Latest news with #AntelopeValley
CBS News
28-05-2025
- Climate
- CBS News
Southern California deserts, valleys brace for dramatic warm-up with temperatures expected to reach triple digits
A dramatic warm-up is coming to parts of Southern California with triple digits expected to impact the deserts and valleys. KCAL News has issued a Next Weather Alert to warn communities about the high temperatures that may affect their daily routines. Our team of meteorologists says the heat should peak on Friday with the hottest temperatures in 2025 so far. The alert has been issued for areas like the Antelope Valley and the Inland Desert. The National Weather Service has also issued a heat advisory for the interior central coast and Santa Clara Valley for temperatures in the mid-90s to 105 degrees. The advisory will go into effect on Friday at 11 a.m. and will remain until 8 p.m. The mornings will begin with a bit of cloud coverage, especially near the coasts, but by the late morning to early afternoon, that should clear. Weather officials urge sensitive populations, like young children and the elderly, to take caution during peak hours. Tips for staying safe during the heat: Drink fluids and stay hydrated Stay in air-conditioned rooms if possible Avoid prolonged periods in the sun Do not leave children or pets in unattended vehicles
CBS News
27-05-2025
- Climate
- CBS News
Antelope Valley expected to reach 102 degrees this weekend
The hot weather from last week is expected to return to Los Angeles County's desert communities this weekend. As a result, KCAL News has issued a Next Weather Alert to help residents beat the heat in early June. Our meteorologists expect the temperatures to peak on Friday, especially in the Antelope Valley, where they could reach 102 degrees, making it the hottest day of 2025 so far. On Friday, the valleys and the Inland Empire can also expect highs in the 90s.
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Yahoo
Antelope Valley residents say they are fed up with rampant dumping, official inaction
Eric Eller likes to ride his dirt bikes through the canyons, dry riverbeds and rocky outcroppings of the Antelope Valley in the high desert north of Los Angeles. Eller's an off-the-grid kind of guy with a "Mad Max" vibe — living in a house on a remote plot of land next to a jury-rigged trailer where he tinkers with the remnants and pieces of gutted automobiles, motorcycles and other mechanical debris. But Eller's isolation was obliterated last June when dozens of big dump trucks began snaking up the dirt road behind his house and discarding their loads into the nearby dry river canyon. The caravan of waste-haulers continued in the days that followed, often arriving after sundown or in the dark hours before dawn. Two months later, the convoys abruptly stopped. But not before the makeshift dump's surface had been camouflaged with dirt and mulch — much of which has since blown away, revealing a 30-foot-deep noxious stew of chopped-up concrete, plastic tampon applicators, faded plastic children's toys, toothbrushes, syringes, empty caulking tubes, two-by-fours, faded books, weathered Styrofoam pipe insulation, plastic bucket tops and more. Across the Antelope Valley, waste trucks are hauling garbage in from the Greater Los Angeles area and Central Valley towns such as Bakersfield, and then dumping it at makeshift sites. Letters, bills and envelopes visible at several of these waste sites in April showed addresses in Pacoima, Los Angeles and Van Nuys, among other cities. "Illegal dumping has been a problem in the Antelope Valley for decades," said Chuck Bostwick, a senior field deputy for Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents much of the area. "But it's gotten worse in the last two or three years, markedly worse." In some cases, such as the site behind Eller's home, the waste sites are flat-out unauthorized. No landowner has given permission to dump at the site, and the waste consists of construction, household and medical debris. But in others cases, the waste-haulers have the landowners' permission to dump — but are disposing waste that should be going to landfills equipped to handle household and industrial waste, lawsuits claim. In one lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, residents claim that major residential waste-hauling companies including Athens Services, California Waste Services and Universal Waste Systems are dumping hazardous substances without authorization. The suit claims these companies are disguising the construction and demolition debris as "green waste by unlawfully covering this waste with highly flammable wood chips and other organic waste." Eric Casper, the president of California Waste Services, said in an email that his company has "never engaged in dumping waste of any kind, at any time, in the Antelope Valley — legal or illegal. Nor anywhere else." Athens Services also denied any illegal dumping, saying in a statement that California's organics recycling law "encourages sending compostable material to third parties such as farmers and other property owners for beneficial use. This is the material that Athens Services produces and distributes." Universal Waste Systems and other companies named in the suit didn't respond to requests for comment, nor have they filed responses to the federal suit. Residents say there are more than 100 dump sites scattered throughout the valley — from Lake Los Angeles to the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve and north to Mojave — that they contend are unauthorized. Some of these sites cover hundreds of acres and extend dozens of feet deep. And residents worry that what they can see — from the roads or their homes — is just the tip of a malodorous and malignant iceberg, and that there are probably dozens more they haven't yet identified. They complain they are plagued by the toxic, sour and rotten-egg like smells emanating from the discarded trash that cooks in the hot sun and then wafts across their properties. They also note that the flammable mulch and other materials in the dump, combined with a broiling desert sun, makes for an acute fire risk. Between 2020 and 2024, the Los Angeles County Fire Department responded to 42 mulch or trash-related fires in the Antelope Valley, ranging from a quarter-acre to 22 acres, ultimately costing taxpayers roughly $1.6 million to extinguish, according to Los Angeles County documents. Ashley Mroz, who lives in the Antelope Valley community of Neenach, said a mulch-covered dump site spontaneously combusted near her home last summer. "It had been smoldering for days and days," said Mroz, one of the plaintiffs in the federal court suit. "We could not even go outside. The smell was so horrific." And the scourge has spread beyond the dump sites: Shredded plastic debris can be seen hanging from roadside Joshua trees and creosote bushes. While a midday view across the arid landscape reveals a sea of glimmering, reflective glass shards, like the tips of cresting waves over a vast, brown ocean. According to Antelope Valley residents and the federal suit, property owners in some cases have given permission — and received payments for — waste to be dumped on their land. Not only do these sites pose a nuisance to the neighbors who live adjacent to or near them, in some cases the material being dumped includes industrial and household waste that can leach into the groundwater. In its statement, Athens pointed out that property owners sometimes give permission to accept material from multiple waste companies. "To the extent there are any instances of noncompliant material, we are confident the evidence will demonstrate that it came from another source," Athens said. On a blustery day in April in the high desert town of Adelanto, local residents watched as two dump trucks offloaded their waste into a San Bernardino county-certified organic waste dump site that is surrounded by eight- to 10-foot high berms of mulch-like waste laced with shredded plastic, insulated wires and chopped-up, plastic children's toys. Through a break in the berm, the residents could see that the ground around the recently dumped haul glittered in the sunlight with broken glass, while stalks of what appeared to be insulated wires and rigid plastic stood sentry across the 138-acre expanse. Two men sitting in a silver GMC pickup truck who were watching the disposal drove over to the gawking residents. When the residents asked who they were and what the trucks were dumping, the men declined to answer and referred questions to the owner of the property, which The Times later determined to be Kevin Sutton, the owner of a company called Circle Green Inc. Sutton didn't respond to requests for comment. As neighbors and a Times reporter and photographer drove away from the site, the silver pickup followed for several miles, tailgating and swerving erratically. The truck turned around only when the small caravan came across a handful of heavily armed California Fish and Game law enforcement agents parked alongside the road. "It's the Wild West out here," said Kristina Brown, a Lancaster property owner who is a party to the federal suit. The Antelope Valley's proximity to Los Angeles and its vast stretches of wild desert make it a prime target for unauthorized dumping. Sitting at roughly 3,000 feet above sea level, and surrounded by the Tehachapi, Sierra Pelona and San Gabriel mountains, the valley is also divided by jurisdiction — with Los Angeles, Kern and San Bernardino counties all claiming some territory. "For decades, our illegal dumping was small-time stuff," said Bostwick, Supervisor Barger's field deputy. "It was somebody who had a sofa they couldn't be bothered to take to the dump or they didn't want to pay, so they dumped it out in the desert. There was commercial dumping then, but it was small time as well." But then the state's waste laws changed, he said. Starting in 1989, California began requiring municipalities to divert 50% of their waste away from landfill and toward more sustainable waste management solutions, such as recycling and compost. And as Bostwick noted, the vast open spaces of the Antelope Valley beckoned. In 2022, lawmakers implemented Senate Bill 1383, which initially mandated the diversion of 50% of all food and organic waste away from landfills, but increased to 75% on Jan. 1, 2025. Another 2020 law closed a loophole that had allowed waste companies to dump green waste in landfill, but not have it counted against them. As a result, the need for dumping grounds increased again. Cities, counties and towns that fail to meet the diversion rates risk fines of up to $10,000 a day. Residents, lawmakers and experts say while the spirit of these laws is noble, in many areas of the state, the infrastructure to handle the diverted waste is lacking — especially in Southern California, where there is not nearly enough farmland or water to handle the increased volumes of green waste leaving the region's cities and suburbs. As a result, waste companies and haulers — trying to keep costs down and maintain city contracts — are tempted to dump the waste wherever they can, while local governments are reluctant to crack down on violations, Bostwick said. State regulations have made "disposal much more expensive and hard to deal with, and so that's increased the financial incentives for companies or individuals to just dump illegally," he said. There's also very little enforcement. According to Los Angeles County data, while taxpayers spent roughly $1.3 million between 2017 and 2018 to mitigate illegal waste disposal in the region, that number jumped nearly fourfold in 2022-2023, when taxpayers had to foot $4.46 million to mitigate the problem. At the same time, the number of cases filed with the Environmental Crimes Division of the district attorney's office decreased from 15 in 2019 to three in 2023. In February, CalRecycle, the state's waste agency, finalized emergency orders they say should empower local law enforcement agencies to stop the illegal disposal. Previous regulations only allowed for action against the owner of land where the disposal was occurring. The new orders allow enforcement officials to target parties that are dumping the materials and the facilities that provided the material. The orders came after officials from the state agency came to visit the area in October 2024 — prodded by Brown, Mroz and other local residents, many of whom have spent years calling state and local officials about the problem. Enforcement of these orders, however, is the responsibility of the county, said Lance Klug, a spokesman for the state waste agency. "Local enforcement agencies can best speak to their enforcement actions to date, and any anticipated next steps, now that emergency regulations are in effect," he said. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors adopted a measure last year requiring mulch suppliers to take back any contaminated or illegal waste dumped on private land. The measure, which was sponsored by Barger, also directed county agencies to require "stringent record keeping for all land application operations regarding the origin of all incoming loads and testing results from all mulch suppliers." County officials couldn't immediately provide numbers recently when asked how many enforcement actions had been taken. "There's literally no enforcement," said Brown, who worries that the situation is only going to get worse. Last month, Eller was riding his dirt bike when he stumbled upon a 60-acre expanse of freshly dumped construction debris, medical waste and compost on a plot of land miles away from any major road. The tire marks from dump trucks hadn't yet been blown away by the incessant gales of the high desert. No fences or berms were erected to contain the site, making it impossible to see from the road or along the horizon. He said it feels like they are living in a real-life game of whack-a-mole: As soon as he and his neighbors identify and report one site, the haulers move onto another. And they say they feel abandoned by regulators, who they say are doing nothing to stop it. "It feels like we're screaming into the wind," Brown said. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
AV Alta finding quick success, and strong fan support, in its inaugural season
David Harden has spent enough time writing and producing TV content to know that few shows really follow the script. So he had little expectation his first foray into funding a men's soccer team would go as planned. And it didn't. Advertisement 'It's way better than I thought,' he said last week. 'For the first 16 months, before the stadium was finished and before we had a team that we could see on the field and the community in the stands, it was an idea, numbers on a spreadsheet. 'But once you come to a game, you know it's real. And so we pinch ourselves.' Here's how real: Five weeks into its history AV Alta FC, a fledgling club in the third-tier USL League One, is 5-3-0 in all competition, two of its three losses coming on the road, followed by five straight wins at home. Read more: Why one pro soccer team in Orange County has 1,463 shareholders Advertisement Last week the club knocked out Orange County SC, a perennial playoff team in the second-tier USL Championship, from the U.S. Open Cup and next month it will travel to Texas to play FC Dallas, an original MLS club, in the tournament's round of 32. The AV, by the way, stands for Antelope Valley, which hasn't had a professional sports franchise since minor league baseball's Lancaster Jethawks were disbanded in 2020. The valley has never had a professional soccer team. But the reception Alta FC has received suggests this one was long overdue: The team sold more than 2,000 season tickets and sold out the stadium's 11 suites before it had played a game. And in the last four months it sold $250,000 in merchandise, including $85,000 on the day of its first league home game — one that drew more than 5,433 fans to its 5,300-seat stadium. It has averaged 4,500 for its three league games, about 85% of capacity for a team that didn't exist two months ago. Advertisement 'It feels pretty good to have some kind of home pride again,' said Andrew Montez, who has attended three of the team's first five home games. 'I've always been a soccer fan. Now you only have to drive a few minutes to go.' Next to him stood Carlos Madrigal, who was holding a green Alta FC flag. Madrigal has made the 115-mile round trip to BMO Stadium to see LAFC play but is considering throwing his allegiance to the local club. 'It's awesome. We have a home team now. It brings the community together,' he said. 'The crowd here, the ambiance, the fans — all together they become something much bigger.' The team was the brainchild of John Smelzer, a longtime sports and media executive who served on the 1994 World Cup organizing committee before going on to work with the NFL, then Fox Sports and NBC. In the fall of 2023 he began proselytizing about the need for a team in the Antelope Valley, quickly gaining the support of Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris — whose law firm bought the sponsorship rights to Alta FC's uniforms. Harden, along with Bob Roback, chief executive of the United Talent Agency, a sports, entertainment and advisory firm based in Beverly Hills, helped Smelzer raise the club's operating capital while Harden and his wife, Sarah, put more than $1 million behind the effort, making them the team's majority owners. Advertisement The Hardens were also among the early investors in Angel City, the NWSL expansion club that grew into the valuable women's sports franchise in history in less than five years. 'John's passion was important,' David Harden said. 'As an investor, you want a founder who's not going to lose interest. You're looking for grit and a real measure of grit is passion. But I was most attracted to the opportunity. 'Soccer is growing. Live sports is a super sexy investment category. So we're just riding a lot of trend lines in the right direction.' As Smelzer and Harden looked out on a Tuesday night crowd of more than 3,200 at the Jethawks old stadium, which the city spent $17 million to retrofit for soccer, each searched for evidence to prove their investments of time and money had been wise ones. Advertisement 'Look at those kids,' Smelzer said, pointing to three grade-school boys, cheering fanatically from their front-row seats late in the second half. 'They're still into the game.' What more proof? When a U.S. Open Cup game with LAFC's NextPro team went into extra time late on a chilly weeknight, few in the crowd left. When the game with Orange County went to penalty kicks last week, hundreds of fans crowded behind the south goal, which likely intimidated the visitors and buoyed the home team. Those fans were cheering for a team that includes national team players from El Salvador, Benin, the Philippines, Panama and Trinidad and Tobago as well as homegrown players such as former MLS winger Miguel Ibarra and three other players from the Antelope Valley, who were signed to academy contracts. The idea was to show kids there was a path from here to there; that professional soccer had a pathway for players from the valley to the pros. Sean Franklin played at Highland High in Palmdale then won two MLS Cups, two Supporters' Shield, was named the MLS rookie of the year and made an all-star team with the Galaxy. If he can do it, anybody can do it. Advertisement But the market could be a bigger factor than the roster in the team's chances at success. The valley's population of approximately 500,000 makes it about the size of Sacramento and Kansas City. And while putting an NBA or NFL team in that market would be ambitious, a third-tier soccer team seems like a good fit. 'When John first came to me, I thought that I would come to a couple of games. I thought I would write him a check and wish him good luck,' Harden said. 'But as weeks went by, I was more involved, writing a bigger check. I can't get enough of it. The community that's up here, they're amazing. And they have embraced us and what we're trying to do in ways that go beyond our expectations. 'Antelope Valley is this lost little diamond in L.A. County. And there's not a lot of competition for people's attention.' AV Alta FC has certainly drawn the people's attention. The question now is can they hold it. Advertisement ⚽ You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week's episode of the 'Corner of the Galaxy' podcast. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
22-04-2025
- Sport
- Los Angeles Times
AV Alta finding quick success, and strong fan support, in its inaugural season
David Harden has spent enough time writing and producing TV content to know that few shows really follow the script. So he had little expectation his first foray into funding a men's soccer team would go as planned. And it didn't. 'It's way better than I thought,' he said last week. 'For the first 16 months, before the stadium was finished and before we had a team that we could see on the field and the community in the stands, it was an idea, numbers on a spreadsheet. 'But once you come to a game, you know it's real. And so we pinch ourselves.' Here's how real: Five weeks into its history AV Alta FC, a fledgling club in the third-tier USL League One, is 5-3-0 in all competition, two of its three losses coming on the road, followed by five straight wins at home. Last week the club knocked out Orange County SC, a perennial playoff team in the second-tier USL Championship, from the U.S. Open Cup and next month it will travel to Texas to play FC Dallas, an original MLS club, in the tournament's round of 32. The AV, by the way, stands for Antelope Valley, which hasn't had a professional sports franchise since minor league baseball's Lancaster Jethawks were disbanded in 2020. The valley has never had a professional soccer team. But the reception Alta FC has received suggests this one was long overdue: The team sold more than 2,000 season tickets and sold out the stadium's 11 suites before it had played a game. And in the last four months it sold $250,000 in merchandise, including $85,000 on the day of its first league home game — one that drew more than 5,433 fans to its 5,300-seat stadium. It has averaged 4,500 for its three league games, about 85% of capacity for a team that didn't exist two months ago. 'It feels pretty good to have some kind of home pride again,' said Andrew Montez, who has attended three of the team's first five home games. 'I've always been a soccer fan. Now you only have to drive a few minutes to go.' Next to him stood Carlos Madrigal, who was holding a green Alta FC flag. Madrigal has made the 115-mile round trip to BMO Stadium to see LAFC play but is considering throwing his allegiance to the local club. 'It's awesome. We have a home team now. It brings the community together,' he said. 'The crowd here, the ambiance, the fans — all together they become something much bigger.' The team was the brainchild of John Smelzer, a longtime sports and media executive who served on the 1994 World Cup organizing committee before going on to work with the NFL, then Fox Sports and NBC. In the fall of 2023 he began proselytizing about the need for a team in the Antelope Valley, quickly gaining the support of Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris — whose law firm bought the sponsorship rights to Alta FC's uniforms. Harden, along with Bob Roback, chief executive of the United Talent Agency, a sports, entertainment and advisory firm based in Beverly Hills, helped Smelzer raise the club's operating capital while Harden and his wife, Sarah, put more than $1 million behind the effort, making them the team's majority owners. The Hardens were also among the early investors in Angel City, the NWSL expansion club that grew into the valuable women's sports franchise in history in less than five years. 'John's passion was important,' David Harden said. 'As an investor, you want a founder who's not going to lose interest. You're looking for grit and a real measure of grit is passion. But I was most attracted to the opportunity. 'Soccer is growing. Live sports is a super sexy investment category. So we're just riding a lot of trend lines in the right direction.' As Smelzer and Harden looked out on a Tuesday night crowd of more than 3,200 at the Jethawks old stadium, which the city spent $17 million to retrofit for soccer, each searched for evidence to prove their investments of time and money had been wise ones. 'Look at those kids,' Smelzer said, pointing to three grade-school boys, cheering fanatically from their front-row seats late in the second half. 'They're still into the game.' What more proof? When a U.S. Open Cup game with LAFC's NextPro team went into extra time late on a chilly weeknight, few in the crowd left. When the game with Orange County went to penalty kicks last week, hundreds of fans crowded behind the south goal, which likely intimidated the visitors and buoyed the home team. Those fans were cheering for a team that includes national team players from El Salvador, Benin, the Philippines, Panama and Trinidad and Tobago as well as homegrown players such as former MLS winger Miguel Ibarra and three other players from the Antelope Valley, who were signed to academy contracts. The idea was to show kids there was a path from here to there; that professional soccer had a pathway for players from the valley to the pros. Sean Franklin played at Highland High in Palmdale then won two MLS Cups, two Supporters' Shield, was named the MLS rookie of the year and made an all-star team with the Galaxy. If he can do it, anybody can do it. But the market could be a bigger factor than the roster in the team's chances at success. The valley's population of approximately 500,000 makes it about the size of Sacramento and Kansas City. And while putting an NBA or NFL team in that market would be ambitious, a third-tier soccer team seems like a good fit. 'When John first came to me, I thought that I would come to a couple of games. I thought I would write him a check and wish him good luck,' Harden said. 'But as weeks went by, I was more involved, writing a bigger check. I can't get enough of it. The community that's up here, they're amazing. And they have embraced us and what we're trying to do in ways that go beyond our expectations. 'Antelope Valley is this lost little diamond in L.A. County. And there's not a lot of competition for people's attention.' AV Alta FC has certainly drawn the people's attention. The question now is can they hold it. ⚽ You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week's episode of the 'Corner of the Galaxy' podcast.
