Audit says LACDPH “could not demonstrate it consistently reviewed air quality data… did not communicate proactively” to warn neighbors of health concerns, and “took nearly two years to direct the landfill operator to provide funding for temporary relocation.”
SACRAMENTO, CA – A new California State Auditor report released today found the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health’s response to the ongoing public health crisis surrounding the Chiquita Canyon Landfill fire has fallen short, including taking two years to call for temporary relocation, not staying current on health impacts, and failing to regularly review the air quality where toxins have made neighbors sick for years, and didn’t sufficiently communicate and warn community members of health concerns and other inconsistencies compared with the department’s response to other major health hazards.
“This audit confirms what residents have been telling us for years: the response to this public health crisis has not matched the seriousness of what families are experiencing. When people are reporting serious health concerns - cancer clusters, tremors, miscarriages, inability to breathe - they deserve a health department that steps up to investigate, inform and protect them. The LA County Department of Public Health has fallen short on all fronts,” said Assemblywoman Schiavo. “ I’ve been pushing for a real health study on a nearly monthly basis for two years. But instead, our community members had to see outside help to conduct their own study finding frightening results. Now that we have an independent assessment of where the response fell short, we will be holding a hearing on the audit and looking at implementing these recommendations and more as quickly as possible. Every day we don’t act, our community members suffer, and it’s time the health department and county make sure residents finally see real changes on the ground.”
The California State Auditor found that the LA County Department of Public Health does not have up-to-date information about how prevalent health symptoms are in the surrounding community because much of its information dates back to 2024.
The audit also found significant shortcomings in the department’s communication with residents. At one point, according to the State Auditor, the LA County Department of Public Health went a full year without issuing a substantive written communication to the community, despite opportunities to provide information including updates about air-quality safety.
The State Auditor further identified differences between the county’s response to Chiquita Canyon and its responses to other public health emergencies. For example, the department coordinated mental health resources during another health-hazard response but did not do so for the Chiquita Canyon event, and it more quickly and formally reviewed the health conditions of affected individuals during other events.
“There are landfills across California operating at dangerously high temperatures, and what has happened at Chiquita Canyon should be a warning for every community in our state,” said Jane Williams, Executive Director of California Communities Against Toxics. “We cannot wait until families are sick and a crisis is out of control before public health agencies act. Departments of Public Health should be leading the response, identifying risks, keeping communities informed, and protecting residents, not missing in action when people need them most.”
The audit also examined the county’s community engagement efforts. It found that the LA County Department of Public Health generally had fewer than 10 minutes to engage with residents during Community Advisory Committee meetings; only about 65 people had called the department’s nurse hotline by the conclusion of the audit’s fieldwork; and during door-to-door outreach, staff did not make direct contact with residents at more than 90 percent of the locations visited.
“When your family is getting sick and the agencies that are supposed to protect you are not taking meaningful action, you feel completely powerless,” said Jennifer Elkins, a local resident and mother. “Public Health should have been our advocate, keeping us informed about the risks we were facing and taking steps to protect our families. For nearly a year, I sent almost daily updates about the symptoms my family was experiencing to their nurse, and what I have to show for it is a string of emails saying they would ‘put it in the log.’ Parents like me were left to do whatever we could on our own. For my family, that meant moving my kids to a school away from their friends and our community just to get them away from the toxic air. No parent should ever be put in that position.”
“This community has spent years asking the government at every level to listen to what they are experiencing and take their health concerns seriously,” Assemblywoman Schiavo said. “Residents should not have to repeatedly prove that they are suffering before the government responds with urgency. The community has gone to multiple monthly meetings for years, I have pulled in LACDPH for nearly monthly meetings for the last two years - all of us pushing for action to protect public health - too often met with crickets. This audit gives us an independent examination of what went wrong, and our focus now is on a hearing to discuss these results further, make sure the community is again heard on how their health has been suffering, and ensure these recommendations and more lead to real changes for families living through this public health crisis.”
Among its recommendations, the State Auditor called for the LA County Board of Supervisors to direct Public Health to develop a community engagement plan with direct input from residents and establish two-way communication with the community. The Auditor also recommended regularly collecting information about residents’ health symptoms and creating consistent policies for determining and documenting the actions the department should take during public health hazard events.
“I requested the audit of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health’s response to Chiquita Canyon because after hearing from community, sleeping at the landfill where she experienced many symptoms herself, and convening regular meetings with LACPDH and all of the state and county agencies responding to the landfill fire, LACDPH normal response consistently was accepting the status quo, excuses and inaction,” said Assemblywoman Schiavo. The audit was approved through the Joint Legislative Audit Committee in June 2025 and directed to examine the county’s communication with residents, documentation of community health symptoms, actions to protect residents from hazardous chemical exposure, and how its response compared with other major public health events.
The audit comes just days after Governor Newsom signed Assemblywoman Schiavo’s Landfill Safety Act (AB 28) into law, establishing stronger protections to identify dangerous landfill conditions earlier, require corrective action before they become full-scale disasters, conduct a comprehensive health study within 60 of state agency direction, and create a fund to use penalty dollars to provide financial support for those harmed when landfill operators fail to act.
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