Homeless encampment hazardous clean-up concerns
Crews continue to get rid of the trash and human waste found throughout the homeless encampment cleared out last week near HWY 82 near Dillon Road in Coachella.
Brush, leveling sand, hazmat waste, human feces, urine, and drug paraphernalia are among the things workers have found during the clean-up.
Caltrans officials said this isn’t the first time workers have come to clean up the property.
“The last encampment that was cleaned up two years ago was out here for about 13 years, but 3,000 needles is a lot to come across when you’re cleaning up a homeless encampment,” said Terri Kasinga, public information officer for Caltrans District 8.
The clean-up comes as a union representing California’s maintenance workers filed a grievance with the state, alleging that Caltrans isn’t ensuring that members are provided appropriate equipment, training, vaccination, and compensation for dangerous hazmat duties when cleaning up homeless encampments on state property.
Caltrans officials responded to the grievance, saying “safety is a top priority for Caltrans, and we will carefully review the grievance.”
When it comes to the matter of workers being safe while cleaning the site, Kasinga said, “None of our workers at Caltrans have been working on removing anything at this site.”
Kasinga added that the cleanup of hazmat materials on the project is not done by Caltrans workers, but through a contractor properly trained and equipped for the task
“Caltrans does not physically cleanup hazmat waste, even within the right of way that maintenance maintains. Whenever we encounter hazmat at a homeless encampment, we have a hazmat unit that comes out and deems that as a hazmat site, and then we hire a contractor, who has those capabilities to come in and do the cleanup,” Kasinga said.
Meanwhile, Caltrans officials said the removal of waste and brush has them optimistic the property won’t be the site of another encampment.
Caltrans has not yet provided the name of the contractor doing the hazmat cleanup. Kasinga said crews expect to finish up the property in the next couple of weeks. It is currently not known how much the project is going to cost.
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