'Convenient scapegoats': Boyle Heights warehouse company fights fire backlash

‘Convenient scapegoats’: Boyle Heights warehouse company fights fire backlash - Click here to listen to this article - Share via See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Set us as preferred - Lineage, operator of the scorched Boyle Heights cold storage warehouse, insists it is being unfairly blamed for a June fire and now sues a rooftop solar firm it says is responsible. - The blaze left more than 89 million pounds of rotting food, triggering over 4,900 odor complaints and 38 violation notices as Lineage missed the city’s 45-day cleanup deadline despite a $150-million effort. - Neighbors endure weeks of stench, pests and frustration as officials declare Lineage has “run out its welcome,” while the company touts door-to-door aid and weighs whether to rebuild in Boyle Heights. The company that operates the vast cold storage warehouse scorched in a June blaze that plagued neighbors in Boyle Heights with smoke and stink said it doesn’t deserve the pummeling it got for how it contained the catastrophe. The company, Lineage, told The Times it didn’t cause the fire and went above and beyond to put it out and speed the cleanup of truckloads of rotting food that attracted rats and flies. Lineage has been a pariah in the community, with residents and Los Angeles officials speaking out after the company missed the city’s 45-day deadline to remove the waste. The South Coast Air Quality Management District received more than 4,900 odor complaints, “reporting persistent rotten, sour and garbage-like odors,” and issued the company 38 violation notices for public nuisance. The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health has opened inspections with both Lineage and contractor Pearce Services related to the fire, the agency confirmed soon after the blaze. The Los Angeles Fire Department is investigating the case. Some residents called for the company to leave. Mayor Karen Bass has said the company had “run out its welcome.” Lineage filed a lawsuit last week, saying the company that operated a solar array on the building’s roof is to blame for the fire. Fixing the mess has been the company’s top priority since the fire started June 17, Lineage Chief Executive Greg Lehmkuhl told the Los Angeles Times in an exclusive interview. “We were focused on doing the right things; we’ve become the convenient scapegoats,” he said. “We feel like we’ve been misrepresented, given the efforts that we’ve done and how much we’ve tried to work with every constituent to do the right thing in a really, really tough situation that we didn’t cause.” Michigan-based Lineage is one of the world’s biggest cold storage companies, with nearly 500 buildings in 19 countries. The 500,000-square-foot Los Angeles warehouse, known within the company as Big Bear, held more than 89 million pounds of frozen food. The company said it spent more than $150 million fighting the fire and cleaning up the aftermath. Company leaders worked with Fire Department Chief Jaime Moore and paid for firefighter assistance. “We funded and trucked in fire cannons from oil fields in Texas to get them cannons with much more velocity to help put out the fire,” Lehmkuhl said. “We funded Chinook helicopters to drop more water and foam on the fire. We were doing anything we could, at frankly any expense, to try to minimize the impact of this fire on the community.” When the fire was out, Lineage faced an unprecedented challenge: getting rid of mountains of rotting meat, seafood, bread and other food. “We don’t believe there’s ever been a cleanup of this scale and complexity in the history of the cold storage industry,” Lehmkuhl said. Getting the rotting food off racks towering six stories high required hundreds of workers in protective suits to dislodge the moldering food. Crews used forklifts to push the waste outside, where it was loaded into sealed trailers for transport to special dump sites in several states. About 400 workers per day logged 210,000 hours and still couldn’t meet the Aug. 14 cleanup deadline. “There’s only so fast, even with unlimited resources, that you can make this happen,” Lehmkuhl said. Lineage worked with neighbors affected by the blaze, interacting with almost all of the hundreds of directly impacted households, he said. “We mobilized our team and literally went door to door for weeks,” Lehmkuhl said. “We continue to listen and respond to community requests.” Assistance included air purifiers, air conditioners, masks, grocery gift cards, cash assistance offers, temporary relocation and assistance paying utility bills, which rose for many as their electricity needs increased, he said. In the lawsuit, Lineage said that Altus Power, which operated a network of solar panels on the warehouse roof as a tenant, was responsible for the fire. “The Fire was the result of the negligent and reckless conduct of Altus and its contractor,” reads the complaint, which also names Pearce Services LLC, a contractor hired to perform work on the solar panels, as a defendant. “It was not a cold storage fire,” Lehmkuhl said in the interview. “It was a solar fire.” Los Palos Street Operating LLC, a subsidiary of Altus Power, said Lineage was attempting to deflect responsibility. Altus Power said it will fight the allegations in court. “Lineage’s statement is riddled with misinformation in a blatant attempt to deflect blame for their role in this matter,” a spokesperson for Los Palos Street Operating said in a statement. “As tenant-operator that controlled the facility, Lineage is legally responsible for overseeing the site remediation, including cleanup, debris removal and remediation resources.” Critics of Lineage’s cleanup effort may not understand the scale of the problem the company faced, Lehmkuhl said. “This place is a monster,” he said. “It’s one of the largest sites in North America.” Lineage is a real estate investment trust, meaning it is publicly traded and answers to shareholders. In its second-quarter earnings report and call with analysts, the company reported that insurance will cover the damages, but profit will take a hit this year. The company wouldn’t speculate whether it would try to rebuild in Boyle Heights and said it is reviewing its options to serve its Southern California cold storage customers. The company hopes the community understands how hard it has tried to limit the damage from this disaster, Lehmkuhl said. “We showed up at every turn starting from Day 1 until right now, and we’re just frankly disappointed” that the company’s efforts have been misrepresented, he said.