The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors declared a local emergency on Tuesday as a foul smell continued to pervade the Carson area.
Officials have determined decaying organic material in the Dominguez Channel to be the source of the stench. Thousands of residents from Carson, West Carson, and parts of Gardena, Torrance, Redondo Beach, Wilmington, and Long Beach have reported the smell, believed to be hydrogen sulfide gas. Hydrogen sulfide reportedly emits an odor like rotten eggs.
"We're clear the odor is causing consistent and real health symptoms like nausea, headaches, throat and eye irritation that is deeply troubling and severely impacting the quality of life for far too many residents," said Supervisor Holly Mitchell on Tuesday.
Mitchell clarified that the county’s emergency declaration was in response to the persistence of the smell, not due to any new concern about related health effects.
The L.A. County Department of Public Health has conducted door-to-door outreach to nearly 9,000 Carson residents, Mitchell said, has contacted businesses and schools, and has established a hotline.
The department has also spent an estimated $5.4 million on mitigation efforts, and reimbursing residents for air filters, purifiers, or temporary relocation.
"Even with that, these Herculean efforts have not eliminated the nuisance odor to date," Mitchell said.
The county’s declaration follows on the heels of a similar designation made by the City of Carson last week. Carson Mayor Lula Davis-Holmes has called on county, state, and federal officials to prioritize neutralizing the smell.
The stench has already triggered legal action. A group of Carson residents has sued a warehouse owner and tenant whom they allege share liability for producing the smell. The proposed class-action suit, filed in L.A. Superior Court, states that days before the first report of the odor, a fire broke out at one of the warehouses which contained highly flammable ethanol-based hand sanitizer. Unsafe conditions exacerbated the blaze, they said, which ultimately triggered decay in the channel.
The suit seeks an injunction directing the defendants to pay for residents' relocation expenses as well as for any future related medical bills.
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