A workplace accident Sunday morning at Chiquita Canyon Landfill resulted in one person being taken to the hospital after a tanker truck carrying leachate overturned and trapped the driver underneath it, according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
The severity of the man’s injuries was not immediately available, according to officials, citing patient-privacy laws.
County officials responded to calls for service at 29201 Henry Mayo Drive in Castaic after reports of an overturned semi with a person trapped, according to officials.
A federal official indicated in an email Thursday that Chiquita Canyon Landfill officials contacted the Response Multi-Agency Coordination group that was overseeing the landfill on Sunday morning to let them know about the incident.
“The initial report by CCL to R-MAC did not indicate the accident involved leachate,” according to an email from Michael Brogan, spokesman for the task forces on behalf of the federal EPA. “(The) R-MAC received a follow-up phone call from CCL once the landfill operators had gathered further details of the accident clarifying that the truck involved in the accident had been carrying leachate and was driving on a back road on landfill property when it tipped over.”
The landfill indicated that approximately 20 gallons of the leachate-oil mixture it was carrying were released.
He also stated that cleanup was performed at the site and that no waterways were affected.
“The R-MAC has reinforced to (Chiquita Canyon) the need for timely and accurate reporting of instances involving any potential release of leachate and are working with CCL to ensure that requirement is met,” Brogan said.
Chiquita Canyon officials were not immediately available for comment Friday.
Leachate is a noxious chemical byproduct commonly found at landfills created by rainwater filtering through decomposing garbage and its gases.
He added that rescue crews were “already on site because the subcontractor operating the truck had been trapped in the accident,” in his email.
“Firefighters did respond to a male trapped underneath a tanker truck at the legs,” said Maria Grycan, a community services liaison for the Los Angeles County Fire Department. She added that she was limited with respect to what she could release because it was a “medical call.”
“He was extricated and transported to Henry Mayo (Newhall Hospital),” she added.
In a hearing last month, the landfill was cited by regulators with the South Coast Air Quality Management District for being behind schedule on the landfill’s abatement order, which was issued in September 2023.
The AQMD was the first regulatory agency to become involved, after odors at the landfill launched a series of looks into problems at the facility that are now being overseen by an alphabet soup of county, state and federal regulators.
Among the problems at the facility: nauseating odors that plague residents in the surrounding communities, particularly in the morning and late at night; leachate problems that pose contamination concerns mentioned by the local water agency; the landfill’s sinking at a faster-than-normal rate; and a subsurface reaction believed to be taking place at around 250 degrees, which is to date unexplained but cited as the reason for the leachate and odor problems.
The landfill has been working on a mitigation measure involving slope repair at the facility since August, which is expected to provide some relief to the smell when it’s completed, according to federal regulators.
The work, which began in August, is expected to take approximately six weeks to complete.
A Chiquita Canyon Landfill spokesman, reached Friday morning, did not provide a comment as of the publication of this story.
