More than half of still-standing homes within the area the Eaton fire’s ash settled had significant lead contamination even after extensive indoor remediation efforts, according to new findings announced Thursday from the grassroots advocacy group Eaton Fire Residents United. Additionally, a third of remediated homes tested positive for asbestos.

The results from 50 homes within and downwind of the Eaton burn area provide the first widespread evidence that the remediation techniques pushed by insurance companies and public health officials have not sufficiently removed contaminants deposited by the fire.

Long-term exposure to asbestos increases the risk of developing mesothelioma and other cancers, and long-term exposure to lead can cause permanent brain damage, especially in children, that leads to developmental delays and behavioral problems. No level of exposure to lead and asbestos comes without risks of adverse health effects.

“This is a community-wide problem,” said Nicole Maccalla, who leads EFRU’s data science. “It doesn’t matter what remediation you’re using, one pass is not establishing clearance based on the data that we have, which means that it is not yet safe to return to your home.”

That’s an issue given that many residents who have been staying elsewhere are returning home — especially those whose insurance money for temporary housing is running dry. EFRU leaders are encouraging residents to test their homes after remediation work, and, if the results show contamination, to keep remediating and testing until the lab results come back clean.

EFRU — born in January out of a frustration that no level of government was adequately addressing Altadena residents’ environmental health concerns — started by asking owners of standing homes to share the results of testing they had commissioned from professional labs both before and after remediation.

In March, EFRU was the first to publish comprehensive results from inside homes that had not yet been remediated: Out of the 53 professional testing reports homeowners shared with the organization, every household that tested for lead had found it.

A similar process was employed for this latest, post-remediation report. Homeowners hired testing professionals to come collect samples and run tests at certified labs, then they shared those results with EFRU. The organization then collated them in a database to give a wider-scope view of contamination in standing homes than any one single test could show.

Of the 50 total homes included in EFRU’s report, 45 were tested for lead, and 43 of those had at least some level of lead contamination.

Out of the 18 homes where professionals tested for lead on windowsills specifically, nine exceeded the corresponding level at which the Environmental Protection Agency typically requires further remediation. And out of the 24 homes tested for lead on floors specifically, 15 exceeded the EPA’s remediation level.

There are no official EPA remediation levels for asbestos dust on surfaces. However, asbestos dust was found in nine of the 25 homes that were tested for it in the EFRU report. The average concentration within those homes was significantly above the ad-hoc remediation level the EPA used in New York after 9/11.

“The number of houses tested is still very low, but considering that most of the homes have been remediated by professional companies, we would expect that all the homes should go below the EPA level,” said François Tissot, a Caltech geochemistry professor who began testing standing homes after the Eaton fire damaged his own. “That’s the promise of professional remediation.”

Now, EFRU is calling on the California Department of Insurance to implore insurers to cover testing and, if needed, multiple rounds of remediation. The group is also asking Gov. Gavin Newsom to declare an “ash zone,” which would formally recognize the impact of the fire’s smoke and ash beyond the immediate burn zone.

An ash zone, EFRU says, would raise public awareness around health concerns and take some of the burden off individual residents to prove to insurance companies that their home was affected.

The Department of Insurance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tissot, who is not involved with EFRU but has been in communication with the group, previously found that wiped-down surfaces had about 90% less lead than those left untouched since the fire. It made EFRU’s findings particularly surprising.

“To see that we are not even breaking 50% with professional remediation is rather alarming,” he said.

While state and federal officials, in collaboration with researchers, have developed playbooks for addressing contamination in drinking water systems and in soil after wildfires, standing-home remediation is something of a Wild West.

Instead of a central government agency working to ensure indoor remediation follows a research-backed recovery approach, a revolving door of insurance adjusters and a hodgepodge of remediation specialists with wildly different levels of qualifications and expertise have set different policies and standards for each home.

EFRU reviews test results primarily from industrial hygienists, who specialize in identifying and evaluating environmental health hazards, most often in workplaces such as manufacturing facilities and hospitals.

In its review, EFRU found many tests did not even look for lead or asbestos — despite the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health clearly warning that the two contaminants are known issues in the post-fire area. Those that tested for asbestos often used less-sensitive methods that can under-report levels.

EFRU hopes to work with researchers and officials to develop an indoor contamination playbook, such as the ones that exist for drinking water and soil, designed to help residents both safely and quickly recover.

“We need coordinated effort from all the different agencies with the elected officials — either through legislation or pressure,” said Dawn Fanning, who leads EFRU’s advocacy work. “We can come up with the answers for these residents and for future wildfires.”

Last week, Bill Gates published a 17-page memo on his personal website that critics said pitted climate and public health efforts against each other, when they should instead be working in tandem.

Monday night, speaking at Caltech in Pasadena, Gates doubled down, brushing off the critiques that came from across the ideological spectrum, including from climate scientists and President Trump.

Stressing that philanthropic resources are finite, Gates said he’s shifted some of his efforts from preventing climate change to reducing human disease and malnutrition in a world that he said will undoubtedly become warmer.

The United Nations’ 2025 Emissions Gap Report, published on Tuesday, says it’s likely that by 2100, global temperatures will have increased between 2.0 and 2.4 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. Gates said he believes that number will be closer to 3 degrees Celsius.

“The real measure there is all the things we’re doing to help the most vulnerable people on the planet,” he said. He went on to say that he wants to refocus on scientific innovation that will remove climate-change-related costs — what he called a “green premium” — from technology to address hunger and sickness in the poorest countries in the world.

Climate scientists raised concerns about Gates’ memo released last week, arguing it inaccurately isolated the challenges of disease and hunger from climate change. “They are not separate problems, they are problems being exacerbated by this very issue,” said Katharine Hayhoe, a leading atmospheric scientist who studies climate change, in a forum Tuesday afternoon with other scientists.

At Caltech, in front of over 1,000 people — a mix of mostly students and professors — Gates expressed frustration with climate scientists who critiqued his memo as erroneously downplaying the potential impacts of climate change.

“What world do they live in?” he asked at one point, arguing that his critics were not taking into account that you could do more to save lives by spending money to address disease and other issues than by investing in reducing carbon emissions.

“It’s a numeric game in a world with very finite resources,” Gates said on Monday night. “More finite than they should be.”

Gates also rebuked Trump, who he said made a “gigantic misreading” of the memo in a Truth Social post last Wednesday that suggested Gates was no longer a climate change believer.

“I’m a climate activist, but I’m also a child survival activist, and I hope you will be too,” Gates told the crowd at Caltech. “That’s the best way to make sure that everyone gets a chance to live a healthy life, no matter where they’re born or what climate they’re born into.”

The billionaire said that his shift in focus to human health is intended to support poor countries that typically receive aid from the U.S. and other rich nations, at a time when the U.S. has backed away from such largesse. The Trump administration in July paused most foreign aid payments, which make up just about 1% of the national budget, but which researchers at the nonprofit Center for Global Development have found save some 3.3 million lives worldwide.

At Caltech, Gates also discussed technologies he supports to mitigate climate change, including nuclear fusion reactors and geo-engineering.

Gates’ critics within the climate science world say he is focusing on the wrong things. “He’s sort of perpetually downplayed the importance of the clean energy transition with the technology we have in favor of promoting some future tech,” said Michael E. Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania. It could take decades for some of those technologies to be implemented at scale, said Mann. “We don’t have decades to address the climate crisis.”

It’s been two years since a Santa Cruz sea otter, known as 841, garnered international attention and celebrity by attacking surfers and their surfboards as the human wave-riders alley-ooped over the waves of the legendary Steamer Lane.

It’s happening again.

This time, the identity of the otter is unclear. That’s because while 841 (who was born in captivity) carried a light blue tag on her right flipper, this otter is naked.

Experts say 841 could have chewed off her tag, or it could have broken off on its own. Otter flipper tags are designed to last an animal’s lifespan, but research shows they don’t always last so long.

It’s also possible this is an entirely different otter who may have watched 841 in the past, and is adopting her curious and bold behavior. It could be a relative. Or it could be this otter just has a similar surfboard appetite and hostage-taking drive.

On Thursday afternoon, roughly three dozen surfers were lined up to catch waves at Steamer Lane — just below the Santa Cruz coastline’s cliffs near the city’s iconic lighthouse and surfer statue.

Mark Woodward, a Santa Cruz-based social media influencer and dedicated 841 observer and chronicler, said he wasn’t sure whether this was 841, or someone different.

He said the animal’s behaviors and M.O. were almost identical. However, while 841 tended to hang close to the cliffs in 2023, this otter appeared to spend more time a bit farther out — closer to the offshore kelp beds.

He saw 841 last year — tag on — visiting the same waters but keeping her distance from people.

The only otter seen on Thursday was way off shore, floating on its back atop a kelp bed — presumably eating some tasty morsel, such as a crab or abalone, retrieved from the sea floor.

Pelicans glided over the cresting waves, while a harbor seal watched the surfers for a bit before diving under the surface and disappearing from sight.

During the summer of 2023, federal wildlife officials tried to capture 841. They sent out boats, rafts and swimmers. She evaded every attempt and eventually gave birth to a pup, whom she cradled on her chest as she floated atop the water — or placed on top of the kelp as she dived to the bottom to retrieve food. And she stopped chasing surfboards.

Eric Laughlin, spokesman for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the lead otter-response agency in this case. However, possibly due to the federal government shutdown, the agency did not respond to questions about the surfing-curious otter in Santa Cruz.

Laughlin said the state agency had no plans “to intervene with the sea otter currently interacting with humans in Santa Cruz.”

Research on California sea otters shows that along the central coast, there is “extreme individuality in diet and behavior.” Some of the variation is the result of relatively low food availability, requiring the clever creatures to figure out unique ways of finding and retrieving food.

However, the researchers also noted some behavioral traits seemed to follow family lines, especially those “maintained along matrilines.”

Surfers at Steamer Lane in Santa Cruz on July 13, 2023.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

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Otter 841 was born in captivity to a mother who had been captured after spending too much time interacting with people and their watercraft. Since being released into the wild, she has given birth to at least two pups.

According to Woodward, the otter now frequenting Steamer Lane has been actively pursuing surfers nearly every day since Oct. 16, when it bit a surfer named Bella Orduna and stole her board.

Dripping wet and donned in a wet suit, Richard Walston, 55, said he hadn’t had any interactions with the surfer-curious creature — and he’s a frequent surfer in the area.

“Sure, I see otters,” he said. “But they’re so focused on their food, I’m not sure they even notice we’re around.”

Wildlife officials are urging surfers and boaters to keep their distance from this otter, and others — not only will this reduce the chances of an interaction, which could be dangerous for both people and otters, it is the law.