In a dramatic reversal, the US Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce that the Federal Emergency Management Agency will pay for soil testing for lead in 100 homes that were destroyed in the Eaton fire and cleaned up by federal disaster workers.
The upcoming announcement will mark an about-face for FEMA officials, who have repeatedly refused calls to inspect toxic sites after the agency’s contractors have finished removing fire debris. The new inspection program follows a report by The Times that workers repeatedly violated cleaning regulations, possibly leaving flammable materials behind or moving them to unwanted areas, according to agency reports.
The EPA plan, presented to a small group of environmental experts and members of the public on Jan. 5, said the agency will randomly select 100 sites from the 5,600 homes that burned in the Eaton fire and where the US Army Corps of Engineers is overseeing the removal of ash, debris and topsoil. Soil samples will be collected near the surface and about 6 inches below the surface.
Sampling is expected to begin next week, and test results will be published in April.
During the presentation on Jan. 5, some attendees questioned whether the inspection would objectively assess whether the buildings are safe to rebuild.
Local health advocates are concerned that the EPA’s assessment is only designed to justify FEMA’s decision not to conduct comprehensive soil testing, instead of providing real help to their communities.
“The EPA’s plan to conduct research that repeatedly confirms the limited response to soil removal after the LA Fires is deeply concerning, especially when there is a lot of independent data showing contamination continues beyond what was discussed,” said Jane Lawton Potelle, executive director of the grassroots environmental health group Eaton Fire Residents United, in a statement. “The hard truth is that significant pollution recovery has not been funded or delivered by the federal government or the State of California.”
The EPA’s proposed approach is smaller than previous soil testing efforts in California’s wildfires. Although lead is one of the most common and dangerous pollutants left behind after fires, federal and state disaster officials have typically tested the soil for 17 toxic metals, including cancer-causing arsenic and toxic mercury.
The EPA program also calls for soil to be taken from 30 separate parts of each treatment area and combined into one representative sample. That approach is inconsistent with California’s soil testing policy and could obscure “hot spots” of contamination in the area.
“If you don’t want to get a high number [of contaminants]you take a lot of samples and put them together,” said Andrew Whelton, a Purdue University professor who studies natural disasters.
“Based on the test design of [the EPA plan]I don’t understand the purpose of what they are doing, because it is not intended to determine whether the buildings are safe or not,” added Whelton.
For nearly a year, FEMA refused to pay for soil testing, insisting it was time-consuming, expensive and unnecessary. FEMA, along with the US Army Corps of Engineers, maintained that removing the ash, debris and soil layer would be sufficient to remove the toxic material from the structures.
But those claims were unsubstantiated. Historical fire data showed about 20% of buildings still contained toxic materials above California’s residential benchmark.
In addition, dozens of reports obtained by The Times reveal that government contractors repeatedly deviated from their cleanup plans, potentially leaving behind large amounts of toxic ash and debris.
FEMA hired inspectors to observe the cleanup process and document any problems; reports coming out say that, in some cases, workers are spraying dirty lake water into areas, passing clean areas that have just been installed through dirty boot holes and clean soil that is dirty and contaminated by using the wrong equipment.
In one of the most serious violations, the inspector noted that an official with Environmental Chemical Corp., the prime contractor hired to oversee debris removal from the Eaton and Palisades fires, ordered workers to dump ash and debris on a neighboring property.
An Army Corps spokesman said “all deficiencies noted” by federal inspectors “have been addressed and corrected.”
“Our robust quality assurance program had hundreds of quality assurance testers and engineers,” the spokesperson said. “Defects identified in the article have been corrected immediately or prior to Final Closing.”
The agency did not provide details about how staff resolved the allegations of illegal dumping, or any other deficiencies.
Several soil testing efforts had already found contamination above state standards. Los Angeles Times reporters launched a soil testing project and published the first evidence that homes destroyed by the Eaton fire still contained high levels of soil contamination, even after cleanup crews had finished removing the debris.
Los Angeles County and UCLA-led soil testing programs have also found high levels of contamination in areas cleared by the Army Corps.
EPA officials said the agency will share soil test results with property owners, in addition to Los Angeles County and state agencies. However, they did not say whether they intended to remove another layer of soil if lead levels exceed state and federal standards.
U.S. Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park), who has called on federal disaster agencies to provide fire victims with universal testing, sent an email to her constituents last week saying she “wants reassurance that they take action if their test results find contamination.”
The Army Corps and its contractors originally intended to decommission on Jan. 8, 2026, one year of fires, but efforts to clean up the country ended much earlier than expected. Federal Cleanup crews removed fire debris from the last federally registered storage facility in Los Angeles’ Pacific Palisades in early September.
State and federal officials hailed the Army Corps’ efforts as the fastest cleanup in modern American history.
As of publication, FEMA and EPA have not responded to questions sent by The Times about details of the testing program.
