Where do you put 85 million pounds of rotting food?

Good morning, it’s Thursday, July 16, and you can expect it to be objectionably hot today (low 90s).

Once the fire was out at the Lineage warehouse in Boyle Heights and the noxious smoke stopped blanketing the surrounding neighborhoods, the scope of the next environmental disaster became clear. 

There were still 85 million pounds of rotting food left at the site — some of it mixed into a slurry of flame retardant, burned insulation and sooty firehose runoff — baking in the hot summer sun. It’s a nasty mess that includes shellfish, various kinds of meat, boxes and other packaging.

Lineage, the company that operated the massive cold storage facility, is responsible for getting rid of all that festering food, though they are working with a long list of subcontractors to do it. 

Nearly a month after the fire, the lengthy cleanup process is still in its early stages, and neighbors remain barraged by nauseating odors and an invasion of rats and bugs. A tracker on Lineage’s website shows how many trucks of waste have been removed, so angry residents can see the progress for themselves. 

But as the number ticked upward, I remained obsessed by another question: Where, exactly, were all these trash-laden trucks going? 

For days, I asked Lineage and the company’s consultants questions about where the food waste was being taken, with no answers. I found the lack of clarity both mystifying and maddening, because this information is eminently knowable, and in the public interest.

As of Monday, 275 truckloads of waste had been removed in a process that began more than two weeks ago. Those trucks are not simply driving off into the sunset. They’re going somewhere, and they are supposed to be following strict regulations as they do it. 

The city’s Emergency Management Department’s recovery website offered a few more details, including that food waste was “being moved to Riverside County.”

But that did not narrow it down for me. By land mass, Riverside County is roughly the size of New Jersey. 

My colleague Tomo Chien and I spent an afternoon parked outside the cold storage facility’s burned-out shell this week, trying to talk to neighbors and workers, and potentially follow a truck to suss out where the trash was going. Like most journalism stakeouts, this one was unsuccessful, though at least there was access to a porta-potty at the site, which is rare when surveilling. (We can now definitively report that the blocks around the east side of the site smell far worse than the inside of a porta-potty on an 88 degree day.) 

Eventually, we figured out where all the food waste is being taken across three counties, and why the primary destination may raise more questions.

L.A. Material readers have whittled down the competing Quarterfinalists to the final 4 restaurants competing for the title of Champion. Voting will close at the end of today, so vote now! The 2 winners from this round will go head to head in the final Championship TOMORROW, July 17.

MAKING BEAUTY BORING: The Hollywood Reporter dives once again into the latest plastic surgery trends, this year asking why “so many of today’s stars look so … same-y.”

GUACAMOLE IS EXTRA: Chipotle’s next big bet is selling its Mexican-inspired bowls south of the border in Mexico. 

ALCATRAZ TRAGEDY: One person died and three are unaccounted for after a boat sank in choppy waters in San Francisco Bay. The group of 20 was on a memorial cruise, scattering the ashes of a loved one. 

BRING BACK THE SAT: Over at Golden State Report, longtime editorial writer and education expert Karin Klein makes the case for the University of California bringing back the SAT, writing that “the rising tide of grade inflation … has brought us to the point of having to ponder the question of what matters more: The appearance of learning, or the actual accomplishment of it?” 

BASS’ ROBB PROBLEM? The L.A. Times scoops that while informal adviser Yusef Robb was handling communications for Mayor Bass’ office for free, Robb was simultaneously working on a three-year contract with Los Angeles World Airports worth nearly $600,000. (We previously broke the story that Robb was doing post-fire crisis PR for Lineage; he later said he would no longer be advising Bass.)

For today’s peek inside our subscriber-only Discord server, a lovely little vignette from @soham in the #movies-music-art channel:

AND FINALLY… A poem to pair with your morning coffee: “Carmel Point” by Robinson Jeffers.

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