California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s disaster chief quietly retired in late December amid criticism over the state’s indecisive stance on whether soil testing was necessary to protect survivors of the Eaton and Palisades fires.
One year ago, Nancy Ward, then the director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES), petitioned the Federal Emergency Management Agency to spearhead the cleanup of toxic ash and fire debris cloaking more than 12,000 homes across Los Angeles County.
Although Ward’s decision ensured the federal government would assume the bulk of disaster costs, it came with a major trade off. FEMA was unwilling to pay for soil sampling to confirm these homes weren’t still heavily contaminated with toxic substances after the cleanup — testing that California state agencies have typically done following similar fires in the past…