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. 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. 

The company 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."

Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who represents the area, said she is in contact with the two companies and the property owner to mediate the dispute. 

"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." 

The 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 posed health risks as 85 million pounds of food spoiled or burned inside. 

Lineage said it believed the fire started while contractors tested the third-party owner's solar array. In a statement from June, Altus said the cause of the fire was yet to be determined.

"Our first concern is for the residents of Boyle Heights, everyone affected by this fire, and for the firefighters working to contain it. The cause of the fire where our rooftop solar array is located at the Los Palos Street facility has yet to be determined," Altus said in a statement. "We are cooperating fully with the authorities as they investigate."

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 millions of pounds of 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. 

CBS LA contacted Altus Power, Mayor Bass' Office and Supervisor Solis for comment but did not immediately receive a response.