Despite finding nearly one in five homes had excessive levels of lead, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this week claimed that recent soil testing in Altadena proved that expedited federal cleanup efforts had effectively removed toxic ash and debris from homes destroyed by the deadly Eaton fire.

Earlier this year, the EPA announced it would perform a limited soil sampling at 100 destroyed homes across the burn zone in order to verify that contractors had thoroughly mitigated toxic substances. In a recent news release, the EPA said that testing revealed median lead concentrations below federal standards, and “confirmed that cleanup methods successfully addressed contamination and verified cleanup protocols.”

The EPA soil sampling comes amid mounting pressure from residents and environmentalists who claim that a hasty federal cleanup effort had left behind or spread hazardous fire debris. Internal government reports also raised questions about the thoroughness of the cleanup.

The EPA did not release its report to the public, but it said 95 of 100 soil samples collected near the surface of the home’s building footprint were below the federal lead screening level.

“I think for the folks in Altadena who maybe had some concerns about the adequacy of the work that was performed by the federal government in removing ash and debris — I think they should feel confident that those areas of their property are safe to use now,” said Mike Montgomery, EPA Superfund and emergency management director.

In announcing its findings, the EPA cited federal lead standards only, and not California’s more stringent thresholds. Of the 100 homes sampled, 17 had lead levels above 80 milligrams per kilogram, California’s benchmark for residential properties. The highest concentration of lead was 705 milligrams per kilogram — nearly nine times higher than the state standard and triple the federal threshold, according to a copy of the report that was reviewed by The Times.

The results unnerved some Altadena residents, who see more and more fire-destroyed homes being rebuilt. Joy Chen, executive director of Eaton Fire Survivors Network, called on federal officials to release the full report and provide additional resources to address elevated contamination.

“From the beginning, people have been very worried that they [federal workers] did not thoroughly clear these sites. Now 16 months later, people are taking it upon themselves to test or bioremediate to ensure it’s safe to rebuild. Most of us don’t have the resources to make those decisions,” Chen said.

“It would’ve been much easier if homes had been cleared to safe levels the first time around.”

EPA officials said the agency had notified Altadena property owners of their soil test results and encouraged them to review local public health guidance. Montgomery said EPA officials would proactively reach out to property owners whose lots had lead levels above the federal benchmark of 200 milligrams per kilogram.

Federal disaster officials say that some toxic substances within the burn zone could have been deposited there long before the fire — the result perhaps of decades of burning leaded gasoline or lead paint.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency had refused repeatedly to pay for post-cleanup soil testing and broke from long-standing California fire recovery protocols that are intended to protect returning residents from toxic substances. FEMA, along with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA, had touted the fire recovery as the fastest in modern history.

Disaster crews removed millions of tons of fire debris from nearly 9,700 properties affected by the Eaton and Palisades fires in roughly eight months.

But hundreds of disaster victims had complained about substandard work from federal cleanup workers, and internal government reports said crews had left debris behind and, in at least one instance, dumped ash on a neighbor’s property.

In January — shortly after the one-year anniversary of the fires — the EPA announced that it would perform soil testing for lead at 100 randomly-selected homes that were destroyed in the Eaton fire and later cleared of debris by federal contractors. The announcement followed months of criticism that federal cleanup workers had mishandled debris — including dumping fire debris and contaminated pool water on neighboring properties.

The Los Angeles Times collected soil samples in March 2025 and published the first evidence that already-remediated home sites retained elevated levels of toxic substances. Los Angeles County, UCLA, USC and several other organizations launched their own soil testing efforts, and all found elevated levels of lead at homes that had already been remediated by federal cleanup crews.

Lead is a potent neurotoxin that can stunt the brain development and lead to behavioral issues in young children that inhale or ingest it. When the Eaton fire burned through Altadena’s historic neighborhoods, it destroyed many homes that were coated in toxic lead paint. Plumes of smoke and ash then deposited the heavy metal across the burn zone.

Dr. Nichole Quick, chief medical advisor for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, encouraged property owners to seek further testing if they have concerns about contamination, including free testing services provided by local universities.

Quick said residents can take steps to limit their exposure, such as washing dusty equipment and keeping cleaning floors and other surfaces clean.

“Guidance is really geared towards how you interrupt that ingestion exposure, so we’re talking about a high-risk group, our kids with developing brains, pregnant women,” Quick said. “Kids also happen to be the ones that crawl around on all sorts of stuff and hands directly into mouth, so a lot of what we’re talking about is stopping that sort of exposure.”

Environmental experts quickly questioned the EPA’s soil sampling approach, which drastically differed from soil testing procedures from California environmental agencies. Andrew Whelton, a Purdue University researcher who has studied environmental risk following disaster, said the EPA sampling — which only tested one mixed sample — would likely mask heavily polluted areas of the home. The agency also only tested for lead — one of 17 toxic metals typically tested for following wildfires.

“It’s apples and oranges,” Whelton said. “They [the EPA] only looked for lead and didn’t look for hot spots. The approach that EPA differs from everything that California has done for fire cleanup for the last 15 years.

“My advice to property owners who haven’t tested soil or are adjacent to the fire area is conduct soil testing as it has always been done.”

The EPA and L.A. County health department are expected to discuss the soil testing results at the Altadena town council meeting on June 16.

One of NASA’s most valuable assets is a Southern Californian.

Following the space agency’s successful Artemis II mission around the moon last month, Victor Glover — who grew up primarily in the Inland Empire and has spent much of his career at Southern California’s many military and aerospace hubs — is now the only pilot to have flown NASA’s Orion capsule.

As the crew finishes its international victory lap before the media, Glover is preparing to put his head down and get to work training the Artemis generation of moon-faring astronauts.

“I think Artemis is going to demand us to change the paradigm,” he told The Times.

The International Space Station, which has been continuously inhabited by a revolving crew of astronauts in low Earth orbit for over 25 years, has a “very well-worn” training program, he said. But developing a new instructional regimen for complex high-stakes moon missions as the agency tries to aggressively ramp up Artemis launches from once every 3 1/2 years to every six months is a different beast.

“Until we get really ramped up and have a solid training program, I think astronauts need to take more ownership of the training and be involved so we can share this experience,” Glover said.

As of today, the list of Artemis astronauts is only four people long. And the list of Artemis pilots has only one name: Victor Glover.

Glover, 50, was born in Pomona, graduated from Ontario High School and lived “all over” Southern California’s urban sprawl, including Baldwin Village (which he instinctively referred to by its pre-1988 name, “The Jungle”). He completed his undergraduate studies at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and received graduate degrees (plural) from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey and the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base.

He cut his teeth as a test pilot at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, in the Mojave. After NASA selected him as an astronaut, he learned to fly SpaceX’s Dragon capsule at the company’s then-headquarters in Hawthorne before riding it to the ISS.

Glover particularly misses those test pilot days, when he was pushing the limits of the F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet in China Lake while completing a master’s degree on the side.

“That was actually maybe one of the best times of my career. We had our fourth daughter while we lived in China Lake,” he said. “I was … working really hard but having a ton of fun at a house full of kids.”

In one of Glover’s favorite pictures, snapped by his wife, he is sitting at his desk in his tan desert flight suit, focused on graduate school work while holding one of his daughters.

Glover sees himself as just one example of how the Golden State’s deserts and coastal cities have left a lasting mark on America’s space program.

“Southern California is very uniquely postured to help NASA,” Glover said. “Southern California has the combination of culture and technology — and it doesn’t hurt to have Hollywood” to help share NASA’s mission and values.

(Glover fondly recalled his joy seeing the “Iron Man” production crew, including actor and rapper Terrence Howard, roll through Edwards Air Force Base during his tenure.)

Glover, who now lives in Texas near NASA’s Johnson Space Center, is focused on bringing that SoCal sensibility and invaluable experience piloting the Orion capsule to the agency’s astronaut training program.

When asked if he hopes to fly again on an Artemis mission, he gave a simple answer: “No.”

There was one other thing on his to-do list, though.

“Tell L.A. I love them and all of Southern California — and I can’t wait to get back out there and visit my home state and my hometown.”

As nearly 300,000 fans prepare to arrive in Los Angeles for the men’s World Cup soccer championship in mid-June, the international soccer federation is coming under fire for what climate scientists and advocates are calling the most polluting World Cup in history.

This year’s event is being held in 16 stadiums across three giant countries: Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.

That’s despite the fact that climate change is worsening, the risk of playing in dangerous heat is rising and the federation, FIFA, has a commitment to reduce its carbon emissions 50% by 2030.

“It’s the sheer amount of travel involved in this tournament,” said Freddie Daley, a researcher at the University of Sussex.

Even more than the geography, this year’s event also includes 60% more games than in the past; FIFA expanded the number of teams from 32 to 48, so some 5 million fans will be traveling from around the world to watch.

“The expanded tournament, twinned with its geographical span, means that it’s by far the most emissions-intensive World Cup that we’ve ever seen,” Daley said.

Jet exhaust is a major contributor to climate change, 3% to 4% of all warming, and air travel is usually the biggest contributor to carbon emissions from major sporting events.

The most dedicated and affluent fans will be flying longer distances than ever before to follow their teams around during the games.

Eight games will be played in SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, beginning with the U.S. men’s national team’s opening match on June 12 and ending with a quarterfinal July 10.

Los Angeles World Airports spokesperson Brian Denney estimates 290,000 visitors will come through LAX, about 40% from outside the United States. Because of the worldwide decline in travel due to fuel prices, however, commercial flights into LAX will net about the same as this time last year.

Daley, a campaigner with the Cool Down Sport for Climate Action Network, calculated the emissions projected for the World Cup with researchers from Scientists for Global Responsibility and the Environmental Defense Fund.

They found that the 2026 games will generate over 9 million tons of carbon dioxide, about double the average for the last four World Cups — 4.7 million tons. A million tons is the equivalent emissions of about 220,000 cars on U.S. roads for a year.

FIFA spokesperson Jhamie Chin said FIFA “acknowledges that air travel is a significant contributor to the overall footprint of any major event, and that managing emissions linked to flights remains one of the most complex sustainability challenges for event organizers.”

He said FIFA “welcomes informed scrutiny” but did not respond to a question about how the group plans to achieve its climate goals if World Cups are getting more carbon intensive.

The games in 2030 will span multiple countries, too, but much smaller ones: Spain, Portugal and Morocco, with opening games in Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina. They’ll emit 6.1 million tons of CO2 — less than this year’s games but still more than World Cups past.

The 2034 World Cup in Saudi Arabia will take place in a more geographically compact area, but the country plans to build 11 new stadiums, whereas this year’s World Cup will only use existing ones. Stadium construction is another leading cause of mega sporting event emissions, so using only existing venues, as Paris mostly did for the last Olympics, is one main way event hosts can address climate change.

The Saudi plans will drive the 2034 event’s pollution up to 8.6 million tons of CO2, based on conservative estimates.

Private charter jet companies hawk World Cup packages online to fly fans all over the continent, but most won’t be able to pursue this kind of travel.

Jose M. Hernandez, a 67-year-old soccer fan, lives in Culver City and has attended the past eight World Cups, always dressed as the Catholic saint Juan Diego. He normally follows the Mexico national team, but with World Cup prices he’s less particular.

“I follow other teams because I like to meet people from different countries, experience different teams,” he said. “It’s really fun.”

For the World Cups in Russia in 2018 and Brazil in 2014, Hernandez flew to games in different cities to get a flavor for different parts of the host countries.

He said he’ll make the high costs this year work by staying with family and friends for games in Monterrey, Guadalajara and Mexico City, where he’s originally from. He’s also catching the Iran vs. New Zealand game in his hometown, Los Angeles. But many of his friends and fellow fans won’t be so lucky.

“Three different countries is really hard for us, especially people who want to follow their own teams,” Hernandez said. “Fans come from Argentina, Brazil, France and have to travel all across the country, and north and south. I don’t know who is going to do that.”

This isn’t the first time the World Cup has come under fire for its climate claims. In 2022, the group Carbon Market Watch and five other nonprofits challenged claims that the World Cup in Qatar would be “carbon neutral.” A Swiss advertising regulator found FIFA to be in breach of federal law.

Purple lights illuminate the field at Dallas Stadium (temporarily renamed from AT&T Stadium for the 2026 FIFA World Cup) to promote grass growth in Arlington, Texas, on Thursday.

(Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP via Getty Images)

For this year’s games, FIFA is no longer making those claims, but it’s still promising to lower emissions 50% by 2030 in line with the Paris Agreement, and to eventually reach a net zero climate impact by 2040.

Chin, the FIFA spokesperson, pointed to this year’s use of existing stadiums and FIFA’s environmental strategy, which lists reducing food waste, prioritizing clean technologies and promoting public transport, but without specific targets.

Climate advocates say that doesn’t cut it.

“They have shifted their communications, but at the same time, this World Cup is an expanded event,” said Gavin Mair, a spokesperson for Carbon Market Watch. “It’s not a very credible suggestion to say that they’re aligned in any way with the Paris Agreement.”

Climate watchers concede scaling back the games is a difficult discussion.

An aerial view shows Estadio Akron, a venue for the FIFA World Cup 2026, in Guadalajara, Mexico, on Feb. 26.

(Felix Marquez / For The Times)

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“An expanded tournament means that more teams that have never been able to take part get to play for the first time,” Daley said. “This is a wonderful thing.”

Still, he added, “if they are serious about driving down emissions, then that has to be part of the conversation.”

His group’s report does recommend reducing the number of teams. He also recommends FIFA drop high-polluting sponsors and prioritize host countries with existing clean transportation to shuttle fans between games.

Soccer fans in L.A. won’t be able to hop on a high-speed rail for games in Houston or Seattle, like they might to get between cities in parts of Europe or Asia, for example.

Metro is touting the expansion of the D line and a special World Cup bus service with about 300 buses and 15 routes to get fans to SoFi Stadium.

Mayor Karen Bass “is encouraging all fans to take public transportation, including through the enhanced Metro service that will be available throughout the World Cup,” said a spokesperson for her office. “This will reduce carbon emissions and encourage an enjoyable experience for all.”