A fire broke out at Highland Anodizing and Plating, a 33,000 sq foot plating shop, Sunday morning. The address is 1001 N Orange, Los Angeles (West Hollywood neighborhood) about 1 block from Santa Monica Boulevard. Over 130 LA firefighters defended the fire and it was ultimately extinguished around 2 pm. A huge smoke plume lasted all morning and recurred briefly in the evening.
Throughout 2014 and up to August 2015, EPA worked with the Highland representatives to cleanup the site. During this time frame the following activities were accomplished:
-Removal of all fire suppression waters collected from the street;
-Decontamination of affected storm drain systems, street and sidewalks;
-Removal of all plating chemicals, equipment and infrastructure;
-Removal of the fire damaged structure;
-Removal of the west plating building;
-Assessment of subsurface soil contamination;
-Removal of contaminated soil (ongoing); and
-Removal of contaminated soil from the adjacent Orange Square Business Park.
In August 2015, the property was sold to a large developer (1001 N. Orange (LA), LLC ). EPA is currently conducting oversight of their cleanup operations to complete the removal action. The land owner has entered into a BFPP AOC for the oversight of this cleanup. the cleanup was cleaned in December 2015.
