Residents expected the Lineage fire cleanup to reach a major milestone this week: The food waste would be gone, and crews would move on to washing and disinfecting the fire-damaged warehouse.
That didn’t happen.
Now, The LA Local has learned that the company had underestimated how much waste remained inside the warehouse. South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) inspectors found waste still in Freezer 1 during inspections last week — more than Lineage had originally estimated when regulators calculated how quickly the cleanup needed to happen.
This comes a week after Lineage Logistics retracted a statement that it had removed “104%” of the estimated 88 million pounds of food the company said was at its facility in Boyle Heights when the fire broke out. It also comes two weeks after the company similarly blew a deadline Mayor Karen Bass imposed for complete food removal by Aug. 14 — a calculation Lineage ultimately disputed.
The blown deadlines and inaccurate reports of cleanup progress are further calling into question how much waste remains at the site, if Lineage is accurately reporting its progress, and if officials are effectively verifying those reports.
“During our ongoing inspections last week, South Coast AQMD witnessed that there was waste in Building 1, indicating there was more waste than originally estimated by Lineage and directed them to correct their reports to accurately reflect the progress both to us and to the community,” an AQMD spokesperson wrote to The LA Local Thursday.
A reverse-engineered deadline
AQMD has received thousands of odor complaints from people living and working near the remnants of the warehouse and has issued dozens of notices of violation to the company over the rancid air at the site. The agency has the authority to levy fines and other penalties on Lineage for those violations, but has yet to do so.
At the time the AQMD order went into effect, Lineage reported that it had removed about 80% of the original food volume. The company has routinely reported its cleanup progress as a percentage rather than in pounds removed or remaining, an approach they admitted has confused the public. That method of reporting also led to unrealistic expectations at AQMD.
“[According to the order, Lineage] would be required to remove the remaining 20% by no less than two weeks,” an AQMD spokesperson told The LA Local on Aug. 14. “Two weeks from the hearing board order will be August 20.”
That estimate appeared credible even to AQMD board members, who told the public at the two-day hearing that began on Aug. 5 that cleanup could be completed in days and expressed hope it could have been done before nearby schools started on Aug. 12.
As Aug. 20 approached, Lineage’s cleanup tracker exceeded 100%, a statement the company later retracted as misleading.
When The LA Local asked AQMD about the missed deadline, the agency said that there was no explicit deadline date outlined in the final order for abatement it agreed to with Lineage.
While AQMD’s order never explicitly established a cleanup deadline, it clearly established a cleanup volume: 8.8 million pounds of rotting food must be removed every week.
AQMD has not said Lineage failed to meet that weekly requirement. In fact, a cleanup report obtained by The LA Local shows Lineage estimated it removed 1.78 million pounds in a single day, which would put it on pace to exceed the weekly target.
Lineage Vice President of Global Safety and Compliance Dominic DiCarlo repeated the 80% estimate during testimony to the AQMD Board at the hearing.
If Lineage was 80% done and removing 10% a week, it should have completed cleanup in two weeks.
Now that Lineage expects cleanup to take until Aug. 30, one of two things appears likely: There was more food on site than originally estimated, the company’s cleanup reports were inaccurate, or both.
Accountability remains elusive
Residents of Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles boarded a bus bound more than 25 miles east to AQMD’s headquarters in Diamond Bar the morning of the Aug. 5 hearing. Dozens described in detail the putrid smells and concerns about hazardous pollution they had lived with since the fire broke out in June.
Many of them asked that a subsequent hearing be scheduled in the neighborhoods most affected by the fire and its lingering odor.
LA Mayor Karen Bass, Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, state Sen. María Elena Durazo and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors wrote letters supporting AQMD’s order after they’d asked for public accountability. Several asked for stiff financial penalties that have not been imposed.
Jurado introduced a motion to the LA City Council earlier this month seeking to increase the city’s ability to levy fines on businesses that pose hazards to the community. She proposed implementing a fee structure ranging from $25,000 to $1,000,000 per fine. That motion was approved by the Planning and Land Use Management Committee but has yet to be voted on by the full council.
Bass has said the city is researching possible legal action over Lineage’s cleanup violations, but would not provide an update on that effort when asked Thursday. The City Attorney’s Office did not respond to inquiries about such a suit.
A spokesperson for AQMD said that Lineage’s cleanup remains under investigation and that its inspectors continue to work at the site. But the agency has not committed to amending the order to clarify deadlines or food waste estimates, and has not scheduled an additional hearing, in Diamond Bar or Boyle Heights, holding the company accountable for its inaccurate reports.
The agency said the previous violations it issued to Lineage are moving through the enforcement process and could carry penalties of up to $75,000 a day for each violation.
