KCRW
Landfill disaster law could help suffering L.A. County town
Jennifer Elkins bought her home in Val Verde a decade ago, expecting to give her three kids a quiet life where they could play outside surrounded by green hills. But these days, she refuses to let her children play on their outdoor playground. Elkins worries they’ll get sick from toxic fumes emanating from the Chiquita Canyon Landfill nearby.
“We used to spend our weekends up here barbecuing with our neighbors, going to birthday parties,” Elkins says. “We used to, just in the middle of summer for no reason at all, we would rent one of those big water slides and let all the kids play on it outside. And now I'm having to tell my seven-year-old, ‘You can't go outside and play,’ and he doesn't understand.”
Around three years ago, a closed section of the landfill started heating up. At one point, temperatures peaked at 260 degrees – double the standard set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The scorching heat started burning waste and spewing toxic gases, including carbon monoxide and benzene, into the nearby town of Val Verde, a working class community of about 3,000 residents. Leachate, which is basically trash juice, was seen exploding into the air like a geyser.
Elkins says the town has become unrecognizable since the chemical reaction bubbled to the surface in 2023. No one goes to movie nights or concerts at the park anymore. The town’s youth sports teams can’t recruit any kids. Many homes sit vacant. Even Val Verde’s 100th anniversary parade was canceled because the smell got too bad.
“It’s one of the worst environmental disasters in California history, and probably in the Western United States, that’s going on right now,” says State Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, who represents the area. That’s why Schiavo sponsored a bill this year to compensate victims. The proposed law, AB 28 would fine landfills $100,000 a day if their temperatures exceed 131 degrees. That money would be used to create a community fund to help people relocate.
Val Verde is not the only town that could benefit. Two other landfills in California – El Sobrante near Corona and the Avenal Landfill in the San Joaquin Valley – are also reporting elevated temperatures and toxic emissions.
“We need to change the culture of how people are operating these landfills to make sure that they’re operating them safely and they’re not putting more communities at risk,” Schiavo says.
If Governor Gavin Newsom signs the bill this month, it would be enacted at the start of 2027.
A smattering of federal, state and local agencies have issued fines and ordered the landfill to build containment systems, or drill more wells to extract gas underground to mitigate the fumes. But in 2024, the U.S. EPA charged the landfill with posing an “imminent and substantial endangerment” to nearby communities.
No one knows for sure what actually started the reaction, and since it’s underground, it's impossible to see what’s burning. That uncertainty means there’s no good way to put it out.
The reaction has tripled in size since 2023, and is now estimated to cover around 90 acres. The consensus is that it just has to burn itself out, which could take two decades.
“This is a generational issue,” Schiavo says. “Children are going to be having children before this is over. We need to act like this is an emergency situation where people need to be evacuated out of.”
Last year, LA County ordered the Chiquita Canyon Landfill to stop taking new trash. The landfill is also installing a thick cover over the entire site, which should be completed by the end of the year.
But to many Val Verde residents, the damage has already been done.
“It’s like putting a band-aid on a bullet hole,” Elkins says. “It’s too little, too late, and not enough is happening quickly enough.”
Many Val Verde residents say they moved to the area because they could afford a home in a place that's spacious enough to raise farm animals, like horses, goats or chickens.
But ever since the reaction started sending waves of odors and fumes into Val Verde, locals say they’re constantly sick; afflicted by nausea, headaches, unexplained hives, skin conditions and gushing nosebleeds. Elkins says 12 people on her street alone – the neighborhood closest to the landfill – have been diagnosed with cancer in the last two years.
“It’s terrifying. I don’t even want to open my windows,” Elkins says. “What’s going to happen if I do? Am I going to have headaches for the rest of my life? Are my kids going to get cancer?”
It’s difficult to prove that the fumes from the garbage burning underneath the landfill are the cause of any one illness. But locals claim it can’t be a coincidence when so many of their neighbors are falling sick.
The landfill’s operators have acknowledged that the odors can cause “short-term discomfort.” But they point to LA County studies from 2024 that found no “anticipated long-term health impacts.”
Meanwhile, the people of Val Verde have adapted to the circumstances. Some have moved their kids to different school districts. Others wear masks, like they did during the pandemic.
Oshea Orchid, a lawyer who filed the first class-action lawsuit against the landfill, says a few residents have been driven from their beds by the fumes: “The gas hits in the middle of the night and then people wake up feeling sick, realizing, ‘I have to leave, I’ve got to get my kids, everybody out of here,’” she says. “We’ve had residents who have slept in the parking lot of Walmart in their car because they don’t have anywhere else to go.”
Others have given up on the town.
Brandi and Steven Howse lived about 1,000 feet from the Chiquita Canyon Landfill for nearly three decades. The couple thought they’d retire there. When the reaction first started, they hardened their home to keep out the worst of the odors and fumes, hoping the crisis would end soon. Their breaking point finally came when Brandi Howse was diagnosed with breast cancer.
“I’m in the bathroom and I’m watching her have to shave all her hair off, and it’s just the weight and the guilt for me,” Steven Howse says. “I cannot let my family continue to live in this. We have to make a change because everybody in my family is suffering.” The couple and their four kids moved about 45 minutes away to Acton earlier this year. They say they finally started sleeping through the night, and they don’t get headaches or nosebleeds anymore.
But moving still came at a cost. The Howses are now paying triple what they were in Val Verde for their new mortgage. They also miss their community and their home.
“I raised my babies in that house,” Brandi Howse says. “All of our memories are there. We had to do what was best for our family. But if we had the choice, we would have stayed.”
Back in Val Verde, many of the residents say it would be financial suicide to move. They say they need money to relocate.
The Chiquita Canyon Landfill doled out $23 million dollars as part of a community relief program back in 2024. In a statement to KCRW, they pointed out this was voluntary.
But locals say the payments were not enough to move permanently. Plus, they were never told how long they’d receive the money, making it risky to sign a lease somewhere else. The payments stopped in early 2025. The landfill did not answer KCRW’s questions about any future compensation.
“What's really concerning for the community is, it's been now a year and a half with no relief at all,” Orchid says. “It's just pretty ridiculous.”
Val Verde residents have put their hope in the new proposed law, AB 28, and in a stack of class action and county lawsuits. Eventually, help may be on the way to Val Verde. But until then, residents are still suffering under the fumes.
