Three weeks after the Lineage warehouse fire sent smoke and odors into surrounding Boyle Heights and East LA neighborhoods, one major question remains: Will the company be allowed to rebuild next to homes and an elementary school?
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass does not have an answer for that yet.
In an interview with Boyle Heights Beat, Bass said she wants to spend more time talking to residents before coming to a decision. She also urged residents to hold her accountable as she oversees cleanup efforts — she said she’ll hold Lineage to a 45-day schedule — and look for ways the city can provide economic relief, such as reimbursements for high utility bills for residents who ran air purifiers for days on end.
“[Residents] have to hold me accountable,” Bass said. “I’ve been out there, I plan to go out there regularly over these 45 days, and after, to make sure that the community is getting better, is getting what they need.”
Will Lineage rebuild?
Part of the recovery process for clearing out the millions of pounds of rotting food from inside the warehouse includes demolition. Bass could not answer on Thursday whether Lineage will be allowed to rebuild the cold-storage facility once it is cleared.
“Will I support them in rebuilding? I don’t know. To me, the community has to weigh into that,” Bass said.
For now, Bass said she will look into what problems the Lineage warehouse, and others located in residential neighborhoods, have caused for residents in the past.
Last month, Bass ordered City Planning and the Department of Building and Safety to spend the next 45 days reviewing what is inside warehouses located near homes and schools across LA.
“These companies exist all in our communities, and we don’t even know who they are. Some of these factories don’t even have signage,” Bass said. “So, the biggest lesson is preparing to prevent [the next environmental disaster].”
Reimbursement for high utility bills
Financial support has been difficult to navigate for some residents living near the site of the fire. To help alleviate the burden, Bass said she has spoken to the Department of Water and Power to determine how to reimburse residents for their high utility bills caused by running air purifiers constantly.
“The bottom line is, they’re going to be reimbursed,” Bass said. She advises that residents save their DWP bills from before and after the fire “so we can see how much your bill increased because of the air filter.”
In addition to utility bills, fire-affected business owners told Bass at a meeting on July 2 that they’ve struggled with low foot traffic and a lack of parking in the neighborhood has made it worse. Bass said she would look into stopping parking enforcement near the fire site. Bass said the Department of Transportation has begun looking into that request and has already followed through on waiving fees and returning vehicles that were towed near the warehouse.
“As soon as I found out that was happening, I had them waive the fees,” Bass said
Air quality remains a top concern
For those living closest to the fire, air quality remains a top concern. Residents have expressed worry over the long-term health impacts of the air they breathed while smoke blanketed their neighborhoods for days. Some still haven’t returned to their homes.
Local leaders and community organizations have called on Lineage to conduct consistent air quality monitoring and a comprehensive study. Bass said the city is also looking into commissioning its own independent testing with outside companies and local universities.
“I’m committed to the neighborhood. Period,” Bass said. “To me, this is an environmental justice issue, and I said that from day one. It’s not just about Lineage, it’s not just about those 333 homes [that surround the warehouse], it’s about lower-income communities of color and their environmental hazards.”
Communication breakdowns between jurisdictions
In the days directly after the fire, some residents in Boyle Heights, East LA and surrounding communities struggled to navigate resources and were turned away at air purifier distributions based on where they lived — then the messaging shifted.
Bass, LA City Councilmember Ysabel Jurado and LA County Supervisor Hilda Solis began appearing side by side at press conferences and stressed that government agencies were working together to get residents the resources they needed.
“When you’re in an emergency like this, [the response] has to evolve. You can’t possibly get it right on day one,” Bass told the Beat.
City and county departments have been in close coordination with each other, but there is still work to be done, Bass said.
“We all have different rules. …Am I totally confident we can resolve the jurisdictional thing? I’m not sure, because the two governments function very differently,” she said.
On Thursday evening, Bass, Jurado and Solis will meet with Lineage officials and speak directly to the community at their first joint public meeting since the blaze began.
The town hall, which takes place at 6:30 p.m. at Stevenson Middle School, follows a joint letter authored by the local officials to Greg Lehmkuhl, president and CEO of Lineage, demanding the meetings, short and long-term housing assistance, funding for community clinics and organizations, and a comprehensive cleanup schedule with regular updates.
