California emergency officials quietly explored whether to stop paying for routine post-wildfire soil testing, according to a confidential draft memo that has now leaked and rattled fire survivors trying to rebuild after the Eaton and Palisades fires.
The memo surfaced in the fallout from last year’s destructive blazes and the recent retirement of Cal OES director Nancy Ward, sharpening long-simmering worries about what is, and is not, checked in the dirt where homes once stood.
Documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times show that an assistant director at the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services drafted a note titled "Should the state continue to pay for soil testing as part of Private Property Debris Removal (PPDR) programs?" The draft laid out three options: keep funding testing, push decisions to counties with a chance of reimbursement, or stop state-paid sampling altogether.
In comments to that reporting, a Cal OES spokesperson said the memo was only a draft, did not reflect any adopted policy, and that the state’s official position on wildfire soil testing had not changed.
Local Testing And Guidance Already Under Way
While Sacramento weighed its options on paper, testing in the field has already been turning up trouble. Local and independent sampling has found elevated lead and other contaminants in yards downwind of the Eaton burn scar. In response, Los Angeles County created a free composite lead-testing program and offers blood-lead screening for affected residents, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
State regulators and the Department of Toxic Substances Control have posted technical sampling plans and guidance for the Palisades and Eaton responses, along with broader wildfire contamination materials. Public health experts point to those documents as evidence that surface soil testing is a basic safety check before families rebuild, landscape or start putting in new gardens.
Feds Pivot After Months Of Criticism
At the federal level, the early stance was even more restrictive. Federal disaster officials initially resisted paying for post-cleanup soil sampling, a position that triggered intense pressure from residents and elected officials and spurred local testing campaigns, as reported by LAist.
After oversight reports and media coverage flagged problems with how some cleanup contractors operated, federal agencies narrowed their approach instead of abandoning testing altogether. The Environmental Protection Agency now plans limited lead sampling at 100 properties that were cleared by federal crews, according to ABC7.
Costs, Complaints And What’s At Stake
The Cal OES draft memo leans heavily on cost concerns. It cites a CalRecycle analysis finding that soil testing and any extra excavation typically add about 4,000 to 6,000 dollars per parcel, or roughly 3% to 6% of a standard debris removal budget. Outside experts have estimated that fully finishing testing and cleanup in the Eaton and Palisades zones could run into the tens of millions of dollars, according to the Los Angeles Times.
That same reporting notes that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers received more than 1,100 complaints from property owners about the federal cleanups, with more than 20% tied to the quality of the work. Community groups have seized on that tally as they argue for comprehensive, independent soil testing instead of a bare-minimum approach.
What Comes Next
Officials insist that no policy shift has actually been made and that the leaked memo never advanced beyond the draft stage. Even so, its release has amplified calls from survivors, lawmakers and public health advocates who want a clear, permanent and funded commitment to testing and follow-up remediation after major fires.
With county testing programs already running and the EPA’s limited sampling set to begin, the political fight now centers on whether California will guarantee state money for soil testing or leave the cost, and the lingering risk, to homeowners and local governments still trying to rebuild.
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