Many may remember the overflow parking dust bowl at Will Rogers State Historic Park. For polo events, people had to park in a lot south of the field. The Genesis Tournament also used that lot, as did other local events. But it was always a dusty, nasty mess, and a car always needed to go to the car wash after being parking there.
Today, it was different. There was a light mist that hit my face when I exited the car—because there were two mist machines. Men with hoses were focused on different debris piles and there was a water truck continually going over the lot. “We use the wet method here,” said Colonel Jeff Palazzini. “There is a constant flow of water, and we have mist machines over the concrete.”
This second concrete recycling site, run by the Army Corps of Engineers, joins the TDSR (temporary debris staging & reduction) site on Temescal Canyon Road.
“There is a systematic process to protect the workers, community and environment,” said Colonel Palazzini, who now oversees Pacific Palisades debris removal, replacing Colonel Brian Sawser, who was deployed to Germany, “and to help homeowners so they can start to rebuild.”
The ACE has been to numerous national disasters, and the approach has been refined and fine-tuned. “We’ve done this before,” Palazzini said about the process. In the Palisades Fire, there are four different kinds of debris that are shipped to 17 landfills in the state that are specific to: 1) concrete; 2) metal; 3) vegetation; or 4) ash debris.
Whether a loaded truck goes to Temescal or Will Rogers is generally dependent on which is closer. The aim is efficiency and to cut down the number of trucks on the road.
When loaded trucks first pull into Will Rogers’ lower parking lot, they are weighed. “We know how heavy the material is,” Palazzini said about the site that opened on April 14. “Yesterday there were 1,200 tons delivered.”
Once the material is weighed, the truck either dumps at the parking lot concrete site or the vegetation site. There is no metal recycling in Will Rogers.
Palazzini pointed out that the large chucks of concrete are inefficient to haul, which is one reason there is a need to break the concrete down to smaller pieces. The smaller pieces mean more concrete can be carried in a truck bed, which means fewer trucks on the road and lower fuel emissions.
Concrete is ground into smaller pieces which can more easily be transported.
The Colonel said that almost 600,000 tons of debris have been trucked out of the Palisades and that more than 100,000 tons of it has been concrete.
If contractors want to reuse the ground up concrete, they take it to their site. “A great part of this concrete can be used in other construction, for example as a base layer for roads,” the Colonel said.
Trees and bushes are chipped—much like if you had a tree company come to a property. It is then transported to a landfill specifically for vegetation. “We use just enough water to keep the material saturated so there is no dust,” Palazzini said.
This site opened in coordination with California State and L.A. County governments. ACE does not generally clear commercial or historic sites, but with the arrangement of use of the parking lot, a $2.6 million contract was awarded that will address the complete fire debris removal process for Will Rogers Park, which includes the historic farmhouse, the barn, the polo fields announcer’s booth and the tourist center. Work to be completed includes fire debris removal, environmental monitoring, hazard site assessment, hazardous tree removal and vehicle removal. The work is expected to be completed in early June.
An air monitor is placed on Will Rogers Polo Field, a second is across the dirt parking lot.
Air quality is a big concern for many Palisades residents. ACE is on it. There are two air monitoring stations at this site. One is in the middle of the polo fields (which were being mowed) and the second is on the far side of the parking lot. They are monitored in real time by AQMD (South Coast Air Quality Management District). The Colonel explained that they have placed the settings to go off below what is required because “we want to ensure the safety of the workers.”
The site foreman points to the air monitor he wears while on site.
Additionally, the site foreman wears a monitor that continually checks air quality. “He wears it for the entire shift,” Palazzini said, and added that an industrial hygienist checks the readings to make sure no one is exposed unhealthy air.
“Once we no longer need this site, it will be returned to the state, the way it was,” the Colonel said.
When will they no longer need the site? “It will solely be dependent on the debris removal,” Palazzini said, he noted that there were about 5,000 who submitted debris removal opt-in forms to the County. “We’ve already cleared 2,000 properties.”
More than 160 ACE employees from all over the United States are working in Southern California. Palazzini is based in Alaska. “By the end of June, we’ll be close to 70 percent complete,” he said.
Army Corps of Engineers’ Colonel Jeff Palazzini stands in front of a truck weighing at a scale at Will Rogers State Historic Park.