ESCONDIDO–State and county officials, and private contractors began hauling collected soil, ash, scrap and other remains of the Escondido “bomb factory” house to area landfills for disposal.
On Monday, the Department of Toxic Substances Control and the County Department of Environmental monitored the removal process of debris and ash left by Thursday’s controlled burn of the single story house.
Clean up crews remove debris from the site of the "bomb factory" house.
Cleaning crews, donned in protective clothing and face masks, watered down the debris to prevent any ash from rising in the air. Construction equipment was used to pick up and carry the debris to a large dumpster for proper disposal.
County Environmental Health Department’s Land and Water Quality Division Chief Mark McPherson says the debris will be wrapped and hauled off to the Otay Landfill.
“Once they remove all the ash and debris, they are going to do some additional testing both with some handheld monitors and also take some actual soil samples to make sure we’ve gotten all of the ash that’s in the soil,” said McPherson.
McPherson says they expect to complete the clean up in two days. Once the work is done, the site will be turned over to the property owner.
The San Diego County Sheriff Bomb Arson unit scraped through the remains of the house Friday and determined that Thursday’s controlled fire destroyed all of the explosives and hazardous materials at the site.
Law Enforcement, fire, county and state officials used a controlled blaze to safely destroy the home at 1954 Via Scott and all explosives and hazardous materials at the site, after bomb crews determined that trying to physically remove the explosives and materials posed a danger to public and law enforcement.
George Djura Jakubec, 54, an unemployed software engineer, lived at the unincorporated residence with his wife for four years.
In federal court, Jakubec pleaded not guilty to eight federal criminal counts including possession of illegal weapons and bomb-making materials. He is held without bail.
