Boyle Heights warehouse demolition delayed by "serious obstacle," company says

In a letter to Los Angeles city and county leaders, Lineage, the operator of the Boyle Heights warehouse that burned for a week, said the owner of the solar panels atop the building demanded that crews delay demolition ahead of the Fourth of July weekend.

"This is unacceptable," Lineage wrote in its letter to Mayor Karen Bass and County Supervisor Hilda Solis. "Public safety is our number one priority, and every hour of delay is an hour we can't mitigate against active fire flare ups, remove debris, address the smell, or clean up the site for the people of Boyle Heights."

Lineage added that it was ready to demolish the building when it received "correspondence demanding that we stop demolition of the site" from the solar panel owner, Altus Power. In a statement, Altus said "multiple parties joined in asking Lineage to appropriately preserve and not destroy relevant evidence during its site remediations."

"It is unfortunate that Lineage appears to be focused on pointing fingers rather than getting this community the swift clean-up and answers it deserves," Altus Power wrote. 

The cold storage facility operator said the Los Angeles Fire Department confirmed that investigators "do not require us to halt this work" and that they need to demolish the building to "extinguish the fire once and for all."  

"The work we planned does not affect the suspected area of origin or materials potentially relevant to evidence preservation or further investigation," Lineage wrote. 

Lineage urged Bass and Solis to intervene and allow the demolition to continue, adding that "Altus has offered no comparable plan and has not demonstrated any of the same sense of urgency."

"Hold Altus and any other party seeking to delay cleanup and fire prevention at the site to the same standard of accountability you have applied to Lineage," Lineage wrote. "Direct them to stand down and allow remediation to proceed."

After the LAFD knocked down the fire last week, Bass issued a pair of executive orders that set a 45-day deadline to remove the biohazardous food waste left in the warehouse's charred remains and to mobilize resources for the affected neighborhoods.

In the wake of the fire and the ensuing cleanup effort, residents have complained about the smell of rotting food and rodents running around the warehouse. 

In response to the letter, Bass said the city has not asked Lineage to demolish any part of the building. 

"The City has not asked and is not asking you to demolish any portion of the building that could be relevant to determining the source of the fire or other issues in any litigation among you and anyone else with an interest in the building or in any lawsuit," Bass said. "The City is simply urging you to continue to take all measures to eliminate any fire flare ups and remove the food waste as quickly as possible."

She told Lineage to "stay laser focused" on cleaning up the debris and 85 million pounds of food waste that spoiled or burned. 

"No court order is preventing you from doing this and it is critical that you stay laser focused on clearing out your warehouse of your stored food waste and debris since it is that food decomposition that is causing the greatest ongoing harm to our adjacent communities," Bass said.   

Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who represents the area, urged the two companies and the property owner to cooperate with local authorities and refrain from delaying the cleanup. 

"If there are legitimate evidence-preservation concerns, they must be addressed through a clear, written protocol that allows investigators to do their work without delaying urgent remediation," Jurado wrote in a statement. "But no private party should be allowed to use process, finger-pointing, or liability disputes as an excuse to slow down cleanup that the community urgently needs." 

LAFD said the weeklong fire started along the rows of solar panels atop the 500,000-square-foot warehouse. The stubborn flames produced a plume of smoke that degraded air quality in the surrounding area and prompted health concerns after massive amounts of food rotted inside. 

Lineage said it believed the fire started while contractors tested the third-party owner's solar array. As it did during the weeklong operation, Altus said in its July 3 statement that the cause of the fire had not been determined.