’re using any eligible landfill in Northern California, but we may have to go farther than that,” said office spokesman Brad Alexander.
The cleanup, which ultimately will involve thousands of government workers and private contractors, is expected to cost much more than the $1.3 billion spent on debris removal from last year’s Northern California fires.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency will pick up 75 percent of the tab, officials say, while the state will cover the rest.
Residential property owners do not have to contribute, unless their insurance company provides reimbursement for the excavation. Commercial businesses are responsible for cleaning up their own parcels.
Rebuilding can’t begin until the state signs off on the rehabilitation of the property. In some places, this might be a matter of months, in others it could be longer. State officials have not said which areas will be cleared first.
“It’s going to take about a year to do the bulk of the work,” Alexander said.