Los Angeles County held a virtual discussion on Wednesday, Nov. 10 to discuss how it is addressing the ongoing odor coming from the Dominguez Channel.
According to Mark Pestrella, director of Los Angeles County Public Works, although the County worked with the Port of Long Beach to come up with a plan to manually dredge the channel and push the stagnant water towards the ocean, that option was eventually ruled out.
“Each of those solutions that we came up with had problems,” Pestrella said. “One, the actual feasibility to put the dredge in there. Two, some of the risks that were associated with that discharge weren’t acceptable.”
According to Pestrella, the County is currently pumping water through the channel but no efforts have been made to remove sediment from the bottom.
The goal of pumping water through the channel is to push the contaminated water towards the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County where it can be treated.
“We have a fairly highly concentrated brew, if you will, that’s making up what we would essentially call industrial waste or industrial sewage,” Pestrella said.
A state of emergency was declared by LA County in response to the foul odor. Before a state of emergency was declared, the situation was labelled as a public nuisance.
According to LA County, the smell is being caused by chemicals mixed with decomposing plant matter stuck in the channel, releasing hydrogen sulfide.
South Coast Air Quality Management District will continue to monitor the air quality and levels of hydrogen sulfide.
“We have multiple monitors measuring multiple pollutants, including hydrogen sulfide,” said Jason Low, assistant deputy of the district’s air monitoring division. “And within there, there are alert mechanisms if there are levels of these pollutants that reach a specific threshold.”
According to County Health Officer Muntu Davis, although exposure to high levels of hydrogen sulfide can cause long-term health problems, the levels around the Dominguez Channel remain low.
“Based on what we’ve been seeing in terms of the level we do not expect long term, irreversible health impacts from this,” Davis said. “We’ve gotten nowhere near those levels in terms of what would be seen in terms of causing that.”
