All Entries in the "Blog" Category
The Right Thing to Do
A celebration of forty years of nuclear watchdog activism by Dan Hirsch’s Committee to Bridge the Gap brings out a Who’s Who of environmentalists recently. CBG’s numerous ‘David versus Goliath’ victories are recounted as Hirsch issues a new call to veteran activists to act now to save the planet.
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.
For Whom the Bell Tolls
On the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, Simi Valley’s Radiation Rangers take Runkle Canyon developer KB Home to task after news that its former head, Bruce Karatz, was convicted of four felonies secretly backdating stock options to the tune of $6.6 million and then lying to regulators about it. The Rangers are happy that Karatz may be incarcerated but point out that the residents of the Simi and San Fernando valleys still have to contend with one of Karatz’s most controversial aquisitions under his tenure at KB Home: Runkle Canyon. The Rangers demand that KB Home clean up the canyon which appears contaminated with high radiation, chemicals and heavy metal yet is planned for a 461 home community.
Goo-ology
EnviroReporter.com discovers a pathway for pollutants from rocket test stands into the soil and groundwater of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory. In the early 1950s, a rocket crew member figured out how to keep rocket exhaust flames from melting the bottom of not only the test stands, but the rock they were standing on: use cascading showers of water to cool the hot zone. The result may have been to massively spread poisonous rocket fuel on a level not previously known. Finding may help explain one major contributing factor at the astronomically polluted lab.
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
EnviroReporter.com was deeply saddened to learn of the passing of our friend Steve Cain, senior environmental planner for the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, on December 16. In our last communications, Steve provided us with information crucial to an investigation that could impact the health and well-being of untold numbers of people, speaking volumes about Steve’s integrity. We will miss this delightful and dedicated man.
Dereliction of Duty
A ghoulish graveyard of atomic tombstones, actually American military veterans’ headstones, were dumped in Brentwood’s toxic grave, according to a new LA Weekly article by Michael Collins. This online companion piece digs deeper into the biomedical nuclear and chemical dump on West Los Angeles VA land, land that stretches up under exclusive Brentwood School where headstones have also been found.
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.
Career Day
Recruiting men and women for aerospace and experimental nuclear reactor work in the 1950s for Rocketdyne was art, literally. The company used colorful brochures to attract the best and the brightest.
Age of Consent
California EPA’s Department of Toxic Substances Control issues a new draft consent order regarding the cleanup of the old Rocketdyne Santa Susana Field Laboratory that now includes site owner Boeing and requires that the company, NASA and the Department of Energy adhere to the strictest cleanup standards passed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2007. Environmental activists like Simi Valley’s Radiation Rangers are thrilled by this renewed effort to remediate the pollution left at the site contaminated by chemicals and radiation and home to America’s worst uncontained nuclear reactor meltdown.
Bowled Over
The old Bowl Test Facility has extremely contaminated soil like much of the rest of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory. What sets this rocket testing area apart from the rest of Rocketdyne is that it duplicates the Nazi rocket test stand design for the terrifying V-2 rocket that killed thousands of civilians and soldiers in World War II. Today Bowl sits as a silent and deadly reminder of Southern California’s Nazi-influenced past.
Bad Air Day?
Schwarzenegger’s condescension towards environmentalists and embrace of big business polluters, combined with a possible fatal flaw in Obama’s new greenhouse gases plan, virtually assures that Californians will have many more bad air days ahead.
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.
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.”
