Originally published July 13, 2023 6:00 pm PDT
A group of 15 waste management employees who serviced vineyards owned by Democratic leaders Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Gov. Gavin Newsom in California are seeking a hefty $300 million in damages from a Napa Valley landfill.
They allege their exposure to harmful chemicals during and in the aftermath of the 2020 Glass wildfire, according to a Newsmax report.
The workers from Upper Valley Disposal Services have lodged their complaint with the Division of Occupational Safety and Health in California.
The complaint is directed against both their employer and the operators of the Clover Flat Landfill.
As per the complaint, the employees claim to have been exposed to methane, a gas that can lead to suffocation and is highly explosive.
In addition, they were subjected to contaminated water seeping from the Clover Flat Landfill during the fire, which occurred in September 2020.
Further allegations by the workers include facing both retaliation and racial discrimination when they voiced concerns about the potential pollution of water and air by the landfill.
These concerns were particularly significant, given the location of the landfill in the nation’s premier wine region, where the vineyards of Pelosi and Newsom are situated.
Jose Garibay Jr., one of the 15 workers lodging the complaint, shared his concerns with Fox News Business.
“We didn’t have experience at all with these situations,” he confessed.
He further revealed, “We didn’t have protocol for what happens in a fire, what happens in an emergency. We had no training whatsoever. But they did send us right after the fire to clean up the mess before officials showed up.”
Garibay also detailed the conditions under which they worked—11 to 12 hour shifts, with no training in hazardous material cleanup and only N95 masks as protection.
A representative of the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, confirming the confidential nature of complaints, assured that documents could be made available once the case was closed.
Adding to the concerns was Geoff Ellsworth, the Democratic Mayor of St. Helena, California, where Pelosi’s vineyard is located.
In a consumer complaint in September, Ellsworth accused the landfill operators of “negligence and reckless endangerment toward public health and safety” that was “related to significant and unnecessary fire and wildfire risk” at the dump.
Ellsworth, a vocal critic of the local landfill, pointed out the complexities of the situation, saying, “There’s a machine politic thing going on here—this is the backyard of San Francisco, and people have their second homes and their wine businesses.”
However, he stressed this “doesn’t absolve them from taking responsibility for the laws in the area and the treatment of the people working here.”
