Search Results for 'nuclear'
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.
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.
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.
Happy Anniversary EnviroReporter.com!
EnviroReporter.com debuted four years ago on May 18, 2006 alongside a Los Angeles CityBeat cover story entitled “Real Hot Property” about a biomedical nuclear and chemical dump buried in Brentwood on Department of Veterans Affairs land.
$4 billion plans to develop the West LA VA’s property by the George W. Bush Administration tanked soon after news [...]
50 YEARS AFTER AMERICA’S WORST NUCLEAR MELTDOWN
Human error helped worsen a nuclear meltdown just outside Los Angeles, and now human inertia has stymied the radioactive cleanup for half a century.
By Joan Trossman Bien and Michael Collins
Miller-McCune – August 24, 2009
For Release Saturday A.M., August 29, 1959
CANOGA PARK, CA
“During an inspection of fuel elements on July 26 at the Sodium Reactor Experiment, [...]
ROCKETDYNE’S ROCKY ROAD
Ventura County Reporter – December 31, 2009
A look back at 2009
The year started off promisingly for the astronomically polluted Santa Susana Field Laboratory, aka Rocketdyne. The Boeing-owned lab sits on 2,850 acres at the eastern border of Ventura County and is massively polluted by radiation and chemicals. A cleanup costing hundreds of millions has begun [...]
BRENTWOOD’S TOXIC GRAVE
Historic dumping grounds beneath the spectacular VA land finally get tested.
LA Weekly – December 10, 2009
Several days ago, men wearing radiation dosimeters stood on the Veteran Administration’s West Los Angeles property, atop an old toxic dump that partially underlies Barrington Recreation Center’s baseball fields and a city dog park, and began the federal government’s long-delayed [...]
NASA’s MONKEY BUSINESS
With Bush’s manned space initiative headed for the chopping block, why is NASA nuking monkeys?
EnviroReporter.com – February 1, 2010
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 [...]
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.
VA Statement on Barrington Park Environmental Study
A Statement from Ms. Donna Beiter R.N., M.S.N., Director of the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System:
The VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System (GLA) is currently conducting a surface and subsurface Environmental study of the “arroyo” area located to the east of the Barrington Park Recreation center to put to rest any concerns that our [...]
Collins to VA Questions 12-16-09
[Note that this version of Michael Collins’ questions for the VA includes redacted identifiers that were not in the original December 16, 2009 letter.]
Mr. Eric Gutierrez
Office of Public and Consumer Affairs
(310) 478-3711 Ext. XXXX
XXXX@va.gov
VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System
Hi Eric,
Thanks for calling yesterday offering to provide information, presumably relating to our recent coverage in the [...]
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 – Before and After
Erik J. Gutierrez, Stakeholder Relations Representative in the VA’s Office of External Affairs, sent LA Weekly and EnviroReporter.com this statement December 17, 2009:
A Statement from Ms. Donna Beiter R.N., M.S.N., Director of the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System:
The VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System (GLA) is currently conducting a surface and subsurface Environmental study [...]
VA Nuclear Dump Second Phase Testing 12-8-09
The day before, a Monday, was wiped out by rain making this day the beginning of the work week for the Core Probe crew out of San Gabriel. At first, it seemed like no one was at the site until a worker rolled a barrel down into the dump and the noise of far-off coring [...]
Los Angeles National Cemetery – December 8, 2009
There are few places in America more beautiful than a national cemetery. Los Angeles National Cemetery is no exception. During the early summer, jacaranda trees bloom in a riot of purple enlivening the grounds.
On Sept. 1, 1973, in enacting the National Cemetery Act of 1973, the cemetery was transferred from the U.S. Army to the [...]
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.
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.
VA Nuclear Dump Second Phase Testing 12-4-09
It wasn’t clear where the Core Probe team were drilling on this Friday. The men seemed to be aggregating black bags that were then dumped into barrels. Plastic coring tubes were also bunched for disposal or recycling. As the men won’t talk to the media, and the VA failing to return any inquiries from EnviroReporter.com [...]
VA Nuclear Dump Second Phase Testing 12-3-09
The fourth day of coring took place even farther away from the known four areas of the dump. And, for the third straight day of observation, took place on top of fill brought in from 5,000 dump trucks, according to a report obtained by EnviroReporter.com and the LA Weekly.
The crew chief, who wouldn’t impart [...]
VA Nuclear Dump Second Phase Testing 12-2-09
Before visiting the dump for the third day of coring, EnviroReporter.com returned to Barrington Dog Park, part of which lies over the dump according to VA nuke dump maps. In late 2006, the southern field of the dog park was covered in fresh grass. The area over the dump is now bare dirt that big [...]
VA Nuclear Dump Second Phase Testing 12-1-09
The crew was diligent in its work boring core samples in the main arroyo of the dump. VA maps of the dump, however, seem to indicate that the men were working outside of the known part of four bordering contamination areas. Even though the phase one tests conducted in 2006 concluded that the so-called “Eastern [...]
BOEING BLOCKS LAB CLEANUP
Rocketdyne lab remediation left in limbo
By Michael Collins
(Ventura County Reporter – November 19, 2009)
(UPDATED WITH BOEING’S RESPONSES FOLLOWING ARTICLE)
Boeing’s filing of a federal complaint on Friday the 13th against the state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control over cleaning up the monstrously polluted Santa Susana Field Lab was no tardy Halloween trick. The move attempts to [...]
Atomic Tombstones Galleries
On January 9, 2008, EnviroReporter.com visited the biomedical nuclear and chemical dump at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Brentwood, an upscale neighborhood in west Los Angeles. We were there to see if the VA had finally begun Phase Two of its investigation and characterization of this site that we exposed in May 2006. This [...]
Veterans Park – December 11, 2008
One of the most valuable pieces of land in the nation, on a per acre basis, is the 16-acre parcel of VA property at the corner of San Vicente and Wilshire in west Los Angeles. The property, worth untold millions, has been the battleground between the Veterans Park Conservancy and veterans over a proposed and [...]
