This week, Echo Lake Park in Los Angeles California, the location of a former homeless encampment, received a much needed, and long overdue, deep cleaning.
The park was closed last month and since then, city officials have been working to clean and revitalize the park and have reportedly removed over 170 tents and other debris, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Among the 35 tons or 70,000 pounds of garbage, there were literal piles of poop, amounting to 180 pounds of feces and 564 pounds of urine according data from L.A. Sanitation & Environment workers. This did not include excrement collected from portable or permanent restrooms. Other hazardous waste like needles used for drugs, gasoline, and kerosene amounted to 300 pounds of the total trash collected, the LA Times noted.
City officials reportedly didn’t reveal the plans to close the park until the last minute. However, in the months leading up to the closure, more than 160 homeless who were living in the park were relocated to taxpayer-funded hotel rooms and other interim living situations. The cleanup wasn’t completely peaceful, according to ABC7, with one confrontation leading to the arrest of a person accused of battery of a police officer. Read more…
