THE NEW LEDE

“Postcard from California: The ‘literal dumpster fire’ burning under an LA suburb”

“In a canyon 40 miles north of downtown Los Angeles, a fire is smoldering. Unlike the forest fires that erupt every year in Southern California, this fire is 30 feet underground. It’s been spewing toxic gases for three years, with no end in sight.

Chiquita Canyon, near the upper-middle-class suburb of Castaic in the Santa Clarita Valley, is the site of a 639-acre landfill owned by Waste Connections Inc., the third-largest waste management company in the US. It opened in 1972, and was the No. 2 dumping ground for Los Angeles County waste until it was forced to close at the end of last year.”