The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday it has completed its Phase 1 removal of household hazardous materials from properties destroyed or heavily damaged by the Eaton and Palisades fires, in line with a 30-day timeline requested by local officials.
EPA Acting Regional Administrator Cheree Peterson made the announcement during a morning news briefing Wednesday at the county Hall of Administration in downtown Los Angeles.
The announcement means the wildfire debris-removal effort is now fully into Phase 2, during which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — or private contractors hired by individual property owners — will remove all other materials from fire-damaged properties, including ash, wood and other debris.
Phase 1 was initially anticipated to last for several months, but local and state authorities pushed the EPA to expedite its work and complete the process in 30 days, moving property owners closer to rebuilding.
Peterson noted, however, that EPA crews were unable to clear hazardous materials from several thousand properties that were deemed too dangerous to clear. Those properties were “deferred” to Phase 2 of the debris-removal program, meaning the Corps of Engineers will handle the removal of all hazardous and other wastes from those areas.
The governor’s office announced on Tuesday that more than 4,400 properties had been deferred to Phase 2, while more than 9,000 others had been cleared by the EPA.
“Thanks to the hard work and dedication of hundreds of federal and state crews, the first phase of debris cleanup is coming to a close and we can turn our focus fully to structural debris removal,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement Tuesday. “Under the leadership of EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, crews cleaned hazardous waste from thousands of properties in less than 30 days, a record pace never seen before at this scale.”