Experts hired to survey an environmental restoration project at Long Beach’s Colorado Lagoon found mounds of asbestos-contaminated dirt piled near a city fire station after two workers alleged they were told to ignore the cancer-causing materials they’d dug out of the ground.
The workers, who have since been fired and are suing for wrongful termination, were part of a construction crew digging a new channel that will connect the lagoon to Alamitos Bay. For months, they allege, the two warned the contractor managing the city project that the debris they continued to unearth was dangerous and needed to be removed properly.
They feared for their own safety and worried that the dumped debris, if it remained hidden, could lead to a public health disaster. But those concerns were ignored, they say, until October when they escalated their complaints to environmental and work-safety regulators.
Soon after, a city-hired asbestos consultant confirmed there were mounds of contaminated dirt piled near the fire station that stood just outside the worksite, according to reports the city provided in response to questions from the Long Beach Post. Nearby debris and a disposal pit used for dumping also contained high levels of the carcinogen.
The two workers are now pressing for heightened oversight of the project, where they believe more asbestos went unreported and remains to be surfaced.
City officials responsible for managing the project say the presence of asbestos is no surprise in the land around the lagoon, where abandoned utility lines and old infill were buried at a time when asbestos was commonly used in construction materials. Each time it’s been discovered, the city assured, the project has immediately undergone the mandated procedures for cleanup: testing, tagging, bagging and safely disposing of contaminated dirt or debris.
But the two workers say a supervisor with the site’s lead contractor, Reyes Construction, repeatedly told them to hide and bury asbestos without notifying the city or third-party experts it had retained.
They “never got called a lot of times that they should’ve been called,” said Thomas Corey, who worked as a lead excavator on the project.
Corey and his coworker Tim Sauter say they were responsible for the majority of the project’s excavation. After months of warning their bosses they were routinely digging up hazardous debris, they lodged complaints with the South Coast Air Quality Management District, California Department of Toxic Substances and Cal OSHA on Oct. 17 and 18.
They alleged pieces of asbestos-lined transite pipes and contaminated dirt that should have been tested and potentially moved off site were instead reburied or heaped into stockpiles at the edge of the construction site that abuts Fire Station 14. Workers, they say, were not provided protective suits, masks or even the validation that a problem existed.
A representative for Reyes Construction declined to comment, instead deferring to the Long Beach Public Works Department.
In emailed statements provided Friday, a spokesperson for Public Works said they were not aware of any workers’ complaints or specific allegations, but assured they have strict mitigation plans in place, including air monitoring and plans to cover any contaminated infill with several feet of clean dirt.
The city and its third-party experts “do not have any evidence of improper handling of asbestos containing materials, these materials were not released into the environment and do not present a health risk,” the statement said.
Corey and Sauter’s accusations briefly halted construction at the site, but it resumed in November under new safeguards approved by the SCAQMD, which says it is still investigating.
Their claims now also serve as the basis of lawsuits against Reyes Construction on the grounds the two were fired in October for speaking up.
Under the surface
Coming into contact with asbestos does not inevitably cause cancer, but no level of exposure is safe.
Just “one fiber floating around per cubic centimeter is enough, or has been established as a threshold for risk of a tumor,” said Andrea De Vizcaya Ruiz, an environmental toxicology professor at the University of California, Irvine.
Before the government started banning its use in the 1970s and ‘80s, asbestos was widely relied on for its heat and fire-resistant qualities. Because of that, untold amounts of it remain encased in older buildings or mingled underground.
Left alone and contained, “there shouldn’t be a risk because it’s not floating around,” De Vizcaya Ruiz said. “But if they start cutting or drilling walls or stuff like that, and there’s any sort of dust or floating pieces of asbestos, there is a risk.”
When it’s discovered on a job site, state law requires that asbestos be removed only by contractors specially licensed to handle the substance so that proper care be taken to contain its particles once they become loose or “friable.”
Abatement is typically handled by authorized crews, wearing protective suits and air-purifying respirators, who use non-powered tools and specialized cleaning equipment, like HEPA-filter vacuums. Excavators are typically avoided, materials are bagged and labeled and decontamination enclosures are common practice.
The Colorado Lagoon worksite has undergone several such cleanups. It’s been surveyed and abated for asbestos six different times, according to the city — heaping delays and another $600,000 in costs onto the $36 million project that’s now slated to finish in 2025.
The final stage of the project, on which Corey and Sauter worked, includes digging a 12-foot-deep channel connecting the lagoon to Alamitos Bay. This will revitalize the body of water by introducing a tidal flow between it and the sea — replacing a 900-foot box culvert which offers poor circulation that experts tie to a swell of bacteria, metals and other pollutants that fester in the water.
And while the project underwent periodic abatement after crews began digging the channel in December 2022, documents show that after April 10 this year, surveys and abatements ceased. In reports compiled by the city’s third-party consultant, Ninyo & Moore, the discovered asbestos had been cleaned up and work was safe to continue.
Yet Corey and Sauter say in that time, they continued to find more hazardous waste.
Corey said he personally unearthed spits of crude oil, creosote and petroleum-based asphalt, but also “truckloads” of transite pipe that likely contained asbestos. Pieces came as small as a sand dollar and as large as a sedan, he said, and accompanied a groundwater that swelled to the surface with a putrid scent and sheen top.
“Never found clean native sand or soil,” Corey said. “It was always debris.”
After multiple delays and cleanups, there was mounting pressure from the bosses to not report suspect debris, said Sauter, a crane operator.
If they saw anything suspicious, they should “hide (or) bury it,” Sauter recalls being told.
Loads were taken by dump truck, Sauter said, to a rented conveyor that sorted soil from larger debris they suspected was contaminated. Soil was stockpiled around the channel, he added, including a large pile next to Long Beach Fire Station 14, while debris was sent to a nearby disposal pit titled “Prism 3” — about the width of two football fields and several feet deep — under Marina Vista Park’s new baseball and soccer fields.
“I would say every scoop of dirt (Corey) took out of the ground had asbestos, whether it was small or large,” Sauter said. “That whole place is a toxic freakin’ wasteland.”
It wasn’t until September, with a series of incidents, that the two say they decided to call for outside help.
The first came with a 9-inch-by-20-foot transite pipe, a cement-based material formerly used for lining utilities that commonly contained asbestos. The two said they witnessed the pipe being cut apart less than 10 feet from Lagoon Playgroup, a preschool just outside the worksite. The pipe sat uncovered from September until crews removed it in early October, Corey said.
The second incident happened on Oct. 17, in a utility trench that Sauter and Corey dug for a new sewer line next to Fire Station 14.
Operating a vibratory roller, Sauter said he noticed in the dust that accumulated around him, coupled with the dirt that Corey showered from a dozer overhead, that clung to his coveralls. Certain the soil contained asbestos debris, Sauter was terrified of the possibility that carcinogenic fibers had been kicked up in the dust and were now entering his lungs.
“There were pieces of it everywhere,” Sauter said. “And I freaked out.”
Hours later, Sauter and Corey each filed their initial complaints with regulators. That same day, Reyes Construction alerted the city about possible asbestos at the site, according to the Public Works Department.
The next day, inspectors with SCAQMD visited. Samples were taken between Oct. 18 and 23 by Ninyo & Moore from dozens of areas around the site. Results confirmed the presence of two forms of asbestos, chrysotile and crocidolite, in the disposal pit where Corey and Sauter had hauled debris and in the sewer line worksite next to Fire Station 14, where the surveyors estimated asbestos debris had been commingled with 40,000 square-feet of excavated dirt.
The report from Ninyo & Moore also mentioned asbestos-tainted transite pipe and fiber-reinforced rubber tile they found nearby but did not provide their specific location.
In all three cases, lab results found 10-15% chrysotile and 8% crocidolite, according to Ninyo & Moore’s report authored on Nov. 12.
Less than one percent is potentially dangerous, said De Vizcaya Ruiz, the environmental toxicology professor.
Ninyo & Moore recommended removing all 40,000 square feet of the contaminated soil along with the other hazardous debris. It is unknown how or when the material was “buried at the site,” asbestos consultant David Kelly wrote in the report, concluding it is unclear how much more contaminated material may lie underneath.
Accusations of retaliation
Ask Corey and Sauter, and they’ll say there are “several tons” more of dangerous materials under the channel and buried across the site.
But they likely will never know for sure.
Both were fired on Oct. 21, they say, days after environmental regulators arrived and the day before they ordered the site to be shut down. The pair said their firings came minutes apart over the phone from a supervisor who told them, “They shut it down for asbestos, you would know.’”
The two filed lawsuits last month against the construction company for wrongful termination and retaliation.
Both also allege they’re each owed $7,600 in hazard pay.
After his firing, Corey warned the city it must address the still unearthed materials under the channel. According to emails provided by Corey, Stormwater Division Manager Colin Averill with Long Beach Public Works replied on Nov. 14 that “the channel excavation area will be backfilled with a layer of material suitable for a tidal channel habitat.”
In its statement to the Post, the city said it will continue working with asbestos abatement experts as needed to make sure the project is safe. It also complied with the SCAQMD’s investigation by providing a host of documents, including survey results, contracts and supervisor logs. So far, the city said, it’s not been informed of any violations.
The project has become an eye-roll and a disappointment to Corey, who lives nearby and had planned to retire following its completion. In a recent stroll past the site, Corey saw his excavator, red tagged and covered in plastic while crews in Tyvek suits abated the property.
This was never the case, Corey said, when he was there. Both said they watched workers, some with bare hands, lift up transite pipes and throw them in trash bags later tossed in dumpsters.
“No suit or mask was offered nor was I provided any exposure paperwork,” he said. “… There’s got to be so many chemicals in that ground that we were all exposed to and no one told us anything.”
But after a curt end to his 39-year career, Corey plans to retire. Sauter on the other hand, with only 5 years under his belt, needs more of a resolution.
“I’ve never had a write-up, no issues, never been late, never been laid off, nothing,” Sauter said. “Spent five years building a reputation with a company, all that is gone.”
Sauter remains on disability after a nervous breakdown days before being let go, afraid that asbestos entered his lungs. Without a diagnosis, and in the company of a therapist, he confides his anxiety that he carried asbestos fibers — which takes time to present symptoms — home to his daughters.
“I’m paranoid (that) my kids got it,” he said. “It’s got me pretty sick, man. This is just a freaking whirlwind for me … I wouldn’t go back there for an extra hundred grand.”