2018 wildfire season: Camp Fire post fire hazardous waste clean-up: a conundrum where to put non-hazardous debris?

The clean-up after the Camp Fire is still in phase one, the clean-up of hazardous waste where according to this Butte County website, 61.6 percent of properties in Paradise have been designated and signed as having hazardous wastes removed, see my January 4th article for more information. Once the hazardous waste clean-up is completed then phase two starts, debris removal. Where debris removal includes non-hazardous debris including but not limited to remnants of burned structures, furniture,non-hazardous household items and personal effects. See the Butte County Debris Removal website and my December 19th article for more information

I am not quite sure if ash is removed during phase one or phase two.

There are thousands of properties that will be included in phase two of the post Camp Fire clean-up. The conundrum is where will the non-hazardous debris go?  There are designated landfills for hazardous debris in California and Nevada. Officials are looking at nearby towns in northern California for a "temporary scrapyard" to store burned non-hazardous debris. Residents of these towns have understandable environmental and public health concerns. I have no answer for the conundrum of where to put the debris. But I can say that it is not uncommon that residents do not want such a scrapyard in their town. There is an article from Emergency Management reporting on various issues involving where to put non-hazardous debris from the Camp Fire.

As I said, I have no answers. It is a conundrum. This is a question facing both disaster officials and the residents of nearby towns who have been approached about hosting this scrapyard. Public comments from residents of towns under consideration to host this scrapyard have been solicited. At some point a site for this scrapyard will be chosen and people are going to be unhappy.

My thanks to Mike Archer of Wildfire News of the Day for sharing the article from Emergency Management the other day.