Lineage rolls back cleanup percentage at Boyle Heights warehouse
Lineage rolled back the percentage of rotten food removed from its Boyle Heights warehouse hours after posting that it had cleaned up 104.1% of the biohazardous waste.
The cold storage facility operator's new figure puts the cleanup effort at 90% complete. Lineage said its previous methodology tied the weight removed from the building to estimates of the total weight of the food at the warehouse during the fire, which caused their numbers to exceed 100%.
"Going forward, we will evaluate the completion percentage in a manner that will show 100% completion when food waste removal is fully done," the company wrote in a statement. "We understand that seeing the number move from 100% is frustrating. It's equally frustrating for us."
Last week, city leaders criticized Lineage after it missed the 45-day deadline imposed by Mayor Karen Bass. The company rebutted the criticism by saying the actual deadline was Aug. 20. Cleanup crews missed that deadline as well.
"The families and small businesses of Boyle Heights and East LA are the ones who continue to suffer every day this mess isn't cleaned up," Bass said on Aug. 20. "Lineage missed the August 14 deadline, they moved the goal post, and then they failed again."
Lineage said it now plans to finish removing the final bits of the 85 million pounds of food left in the burned warehouse by Aug. 30. It said that it plans to spend $100 million on the cleanup effort.
"No cleanup of this scale and speed has been executed before, and we have dedicated every available resource to this effort, expecting to spend over $100M on our total cleanup," the company wrote in a statement. "Lineage has deployed hundreds of workers on site every day, with more than 100,000 hours of work logged already. We are not holding back and will not stop until the job is done."
The putrid odors, insects and rodents coming from the millions of pounds of spoiled food have plagued surrounding neighborhoods, with residents submitting thousands of complaints to regulators.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District said Lineage has received 25 notices of violation for the smell. In July, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health also cited Lineage for rodent and pest-control violations, fining the company $500 per day until it corrected the violations.
That same month, AQMD ordered the company to craft a mitigation plan after residents submitted 900 complaints within a week. While the company implemented the measures, the number of complaints grew to more than 4,200 as the odors persisted.
As a result, regulators ordered Lineage earlier this month to implement 90 more conditions to tamp down on the smell through routine waste and water removal, odor neutralizers and further pollution control.
AQMD also moved to fine Lineage $70,000 per violation. Lineage said it plans to finish the power washing, disinfection and deodorizing at the facility after the food waste removal is completed. Last week, they planned to finish this phase by Aug. 27.
"Every worker, contractor, and dollar committed to this site remains fully deployed until this job is finished — completely, correctly, and to the standard this community deserves," the company wrote.
