Atomic Avenger

Bonnie Klea is the Atomic Avenger, an American who has taken her considerable skills and perseverance to fight for the rights of the nation’s nuclear workers many of which have suffered terribly for the work they performed at the height of the Cold War. Klea exemplifies what a real American hero does when faced with insurmountable odds — get cracking! Her efforts are now paying off, literally, to the tune of millions of dollars of compensation for America’s nuclear cowboys who rode on the edge of radiation technology which sometimes exacted a terrible toll.

The Toxies

Just days before the 82nd Annual Academy Awards in Hollywood, the First Annual Toxies Awards took place at the legendary Egyptian Theatre across the boulevard. A rogue’s gallery of “bad actors” with names like Trichloroethylene, Hydrofluoric Acid and Toluene competed for Toxies in this first-ever awards ceremony celebrating the worst of the 85,000 chemicals we come into contact with on a regular basis. One bad actor, Perchlorate, was a sleak silver rocket girl with thrusters for feet, so beautiful as fireworks, she was ‘the chemical that launched a thousand rockets’ including mine.

We, Robot

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, home of America’s greatest robotic explorations of the heavens, isn’t sold on deep-sixing the manned space program. Part Two of a special Pasadena Weekly cover story investigation that also explores the origins of NASA’s manned space program, the brainchild of an infamous Nazi rocket scientist, Wernher von Braun, whose V-2 rockets killed thousands during the London Blitz of World War II, rockets built by concentration camp slave labor who were worked to death, tortured and executed during the production of these American-coveted missiles. Von Braun is considered by NASA to be the 20th Century’s greatest rocketeer illustrating that one man’s Nazi is another man’s hero.

Space Monkey Business

Critics say NASA is taking a giant leap backwards by irradiating monkeys in space-travel tests designed to simulate the intense radiation astronauts would experience in voyages to the moon and Mars. The Pasadena Weekly discovers that Italian human radiation tests aboard the International Space Station obviate the need for these crude and inhumane radiation tests on primates, the first of their kind in nearly three decades.

Grave Mistakes

Despite public outrage over soldiers’ tombstones disposed of in the VA’s biomedical nuclear and chemical dump in Brentwood, focus turns to the VA’s $1 million Phase II testing for toxins. VA refuses to answer LA Weekly and EnviroReporter.com questions about its million dollar boondoggle as it cores for contamination away from the known dump, ignoring Phase I recommendations to test near upscale Barrington Avenue condominiums and exclusive Brentwood school despite high radiation readings in 2006.

Atomic Tombstones

Soldiers’ tombstones are emerging from the muck of a biomedical nuclear and chemical dump on the Department of Veterans Affairs grounds in Brentwood, California. The VA says its long-promised $1 million investigation of the dump is still on yet it hasn’t noticed the gravestones. The dump is far larger than previously known. Adjacent Brentwood School’s athletic fields may have been impacted with heavy metal contamination with football field reportedly built over trench of syringes. School denies all and VA isn’t talking to LA Weekly or EnviroReporter.com.

  • VA Nuclear Dump

  • Grave Mistakes

    Grave Mistakes

    Despite public outrage over soldiers’ tombstones disposed of in the VA’s biomedical nuclear and chemical [...]
  • Atomic Tombstones

    Atomic Tombstones

    Soldiers' tombstones are emerging from the muck of a biomedical nuclear and chemical dump on [...]
  • Broken tombstone of a World War I soldier discarded in a pile of waste excavated from Brentwood School athletic fields

    Dereliction of Duty

    A ghoulish graveyard of atomic tombstones, actually American military veterans' headstones, were dumped in Brentwood's [...]
  • More VA Nuclear Dump

  • Runkle Canyon

  • For Whom the Bell Tolls

    For Whom the Bell Tolls

    On the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, Simi Valley's Radiation Rangers take Runkle Canyon developer [...]
  • There Lies the Fault

    There Lies the Fault

    After extensive investigation, EnviroReporter.com may have discovered the source of Runkle Canyon's heavy metal nightmare [...]
  • Riley’s Revenge

    Riley’s Revenge

    Former Rocketdyne toxics chief, Norman E. Riley, blasts Department of Toxics Substances Control as an [...]
  • More Runkle Canyon

  • Rocketdyne

  • The Right Thing to Do

    The Right Thing to Do

    A celebration of forty years of nuclear watchdog activism by Dan Hirsch's Committee to Bridge [...]
  • Atomic Avenger

    Atomic Avenger

    Bonnie Klea is the Atomic Avenger, an American who has taken her considerable skills and [...]
  • Goo-ology

    Goo-ology

    EnviroReporter.com discovers a pathway for pollutants from rocket test stands into the soil and groundwater [...]
  • More Rocketdyne

  • Other Recent Articles

  • Dynamos Denise Duffield and Jill Stewart

    AAN the Finalists are…

    Deputy Editor, News of LA Weekly Jill Stewart surprises Michael Collins and EnviroReporter.com‘s editor Denise Duffield with word that our environmental exposés in the paper had made the finals in the AltWeekly Awards 2010 held by the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies to be awarded July 16 in Toronto, Canada. Collins’ exposes on pollution hotspots Rocketdyne, Runkle Canyon, Corporate Pointe and the Brentwood nuclear dump resonate with the judges thanks in large part to these two delightful dynamos.

  • NASA’s Monkey Business

    NASA’s Monkey Business

    The future of manned space exploration may be revealed Monday when President Obama unveils his 2011 budget request for NASA. The budget’s approval by Congress may also determine the future of 28 squirrel monkeys and renewed animal radiation experiments.

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    Challenger Remembered

    EnviroReporter.com remembers the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger that perished 24 years ago January 28, 1986. These people represent the very best of this country and of this planet. Remembering our heroes, and emulating the bravery of their deeds, is their due honor.

  • Cain Was Able

    Cain Was Able

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  • Darkness Over the Land

    Darkness Over the Land

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  • It’s a Gas

    It’s a Gas

    The U.S. EPA just announced new draft guidelines for the vapors of the toxic solvent, trichloroethylene or TCE, and they are four times stronger than they already were in recognition of the chemical’s dangers. This will make an alarming TCE groundwater crisis in Southern California even more important as the solvent spreads.

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