In January, SCAQMD presented photos and videos they took of the landfill, including geysers of trash liquid and black, bubbling leachate. The EPA is pushing for the solutions too. They slapped the landfill with more than 130 legal violations, demanding the company fix whatever’s wrong. SCAQMD officials took video footage late last year of trash juice geysers and bubbling ponds of black liquid seeping from beneath the surface. The Chiquita Canyon Landfill has been operating for more than five decades. The company didn’t tell air quality officials until this past October. Landfill operators noticed the problem almost two years ago. In one older section of the waste site, a rare underground chemical reaction is heating up the toxic gasses and liquids. That’s shortly after Waste Connections, the company that runs the landfill, discovered a rare chemical reaction beneath the surface in 2022. The South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) told KCRW in a statement that the uptick in resident complaints - nearly 10,000 of them - started about a year ago. Susan Evans (right) says her breathing troubles and muscle weakness make the grocery trips more challenging. LA County officials have found elevated levels of both.ĭaryl Kratz (left) gets so dizzy that he hasn’t been able to drive since last year. All of these symptoms can come from exposure to benzene and carbon tetrachloride. They all disappeared immediately upon driving away. So that's really suspicious,” she says.Īfter just three hours in Val Verde, this reporter developed a headache, chest pressure, dizziness, and a sore throat. “Anyone who knows about tortoises know they live longer than you do. Even their pets were dying - DeSesa runs a tortoise rescue and has seen three of them die on her property. Photo courtesy of Abigail DeSesa.ĭeSesa and some of her neighbors say that in the past year, they started experiencing extreme vertigo, chest pains, gastrointestinal issues, eczema, and other health challenges. She’s called Val Verde home for 25 years.Ībigail DeSesa’s rescued giant tortoise, Mikey, died last year shortly after other residents started experiencing symptoms. It’s a bedroom community of a couple thousand Latino and white working-class homeowners, wedged between the 5 and 126 freeways. “It was so shocking.”ĭeSesa lives fewer than two miles from the Chiquita Canyon Landfill, in a neighborhood of Castaic called Val Verde. I don't know what this feels like anymore,’” she says. “I just started randomly crying, and he's like, ‘What is wrong?’ And I said, ‘I feel good. After she and her husband drove to the beach one day, she realized how bad her symptoms had gotten. She began to experience tremors, and apologized in embarrassment when her hands shook. That gives you the nausea instant pounding headache,” she says. “It feels like there's a weight on your chest, and it's laboursome to breathe. In 2023, Abigail DeSesa started feeling sick every day.
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