Calabasas Request For TRO To Keep Malibu Debris Out Is Rejected

Several developments in the fire debris protests … lawsuits and potential delays in clearing wreckage from Malibu and Pacific Palisades.

Calabasas has lost its effort to get a court order … blocking transfer of fire ash from Malibu to the dump over the hill in Calabasas. 

The Army Corps of Engineers has opened up a new concrete smashing and iron bar bending transfer station … in Temescal Canyon.

And the LA County supervisors voted 5 to nothing yesterday … to continue sending fire ash to county dumps. 

We’ll start with that development. 

By a 5 to nothing vote yesterday … the LA County Board of Supervisors approved allowing expanded hours at several LA county sanitary landfills .;.. and to allow them to accept larger amounts of trash … in the form of ash from the Woolsey and Eaton fires.

The supervisors agreed that their dumps need to be opened to quickly remove potentially toxic-laden debris from the coastal environment … where they wash into the ocean and blow into the LA air basin.

An immediate threat to public health and the environment in Pacific Palisades and Malibu needs to be buried quickly … they decided.

The board ignored protests from Calabasas residents … who apparently discovered there is a 50 year old dump in the middle of their town.

Protests like this. 

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“I feel like we’re living sort of in a ticking time bomb.”

VOICE 2: “Dumping fire ash in a residential landfill goes beyond reckless, to dispose of hazardous waste in a residential landfill will have lasting consequences.”

Melissa Olen .. a Calabasas neighbor up in arms about fire debris being hauled to the dump near her house.

When fire debris from Calabasas was taken to that dump … after the Woolsey Fire … there were no such protests.

Development two … KBUU News has learned that late yesterday … an LA county judge turned down the requested court order that had been requested by the City of Calabasas.

Judge Steven Goorvich said Calabasas had a losing case … and could not prove it would suffer immense harm.

He pointed out that that the Calabasas dump is licensed to accept fire debris .. and the US Army will be certifying that the fire ash to be dumped there is free of hazardous waste.

One city councilman from Calabasas expressed doubt abut that,

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“I don’t see how they’re gonna properly separate out all the toxic materials in the hazardous waste.”

James Bozajian … a Calabasas city council member.

But the judge ruled it was not clear that he … a sitting state judge … could order the Army to stop the dumping.

And the governor’s emergency orders specifically gave the federal government authority to violate state environmental laws if it felt necessary to aid in the cleanup.

Beginning today .. the U S Army Corps Of Engineers plans to start sending trucks … carrying sealed loads of fire ash … from Malibu and Pacific Palisades to the dump at Lost Hills Road and the 101 freeway.

Last week …. Protestors stood in the path of similar trucks.

Emotions are running high … “what about the children” is a rallying cry we actually heard. 

Newsom Thanks Trump For Giving EPA Juice To Remove 99% Of Hazardous Stuff In 30 Days

The Phase 1 removal of really hazardous waste … melted batteries … t  s.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       hings like that … is 99 percent finished. 

And California Governor Gavin Newsom is thanking President Donald Trump for getting the job done … as promised.

The Environmental Protection Agency completed 99% of hazardous material removal in record time.

The agency cleaned up more than 9,000 properties across the Eaton and Palisades fire footprints.

But roughly 100 remaining properties are left … they are the most difficult to access.

Newsom said in a statement that the EPA … and state workers … together cleaned hazardous waste from 99 percent of the properties in less than 30 days.

He called that a record pace never seen before at this scale.

Says the governor: “We’re working hand-in-hand with President Trump and his administration to clear debris as fast as possible … to get Angelenos back to their properties to start rebuilding.”

Temescal Canyon Turned Into Massive Concrete Chunking, Metal Bending Yard

KBUU News has learned that the U S Army Corps of Engineers has transformed Temescal Canyon Boulevard into a concrete smashing and metal bundling station. 

The Army is unloading truckloads of concrete chunks … and the reinforcing metal rods in the chunks … onto the seven lane road just downhill from Palisades High School.

The concrete chunks are being busted into smaller chunks … and the iron bars that are extracted from the concrete are being smooshed into tight bundles. 

Both are then loaded into trucks for transport to recycling plants.

The transfer yard has transformed what was a canyon lined with picnic areas and jogging trails into a major industrial scene … off limits to the general public.

City Hall Hosts Debris Removal Meeting Today 3-5p

Questions about how debris is being removed from Malibu… And what will be left after the debris is scraped off… those questions are swirling.

Today from 3 to 5 … Malibu City Hall 

State Farm General Has Massive Exposure To LA Fires and Is Runing Low On Cash

State Farm General estimates it will spend $7.9 billion to pay off claims from the Los Angeles wildfires.

State Farm General is one of dozens of companies in the State Farm umbrella … and it is California’s largest home insurer.

The company is running very low on cash .. running down to $600 million available in surplus. 

Stater farm has already written checks for about 1.75 billion dollars … according to a letter that the company sent to state regulators yesterday.

It has asked for massive rate hikes to generate more money.

Stae Farm wants a 22 percent emergency rate hike … on top of an already-pending 30% rate increase request for homeowners.

Renters policies would go up as much as 74 percent.

The company has been accused by critics of segregating its losses in its California subsidiary … while making huge profits elsewhere. 

In this case … almost all of State Farm General’s losses will be paid by its reinsurer — the insurer of an insurance company. 

Unlike most insurers, State Farm General gets most of its reinsurance from its national parent company, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company.

An analysis by there San Francisco Chronicle found that insured far more households in the Los Angeles area fire perimeters than any other company.

While State Farm is on the hook for 7.9 billion in payments and expenses … the second largest home insurer in the state anticipates paying just $600 million.  

That would be Farmers Insurance Group.

Insured losses from the Palisades and Eaton fires could reach $30 billion or more.

That would make the Los Angeles wildfires the costliest natural disaster in state history.

The insurance company losses may be offset by possible recoveries from Southern California Edison … if the power company is found liable for having sparked the Eaton fire.

Ratepayers statewide would be on the hook for that.

Water District 29 Problem Fixes Will Be Line-Itemed In Budget, Pestrella Says 

Also at the board of supervisors meeting yesterday… LA County officials promised the board members that Malibu’s creaky water system is getting upgrades. 

County public works director Mark Pestrella  was one of a dozen county department heads who made budget presentations to the board.

The first thing he brought up was Waterworks District 29 … the county owned water system that serves Malibu and Topanga Canyon. 

71008 BJT PESTRELLA 

“You and I both know about waterworks 29 and its need to make an investment and those numbers are known and we’ve been making those investments and there is a reflection in our budget this year that incrementally making those improvements under deferred maintenance and also increase resilience of that system.”

Malibu officials have been asking for details on what the Malibu water system needs.

Past studies have shown a dreadful shortage of stored water in Malibu … distribution pipes that are too small … and a lack of a second connection  to the state water system.

Daniel Swain Worries About DOGE Attacks on NWS

UCLA Climate Scientist Daniel Swain is a frequent voice here on KBUU…. He pops up frequently on TV and radio stations across the state with weather news.

Like all of us … Swain relies on the National Weather Service.

And Swain is plainly worried … chaos in the federal government is about to spread to the local forecast offices. 

SWAIN WORRIES

“There are similar things unfolding …  the National Institutes of Health … the CDC…  in US AID and all other agencies.

“What is striking about all of this is mostly agencies aimed towards helping people and providing services.

“Particularly  agencies that are aimed at trying to prevent bad things from happening or at least mitigate the bad outcomes that are in someway inevitable make them less bad:

“Preparing for or trying to prevent pandemic, predicting extreme other events and getting people out of harms way, and then responding to them when that wasn’t enough.

“And in some cases, these agencies are reeling. 

“They’re not going to be able to sustain these large level of observed and planned cuts without major decorations in the provision of the services that we’ve come to.

“And I am highly concerned this will shortly potentially matter of hours now extend all the way to national service and even local forecast offices.”

Daniel Swain … the UCLA meteorology professor … speaking on his podcast.