Tensions in Boyle Heights reached a fever pitch Thursday night when residents, fed up with exposure to toxic smoke, the smell of rotting food and a lack of answers after the Lineage warehouse fire, made their frustrations known at a lively town hall meeting.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass struggled to open the meeting despite loud boos and shouts from community members, actions that were repeated when other elected officials took the microphone. The crowd grew even louder when Lineage COO Jeff Rivera took the stage and was greeted with a chorus of “Liar!”
Dozens of protesters marched a mile from the site of the dangerous fire to the meeting, held at Stevenson High School, chanting as they went that the warehouse had poisoned their community and that they wanted it removed permanently.
More than 200 people were turned away at the door as the venue reached capacity, and several dozen protesters briefly broke through security and forced entry into the room. They came out as the meeting began and met the crowd outside, gathering with drums, whistles and signs saying “Lineage out” and “We can see your greedy side.”
“We are a community and a city and we are making sure we get the necessary solutions,” said protest leader Jazmín García. “It's about quality of life. It's about not being ignored anymore.”
For several days, firefighters struggled to put out a persistent fire that started on the roof of the Lineage cold storage warehouse in Boyle Heights on June 17.
Air quality has been a constant concern for the community since the incident began. Beyond the health risks of breathing smoke from a building fire, there was a brief and temporary scare when an ammonia line that helped keep the building cool was compromised, although Lineage has said the chemical was not detected in the air. Additionally, 85 million pounds of food thawed, burned and spoiled inside, creating a terrible smell emanating from the property.
“I know the last few weeks have been extremely difficult,” Rivera said at the meeting. “I understand the uncertainty, frustration and disruption this has caused, and I am sorry.”
As part of a pair of executive directives signed by Bass last week, city officials are requiring Lineage and the building's owner, Chill Build, to submit a comprehensive cleanup plan to the city. The directives also require companies to remove, within 45 days, the millions of pounds of rotting food in the warehouse.
Rivera said the cleanup began Monday and the company is moving as quickly as possible with the goal of beating the city's 45-day deadline to complete the process.
So far, 1.4 million pounds of solid waste has been removed and 3.2 million pounds more will be removed in the coming days, said Brian Martin, a representative of Clean Harbors, a company helping carry out the cleanup. Structural removal began Tuesday and is now 6.5% complete.
About 200 people work at the site 24 hours a day and about 150 trucks are used to transport debris, Martin said.
Protesters force their way into Stevenson High School, where a meeting is being held on the status of recovery efforts following the Lineage cold storage warehouse fire in Boyle Heights.
(Étienne Laurent/For the Times)
Lineage has wrapped parts of the building in a temporary material intended to contain debris, reduce odors and dampen noise during the remediation process. Misting systems are also being used outside to reduce odors from rotting food, while air quality monitoring continues at eight locations.
Rivera told residents that air quality monitoring results showed that the air was currently safe in the community. He also outlined resources Lineage would provide to residents living closest to the site during that cleanup. These include grocery vouchers, housing vouchers for those who choose to relocate during the cleanup, air purifiers, cash assistance and support for utility bills.
In the end, assurances about community resources and air quality failed to calm the fury inside the room as residents took the microphone during the question-and-answer portion and repeatedly expressed feelings of betrayal and distrust.
“I'm very disgusted by how this response has played out in real time,” said one Boyle Heights resident, who did not share his name. “I feel like leadership at every level, from Lineage to city, state and even federal, has failed us.”
Elected leaders attempted to take responsibility for the lack of clarity residents experienced around public health dangers and evacuation orders during the incident.
“Let me apologize for any confusion, miscommunication and information that has been released, especially at the beginning when the fires were still going on, especially everything I have said. [about] whether the smoke was harmful or not,” Bass said. “I'm very clear that all smoke, under all circumstances, is harmful.”
Bass said the Lineage crisis is an issue of environmental justice and highlights the health risks that communities of color are disproportionately exposed to.
“There are hundreds, if not thousands, of warehouses in East Los Angeles, in the San Fernando Valley and in South Los Angeles,” he said, “and my commitment is to inspect each of those facilities to find out what is happening in them.”
County Supervisor Hilda Solis said she recognized the situation is “unbearable” for residents living near the warehouse.
“You are right to point out the places where failures have been most serious,” he said. “So I'm here to listen and try to do a better job starting tomorrow.”
Rivera said Lineage was working to launch a community support line on Monday so residents could express their needs directly to the company.
As Antonia Montes, 57, left town hall, she said she was frustrated and that the meeting did not solve the problems facing the Boyle Heights community.
“I think what it showed is that the politicians, Karen Bass and the Lineage company, they don't know what they're doing,” he said. “They don't know how to handle this situation. They don't know how to clean up this mess.”
Last week, a group of about 50 residents demonstrated a block from the warehouse and demanded the company clean up debris from the fire and then pack up and leave.
Lineage “needs cleaning and never [come] come back,” Alma Laugnas said during the demonstration last week. “It's really hard for us to live like this.”
The crowds chanted in Spanish, “Let them go!” (“You should leave!”) and said their daily lives continued to be affected, and that children and older residents did not want to be outdoors because of the smell.
“It's horrendous,” Montes said of the smell Thursday night. “You can't even breathe.”
