When Wayde Hunter of Granada Hills first heard that fire debris from the blaze that destroyed a frozen food warehouse in Boyle Heights would be dumped at Sunshine Canyon Landfill in Sylmar, it “raised the hackles on the backs of our necks,” he recounted.
Hunter and many of his neighbors faced a similar dilemma last year following the Los Angeles wildfires, when they protested vehemently against having debris from the Palisades and Eaton fires trucked into Sunshine Canyon, which is essentially located in their backyards, said Hunter.
They lost that battle, and now there was another one possibly brewing, he recalled thinking.
Hunter told the San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol that the initial rumors were partially correct – Sunshine Canyon was indeed starting to receive truckloads of debris from the Boyle Heights fire, but it was being limited to construction and demolition waste, or C&D, which refers to building rubble containing materials such as concrete, wood, tiles and metal, he said.
The bigger concern is all of the rotting organic waste, noted Hunter. The 500,000-square-foot cold storage warehouse in Boyle Heights, which borders East Los Angeles, contained 88 million pounds of frozen food items that, over the last month, have decayed in the burned-out building during the hot summer temperatures.
Lineage Logistics, now deemed a health hazard, sits in the middle of a neighborhood that has been directly impacted. The food waste is slated for dumping at the Simi Valley Landfill and Recycling Center in Simi Valley and at El Sobrante Landfill in Corona, said Eugene Tseng, technical advisor to the Sunshine Canyon Landfill Local Enforcement Agency (SCL-LEA).
As of Monday, about 80% of the decaying food products had already been removed, Lineage reported, but not before their invasive odors permeated across communities surrounding the facility. The aftermath of the fire has resulted in putrid smells seeping into nearby homes, and infestations of rodents, flies and other insects, all exacerbated by the sweltering weather.
Neighbors Living Near Sylmar Landfill
Because the Granada Hills neighborhoods located downwind from Sunshine Canyon already have a long history of routinely dealing with the stench of trash from the local landfill – and reporting it to the South Coast Air Quality Management District (South Coast AQMD) – Hunter said that he and other community members plan to remain vigilant. They want to ensure the landfill operators remain true to their word – to only accept C&D waste from the Lineage fire.
“There is [regular] landfill reporting at the SCL-CAC meetings and if they don’t say [what’s happening], we ask,” said Hunter, who has lived in Granada Hills since the early 1970s and is president of the North Valley Coalition of Concerned Citizens, Inc. In addition to being in regular communication with the general manager of Sunshine Canyon itself, he also has contacts with AQMD and other agencies that help oversee operations at the Sylmar landfill.
To date, Sunshine Canyon has received “minimal amounts of construction waste” from the fire – about 200 tons – which is being tested for hazardous substances, such as asbestos, said Tseng.
But, added Hunter, he knows anything is possible.
“All the reports about the organic [food waste] from the Boyle Heights fire [have been] horrendous, and we had no guarantees that Sunshine Canyon would not accept it,” he said.
And that’s why they’re keeping their eyes open, stressed Hunter.
“We have been shafted by this landfill many times before,” he continued, “by them accepting odorous waste in the past, with no regard for the community and only caring about the almighty dollar from dumping fees.”