State of emergency will help with hazardous waste cleanup
A primary reason the Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors declared a local state of emergency and a local health emergency due to the Washington Fire on Monday was to begin the process of freeing up state funding to clean up hazardous waste on properties where structures and other household materials burned up in the blaze.
“Our number one priority is for the removal of the household hazardous waste,” Dore Beitz, coordinator for the county Office of Emergency Services, said in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon. “We have to get that out. We’re sending our request for assistance in removal of the household hazardous waste today. We would like to get it out of there as soon as possible. Definitely before it starts raining again later this fall or early winter.”
As of Tuesday, Cal Fire investigators had determined at least 18 structures were destroyed in the Washington Fire. County OES staff described 17 of the structures as three houses, five mobile homes, five motorhomes, two garages, one commercial building, and one outbuilding.
If the burned ruins of those structures remain where they are this winter, in the steep hillside neighborhood on and near Golden Dove Lane, and hard rains fall on the Washington Fire burn scar, post-fire flooding and erosion could wash all that hazardous waste farther into the Woods Creek watershed.
“There’s a burn scar, and there’s a watershed,” Bietz said. “We might bring partners in from the Forest Service. We’re going to get rain, what does that mean? We’re looking at mitigating any potential for post-fire debris flows, erosion, or flooding, and protecting the watershed.”
Tuolumne County OES is responsible for the coordination of all disasters, which includes the coordination of household hazardous waste and debris removal as it relates to a fire, Bietz said. County OES and the county Community Development Department are working with state and federal agencies to get burned properties cleaned up.
“Obviously we have not budgeted for this,” Bietz said. “We plan to request assistance from the state. There’s a state framework for how to clean up and sanitize burned homes, foundations, and properties. The first step is to ask for state contractors to come in and do the work for us. The state will pay. It won’t cost the county, because of the proclamation of local emergency.”
While Cal Fire investigators have completed an initial damage assess
ment, authorities are still determining whether additional homes or residences were destroyed in the fire, and whether they fall in the category for homes.
“The fire is still active in the perimeter today,” Bietz said. “We have not yet come up with an exact final number of places or residence destroyed by the fire.
Part of post-fire damage assessment is determining what else was burned up, and what else is on burned properties that is considered household hazardous waste, Bietz said. County OES will be coordinating with county Environmental Health and the county Community Development Department.
The county Board of Supervisors, in a joint meeting with the City of Sonora and the county Economic Development Authority, voted unanimously on Monday to approve local emergency proclamations due to the Washington Fire.
The declarations are required by the California Emergency Services Act, Bietz said.
If a local government determines the effects of an emergency are beyond the capability of local resources to mitigate effectively, the local government must proclaim a local emergency, Bietz said.
A local emergency is defined in government code as “a condition of extreme peril to persons or property proclaimed as such by the governing body of the local agency affected by a natural or manmade disaster,” Bietz said.
Declaring or proclaiming a local emergency allows a local government to impose and provide extraordinary police powers; provides immunity for emergency actions; authorizes issuance of orders and regulations; activates pre-established emergency provisions; and is a prerequisite to request state or federal assistance, Bietz said.
It should be noted a local emergency proclamation is not required for fire or law mutual aid; for direct state assistance or American Red Cross assistance; for Fire Management Assistance Grants; or disaster loan programs from the U.S. Department of Agriculture or U.S. Small Business Administration, Bietz said.
Local emergency proclamations are necessary for getting burned properties cleaned up and for getting reimbursed for local costs incurred during the fire, Bietz said.
“There’s a recovery process,” Bietz said. “There’s a response process. The moment we went beyond our resources, which we did, we asked for mutual aid.”
Mutual police and fire aid are available at no cost to local agencies, but local agencies incur the costs of their law and fire responses, which went up fast during the Washington Fire, Bietz said. An estimate of how much the city and county has spent so far on the Washington Fire was not available Tuesday afternoon.
That’s where the local emergency proclamations are key, Bietz said. When a fire breaks out, local authorities respond, and costs go up fast. Mutual aid is available at no cost to the local authorities, however, the costs incurred by the local agencies cannot be reimbursed by the state unless the local government or governments proclaim a local state of emergency.
“There’s no guarantee,” Bietz said. “We are required to apply to a state process to get reimbursed. Not all costs are covered. Local governments will bear some costs.
We are not asking for a national disaster declaration. The Dixie and Caldor fires will meet those levels. The Washington Fire will not.”
A local emergency proclamation can only be issued by a governing body like a city or a county, or a city and a county together, Bietz said. It must be issued within 10 days of the incident and ratified by the governing body within 7 days. Renewal of the resolution should occur every 60 days until it’s terminated.