From Baywatch to Toxic Watch

With its enchanted sun-enhanced savior towers, bronze surfes and bikini-lined volleyball players, Will Rogers State Beach is one of the most recognizable sand areas in the world thanks to the global cult classic Baywatch.

But now the emblematic beach is surrounded by the ruins of burned homes and palm trees, its parking is the sorting of hazardous fire waste. Beach babies have been replaced by the crews of the Environmental Protection Agency in Hazmat suits that sift melted batteries for electric vehicles and other hazardous waste before being fired to the landfills.

Palisadi and Ethan fires generated a stunning amount of debris estimated at 4.5 million tonnes. By comparison, Maui’s devastating fires since 2023 have generated about 400,000 tonnes, according to the US Army Engineering Corps.

These fires took three months cleaning from EPA, which is responsible for the removal of hazardous waste. But now the agency hopes to finish its work in LA only for a month – until February 25 – after President Donald Trump signed an enforcement order requesting the EPA to “accelerate the removal of bulk water from polluted and common debris.”

The solution to sorting through the dangerous waste along the coast has caused protests, and since cleaning fire debris is moving at unprecedented speeds, many ask if and when ocean water will be safe to swim and surf.

“In this very vulnerable place, they sort these very dangerous, dangerous things,” said actor and environmentalist Bonnie Wright. “For me, it feels like 10 steps back because you literally put this waste even closer to the beach than it is already in the burning places.”

G -Wright, who played Ginny Wylie in Harry Potter’s films, wrote a book on sustainability and devotes the greater part of her time to environmental causes now. While their battle to move sorting places away from the shore eventually failed, she said activists were successful to call on EPA to move burned batteries to electric vehicles to the place of Will Rogers on the road and away from the sensitive waterfall in Topanga Creek.

EPA said the batteries of burned -out vehicles are a particularly dangerous challenge, but the agency is trying to deal with them. In order to sift the waste, they need a large space with roads large enough to move trucks – which is why the highway of the Pacific coast, which is moving along the beach, is more attractive than inside the windy, mountain roads of the palisades.

When Lithium Ion Batteries Are Damaged – Especially by the High Heat and Flames of A Wildfire – They Have the Potential for Reignting and Impiding, Weeks, OR EVEN MONTHS OFTHS Calanog, The Epa’s Incident Commander for the La Fires.

“We have to treat them as with an unexplored ordinance or, as the military calls it UXO,” he said.

Although some question the speed at which EPA has moved to clean the toxic debris, he said there was no time to waste.

“We have to do this very quickly,” he said, noting that they began to sort the waste, even when the fires were still raging.

“If we slow down, the risk of affecting the ocean, it rises again.”

Calanog also leads the EPA reaction to Maui fires, which can contain clues how to measure what is safe and reasonable when it comes to testing water and soil samples.

Many are concerned about the effects of heavy metals and chemicals in the air and water after the fires. It has been nearly 18 months in Maui since the fires and a small part of the shore around Lahaine are still closed to the public. The Army Engineering Corps – which eliminates heavy debris after EPA eliminates hazardous waste – has just finished its last time from Lahaine on February 20.

But the bigger part of Maui remains open to locals and tourists, and the Hawaii Ministry of Health has announced eight months after the fires that coastal waters around Lahaine are safe for ocean recreation.

However, the scale of cleaning from fires in Los Angeles is unprecedented and the largest in US history.

La District County closed the beaches along nine miles (14 km) from weeks after the fires in January. Then the torrential rain – while helping any smoldering embers – caused mud in the area of ​​burning and outflow of toxic ash and chemicals in the ocean, which prompted more prison.

Now most beaches are re -opened, but maintaining water consultations on the coast from Santa Monica to Malibu, while further notification of “beaches can recreate the sand, but continue to be advised to stay away from visible firefighters and stand outside of ocean water during the published Ocean Conspenter. “

Only the most devoted and local surfers could have access to the beaches in the burning area – there is no parking or braking for about 9 miles along the Pacific highway, which is clogged with trucks and workers cleaning debris.

Although some will risk everything to catch a good wave.

As she traveled the EPA sorting site, Anelissa Mo said she saw two surfers in the water on a popular surf break on Topanga beach while watching workers on the other side of the street with PPE, burned batteries on EV CAR.

“Water was like chocolate milk with a brown foam on it,” remembers G -Moe, who is an associate director of science and politics, the quality of water in Heal the Bay, an environmental non -profit purpose dedicated to making coastal ponds Healthy.

“It was one of those days, between storms, such as beautiful, sunny, 75 degree meteorological days,” she said. “And so it was a little weird to be there against the background of destruction while we had this perfect beach day.”

Jenny Newman of the Regional Los Angeles Water Quality Council told the Virtual Public Health City Hall of LA County on February 18 that the initial water quality tests they conducted on January 22-27 “returned better , than we expected. ” But the water board warned that people should follow the county consultations to stay out of the water near the burn site.

Dozens of scientists and volunteers from Heal The Bay and countless private and public agencies also test samples of water and soil to see what levels of forever chemicals and heavy metals are present in the ocean, but toxic analysis can take 4-6 weeks and There is very little data.

At the Surfrider Foundation, volunteers test ocean water throughout the year. But their small laboratory tests for faecal bacteria – not arsenic. It is now too dangerous to expose volunteers in the burning areas, so staff partnered with Heal the Bay and the University of Southern California to process their water samples.

“All members of our community are ocean lovers. We have the same questions they have,” says Evgeny Ermakora of the Surfrider Foundation. “It’s anxiety and everyone wonders: When can we come back? When is it safe? And I would like to have an answer.”

Chad White, a surfer who grew up in the palisades and who protested against the EPA sorting site along the Pacific Coast, said there was no way to surf there – it would be too painful to look ashore and lost. There are too many metal and other debris in the surf.

“He accepted my desire to surf to zero, not only because of the quality of the water, but only because of what was happening,” he said over coffee in Topang’s canyon. He rode his first wave in 1977 at Will Rogers State Beach and taught his son to surf at the age of four and his wife at the age of 60.

“This is destroying the land of someone like me,” he told the destruction along the coast. “This beach means something to me too, and I’m one person. There are dozens, maybe hundreds or thousands of us who use the beach every day.”

Many of the friends of G -n White have lost their homes and he said that people are injured to see what the landscape and shore around them look like now.

“Every movie you see, every movie that makes every other part of the world want to come to California is based on their view that the Pacific highway and those beautiful homes in Malibu, across the beach. They disappeared, “he said.”