Despite the fact that the Palisades Fire is all but over, the damage is still very much being assessed and in addition to countless homes, businesses and vehicles being destroyed, there are a great many repercussions that we still must face. Unquestionably, the most significant of these, is the damage to the surrounding environment.
According to CalFire, the Palisades Fire alone grew to be the 10th-deadliest and third-most destructive wildfire in US history, with 11 deaths, over 6,500 structures destroyed and more than 23,000 acres scorched.
When it became clear that the unusually strong Santa Ana winds were fuelling a raging inferno, fire departments from all over the region quickly reacted and two CL-415 "Super Scooper" firefighting planes provided as much air support as was possible, dropping 1,620 gallons of sea water on each pass.
Attempting to suppress the fire was undeniably more important than anything else, but unfortunately sea water will not help soil fertility when the vegetation tries to return, potentially leaving large areas that won’t benefit from having the roots of plantlife holding the hillsides together. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Many items typically found in homes contain chemicals and materials that will produce toxic fumes and residuals when burnt. Televisions, laptops, solar panels and in fact just about anything electronic, batteries, cars and electric vehicles all contain components that are made from materials that present a contamination danger after being utterly incinerated. And then there’s the asbestos, which still exists in many houses built between 1930 and 1950.
And now the rainy season has finally begun, large quantities of ash and debris are more than likely going to get washed into storm drains, or in the case of all the destroyed homes on the Pacific Coast Highway, get washed directly into Santa Monica Bay.
“It’s not just about obvious pollutants, heavy metals, man made chemicals, PHS [Particularly Hazardous Substances], carcinogens and dioxins, but also even more natural things, the carbon, sediments, the nutrients, all of those components that are eroding that wouldn't normally erode because of the burn, they would have the potential to affect all organisms, whether they're in that water or in the sediments,” said Rebecca Shipe, Adjunct Associate Professor, UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.
“Clearly there's possible effects on human health, directly recreational use, and then all of our fisheries, as well as throughout the food chain, the oceanic food chain,” Shipe said, adding, “It would include primary producers, algae or kelp forests, and then progress up the food chain towards plankton, larval fish, invertebrates …They move up the food chain over time that can have chronic impacts on these organisms, so it could affect digestion, reproduction, immune function. There's evidence showing this in for example, otters, from the Woolsey Fire in 2018.”
Of course the herculean task of cleaning up has begun, but now it has become a race against time. Crews can only move so fast and making gas and electricity lines safe and secure is a priority, so if the weather takes a turn and the Westside is treated to the same kind of downpours we had this time last year, then it’s unlikely that the danger will disappear.
The degree of toxicity is so severe, that in Sunday’s Palisades Fire Debris Removal Town Hall held at Santa Monica College, members of the EPA and FEMA stressed that no returning residents should begin to clear debris, simply because they won’t be equipped with hazardous material suits or have access to an approved dumping site. And at the very least, if they want to shift through the remains of their house to look for sentimental possession, they should absolutely wear N95 masks and protective clothing.
“There's stuff that we can do in terms of erosion control once some of the cleanup has been done. A lot of them are things just like straw wattles or straw bale dams. Those sorts of things can help reduce the flow of debris once the rain starts coming,” Naomi Meurice, Water Quality Data Associate Specialist at Heal the Bay, said.
Last week, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued an emergency order that, among other things, will restore the use of Low Flow Diversion pump stations that capture stormwater and divert it to the sewer system during low flow conditions to prevent fire-contaminated stormwater from being directly discharged to the ocean.
“This could be good in theory, but we also really need to make sure that we're protecting our sewage infrastructure, because if too much debris is going to get into the wastewater treatment plants, it could lead to a sewage spill, which is introducing another environmental impact to the whole situation,” Meurice said.
Sadly, water quality warnings are issued almost every time there’s heavy rain in Santa Monica, because we just don’t respect our environment enough, but it’s safe to say, this time it’s different. After the rain storms on Sunday evening caused debris, trash and other toxic waste to flow in the burn scar areas, an ocean water quality rain advisory has been issued for all Los Angeles County beaches. While typical Santa Monica Bay currents flow out to sea, eddies and tidal motion still cause the ocean to circulate southwards, following the coastline as we’ve seen in the past with sewage leaks.
“What we've experienced with these wildfires is unprecedented. It's a situation I don't think we have dealt with before, where you have a wildfire that's spread into urban areas and the impact is the result of what’s in those houses,” Sunny Wang, City of Santa Monica Water Resources Manager, said.
“There's a lot of human made items in there that are not seen in a typical wildfire. There's actually some research that was done regarding a natural wildfire, where it's just vegetation that gets burned and there are actually some organics that help marine life populations. Now, if you mix in this urban element, as we're talking about, with some of these more industrial contaminants, we're not really sure what the impact is.”
Santa Monica takes great pride in its Sustainable Water Infrastructure Project, or SWIP, that treats and recycles stormwater and municipal wastewater in an impressive facility constructed several storeys underground, under the Civic Center parking lot. And while the watershed that supplies the city is mostly in the direction of Culver City and up towards West Hollywood, not all of it is.
“We were closely monitoring that during the fires, because a portion of the wastewater actually comes from Palisades, so we did see elevated, at least organic contaminants, because we can't monitor some of the industrial stuff online,” Wang said.
“We did see an increase in contaminant loading at our facility. We actually took some samples during that time, but I don't have those results yet to see how the system performed. It’s designed to remove these industrial contaminants, but we haven't seen something like this, or could anticipate them like this, so we won’t get results back for a couple of weeks.”
Wang remains confident though that Santa Monica’s water supply won’t be affected. “Our natural groundwater recharge is at the mountain fronts that were impacted. However, whether these contaminants are actually going to make into the deep aquifer, it's unlikely … That water will go through natural attenuation and degradation, before it makes it to our groundwater aquifer. Because you have to remember, our groundwater source that we pull from is three to 400 feet deep, so the chances of that contaminant making it to the soil, especially when it's dry, it's unlikely. What's going to most likely happen, when it rains, it's going to wash all this way off to the ocean.”
Finally, Wang wanted to add an extra note of reassurance to the residents of Santa Monica, “There was a lot of confusion about water quality and I just want to reassure our residents that the city’s water quality is perfectly fine. It's safe to drink. We were not impacted by the fires at all and we are not connected in any way to the LA DWP system.”
scott.snowden@smdp.com
