In the face of mounting backlash from wildfire survivors and California elected officials, federal disaster agencies are defending their decision to forgo soil testing after cleanup crews remove debris from properties that burned in the Los Angeles County fires.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have said that federal cleanup workers will remove toxic wildfire ash and rubble, along with a 6-inch layer of topsoil from properties. But, this week, federal officials told The Times they won’t order soil testing to confirm that properties aren’t still contaminated after the removal.
Follow-up soil testing — conducted after every major wildfire in California since 2007 — is intended to ensure that properties are remediated to state standards and don’t still contain dangerous levels of toxic substances …