How safe is the soil in Palisades and Eaton Fire burn areas? ABC7 tested some samples

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- It's been nearly two months since the Eaton and Palisades fires destroyed thousands of properties, and there are still major concerns about what's in the soil in those two burn zones.

For many, those concerns only grew after learning FEMA will not be testing properties it clears and cleans.

Sandy Dennis lost her Altadena home in the fire.

"It wasn't much, but it was mine... being there 25 years. It is home," she said. Not only did she lose her home, she also lost the garden around her home that she loved.

"I would always plant tomatoes, strawberries and that kind of stuff. It was therapeutic," she said.

A few streets over, Bridget Gray's home in Altadena is still standing, but she is avoiding eating anything grown in her garden, because she is worried that ash has contaminated her produce.

Nicole Hausman lost her home in the Palisades Fire. The citrus trees next to her home were also charred.

All three homeowners worry their soil isn't safe, and they all want their properties tested for lead and arsenic.

So, our ABC7 On Your Side investigative team collected soil samples from the three homes, using a soil probe, which collects soil all the way to 8 inches below the surface.

Since FEMA is taking 6 inches of soil off properties it remediates, the samples we got should tell us if there are high levels of lead and arsenic below that 6-inch mark.

We then took those samples to USC Professor Seth John's lab. Before the fires, he and his students focused on finding trace metals in the Pacific Ocean. Now, they're using their equipment to study SoCal soils.

"Myself and other faculty have been going out on the weekends, usually with our children in tow, to collect samples in the area just so that we can have enough samples to understand what's happening," he said.

The samples we collected were organized and put in a machine that uses X-ray technology to quickly identity what's in the soil. The process is fast -- it takes about a minute per sample.

So within minutes, we were able to see the samples from Hausman's Palisades property has very little lead, even though her home burned down to the ground.

The top 1 inch had 11 parts per million - or ppm - of lead. The EPA marks anything over 200 ppm as showing potential lead contamination. The California benchmark is 80 ppm.

Deeper samples from Hausman's property showed no detectible levels of lead.

"So that one's quite surprising, and the lead concentrations there are all extraordinarily low," John said.

The samples from Gray's Altadena garden show in the top inch of soil we collected, there was 108 ppm of lead - so above the California benchmark.

"Below that, the lead concentrations measured in her soil are all extremely low and so not of concern," John said.

Dennis' samples do show concerning levels of lead. The highest reading showed 276 ppm in the sample of soil from 4 inches below the surface. That same 4-inch-deep sample is also the only one from all the properties that John says preliminary testing shows a potentially elevated level of arsenic.

Deeper down at 8 inches, Dennis' soil had 197 ppm of lead, which is below the EPA benchmark but above California's.

"We don't know whether that's because lead was released during the fires, and then rains brought that lead down in the soil, or whether just being in an urban area and right next to the house, that could have been pre-existing lead contamination in the soil," John said.

But Dennis' property still hasn't been remediated at all. And the professor says it tracks with other samples he has tested from the Altadena burn zone that show lead levels are definitely elevated - but not through the roof.

"Once the topsoil is removed and replaced with clean soil, I think it really should be possible to bring these properties back to a place where they can be built upon again and can be safe places for people to live," John said.

As for our three homeowners, they now have at least some answers.

"So finding out that lead and arsenic are at very low or undetectable levels below 6 inches is certainly reassuring, but there are lots of other substances," Hausman said.

Gray said the test results have helped regain her confidence about gardening in her yard again, though she said she wants to test again in the future.

Dennis also said she felt a bit better about the situation, though not completely.

"I don't know if I can feel good about anything right now- but it makes me feel better," she said.

We want to emphasize, there could be many other toxins other than lead and arsenic. The testing on these samples only involved those two. It is also possible different parts of those three yards could have different levels.