Though it has been nearly three months since the Lineage warehouse fire that shrouded Boyle Heights in plumes of smoke, its effects still linger, according to resident Brenda Rivera.
“It smells disgusting!” she said last Wednesday as she prepared students for dismissal.
Especially notable to Rivera, parent representative of Christopher Dena Elementary School, is that the smell spewing from the burned cold storage warehouse, just one mile away from the campus, has caused disruptions among students.
“The kids are yelling, ‘Ew, it smells nasty!’ and it becomes disruptive,” Rivera said. “Especially with the heat wave, it just made the smell stronger, so it was very distracting.”
Rivera works with the students and acts as a bridge between the school and parents. She noticed disruption among the students caused by the foul smell on campus, especially during the student’s lunch period and in the classroom.
Lineage Logistics has completed all food waste removal ordered by the South Coast Air Quality Management District, as well as cleaning and disinfecting at the Boyle Heights warehouse, according to the AQMD.
The fire ignited on June 17, but debris removal didn’t begin until July 6. Every day since the start of the fire, Boyle Heights’ predominantly Latino residents have been choked up by smoke and the smell of rotting meat. Flies and rodents have also found their way to the neighborhood as a result of the decaying meat and putrid smells.
Lineage stated on its website that it removed more than 89 million pounds of food waste and cited the structural damage to the warehouse caused by the fire as the reason for the prolonged cleanup. On Saturday, the company said that it will continue working on any remaining requirements issued by the AQMD such as continuing to conduct community air monitoring and making air quality data available.
Ronald Solórzano, education department chair and professor at Occidental College, studies race/class effects in education courses. He said he wondered if the demographics of the community have anything to do with the lack of timeliness.
“Much of the lead issues and pollution issues seem to be centered in neighborhoods of people of color and there doesn’t seem to be any urgency to rectify that situation,” Solórzano said.
Solórzano is dissatisfied with the prolonged clean up, but not surprised. He said he is especially concerned about the lingering smell and health of students returning to school so close to the Lineage warehouse, as well as their ability to stay focused in the classroom.
“Elementary schools are near these warehouses where there is pollution,” Solórzano said. “It’s already a challenge for students of color, poorer students, to get an education that will make them competitive going forward,” Solórzano said. “Add to that the disruption that any of these environmental catastrophes will cause the family and their learning situation at home.”
Solórzano said that Latino children too often fall behind grade level in reading, math and science due to factors like economic status and racial disadvantages.
He added that he is critical of the county’s handling of environmental issues in East L.A. due to its history. He recalled his time working in East L.A. at Robert Kennedy Elementary School, about five miles from Christopher Dena Elementary, where a fruit fly epidemic in the 1970s resulted in the state sending helicopters to spray the insecticide malathion at night over East L.A.
“If this was a white community they wouldn’t be spraying overnight,” Solórzano said about the fruit fly epidemic.
Rocío Rivas, the vice president of the Los Angeles Unified School District who represents Boyle Heights, said in a statement to Annenberg Media that the district is aware of the environmental concerns.
“We need to look at this incident alongside the history of environmental disasters in East LA and Boyle Heights and recognize the role of environmental racism,” the statement read. ”We must re-examine policies that allow businesses producing toxic or dangerous substances to operate so close to homes and schools, particularly in communities of color.”
Edited by Sean Campbell and Miranda Huang.