Archive for September, 2009
Chem and Get It
The Obama Administration announces a bold new Environmental Protection Agency initiative to test previously ignored chemicals that may be harming humans and the environment. Bisphenol A, linked to obesity and cancer, brominated flame retardants, perfluorinated compounds and a host of other potential goo will be tested and regulated under the new plan, the most important of its kind since the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act. EnviroReporter.com wonders whether this leadership at the top will filter throughout the ranks of the federal and state EPA.
Up in Smoke
The 6,400 fireworks at Santa Monica Pier’s 100th birthday celebration September 9 fail to ignite much excitement. The tepid pyrotechnics get lost in toxic smoke which descends on the city, gassing thousands of unsuspecting yuppies with perchlorate and heavy metals.
Hell’s Belles
Dawn Wilde and Mike make their way to Anaheim to see a spectacular AC-DC show. Fireworks and explosions fill the air with perchlorate and heavy metals that never smoke out the fans in the well-ventilated arena. The desert lovers are blown away by dirty deeds done dirt cheap.
Riley’s Revenge
Former Rocketdyne toxics chief, Norman E. Riley, blasts Department of Toxics Substances Control as an agency “where obfuscation, abdication of authority, collusion, and other contemptible behaviors currently trump honesty and integrity.” In a fiery e-mail to EnviroReporter.com, Riley admits misleading community regarding Runkle Canyon and that no public comments about cleanup plan were used.
Double Vision
Fifty years after America’s worst nuclear meltdown 30 miles northwest of Los Angeles at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory’s “Sodium Reactor Experiment,” the government’s just-sacked head of lab remediation says the new Rocketdyne cleanup law is too strict and that site owner Boeing is going to sue the State over the standards. New Miller-McCune article and exclusive interviews.
Sputnikfest
Today begins the second annual Sputnikfest in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. In 1962, a fiery chunk of space debris from a Soviet Sputnik satellite shot across Canada and eight pounds of it slammed into 8th and Park where the wacky festival takes place. Turns out that my very own alien, D-bot, has her optical sensors set on becoming “Miss Space Debris Queen of all that is Sputnik.”
Corn on the Coca
The Coca complex was involved with several missile programs including Navaho, Atlas, J-2, Saturn V second Stage Battleship (five J-2s), Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME), and Delta IV Expendable Launch Vehicle Tanks. Within the 141-acre Group 4, which Coca Area shares with Delta Area and the Propellant Load Facility, there are a number of chemicals that Boeing and NASA are responsible for remediating. They include volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including trichloroethylene or TCE, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), metals, and dioxins.
Bravo Beauty
This ethereal photograph from December 12, 1960 shows a rocket test at the Bravo test stand on NASA’s part of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory. The golden tones and aquamarine color make this previously unpublished photograph one of the most awe-inspiring images we’ve ever seen of a rocket test at the lab.
