Search Results for 'radiation level'
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.
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, [...]
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.
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.
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 [...]
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 [...]
THE HILLS HAVE EYES – VC Reporter
Simi Valley residents unite to fight ‘hot’ KB Home development in Runkle Canyon
By Michael Collins
Ventura County Reporter – September 28, 2006
“I am not a tree hugger, an environmental activist, or an Erin Brockovich wannabe,” said Patricia Coryell before an August 21 meeting of the Simi Valley City Council. Coryell and about two dozen other concerned [...]
REAL HOT PROPERTY – LA CITYBEAT
A popular Brentwood dog park on Veterans Administration property is built over an old radioactive waste dump that may soon be unearthed by proposed development
By Michael Collins
Los Angeles CityBeat – May 25, 2006
SUVs and luxury sedans glide into the Barrington Dog Park just south of Sunset Boulevard in Brentwood, where industry types and soccer moms [...]
Darkness Over the Land
EnviroReporter.com experiences the tragedies and triumphs of California’s Inyo County and it’s timeless treasure, Death Valley National Park. This rowdy romp includes a cast of characters whose devotion to their earthly paradise is devilishly dangerous. Their sizzling tales shed light on the hopes and hazards of the hottest, lowest land in North America.
DARKNESS OVER THE LAND
A Love Story
By Michael Collins
EnviroReporter.com – November 18, 2009
The October moon rose over the Funeral Mountains and shed its ghostly light upon Darkness. She was perched on a sun burnt spit of land above the salt pan, a dark angel ready for flight. Her black wings cast a long shadow on the tortured earth below, [...]
There Lies the Fault
After extensive investigation, EnviroReporter.com may have discovered the source of Runkle Canyon’s heavy metal nightmare which has stalled KB Home’s development plans for over two years – Rocketdyne’s old polluted Empire State Atomic Development Authority site sits on top of Burro Flats Fault which transports toxins down into the canyon that the Radiation Rangers want tested.
EnviroReporter.com’s Runkle Canyon Comments Analysis
Will new Department of Toxic Substances Control leadership in Runkle Canyon mean that DTSC will actually take citizen and media concerns seriously over development of this property that borders the nuclear area of Rocketdyne? EnviroReporter.com analyzes what the department has previously ignored as we conclude our seven-part series “Railroading Runkle Canyon?”
EnviroReporter.com Runkle Canyon Comments
When Runkle Canyon developer KB Home gave the Department of Toxic Substances Control 41 environmental reports on its property, EnviroReporter.com analyzed each one and presented its 28 pages of findings to DTSC in July 2008. The department ignored most of these analyses which we subsequently submitted to DTSC in February 2009 as public comments to the Runkle Canyon Response Plan. Will the department again ignore these questions and comments now that there is new leadership for the Runkle Canyon site?
The Aerospace Runkle Canyon Comments
D’Lanie Blaze questions developer KB Home’s use of controversial lab Dade Moeller & Associates to retest Runkle Canyon for strontium-90. Blaze reminds then-Department of Toxic Substances Control project head, Norm Riley, that Dade Moeller himself claimed that he’s “just not worried about radiation exposure because of the likelihood that we’ll soon have a cure for cancer.” Blaze burns DTSC over issue and questions if the Response Plan is a “dog and pony show.”
ACME Runkle Canyon Comments
Aerospace Cancer Museum of Education’s founder and director Bill Bowling says that the Runkle Canyon cleanup plan is inadequate and doesn’t address toxic trichlorethylene being found on the property. Bowling calls out city of Simi Valley for not caring about issue and says that developer KB Home has a questionable environmental track record including building on land without removing unexploded bombs from a former bombing range.
“MELTDOWNS AND HORRIBLE ACCIDENTS”
The Joan Trossman Bien/Miller-McCune Interview with Committee to Bridge the Gap – July 8, 2009
(Bien conducted this interview as part of our co-bylined August 24, 2009 Miller-McCune article “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 [...]
Railroading Runkle Canyon?
The Radiation Rangers ask why it sounds like the cleanup plan for Runkle Canyon is being decided without public input by the Department of Toxic Substances Control. Considering the stakes in the controversial canyon, where KB Home hopes to build 461 residences, the Rangers are demanding answers. Special week-long report.
Cleanup Rocketdyne Runkle Canyon Comments
Walsh’s 13 pages of “Comments on the Runkle Canyon Response Plan” include photographs and maps. This well-crafted document clearly illustrates Walsh’s concerns about the canyon. Her expertise and ability to crunch numbers, analyze data, and conceptualize how it all stacks up in the grand scheme of things are remarkable.
Coup de Goo
As we continue our “Railroading Runkle Canyon?” series, the Department of Toxic Substances Control replaces Rocketdyne and Runkle Canyon’s cleanup project manager criticized by the Radiation Rangers in the series. Surprise move shocks community reeling from simultaneous revelations that Boeing has not signed off on the cleanup agreement that will cost hundreds of millions.
Radiation Rangers Runkle Canyon Comments
“I sometimes wonder if we’re talking about the same place,” says the Reverend John Southwick of the Radiation Rangers. “Not only are DTSC’s orders to KB Home inadequate, unless the instructions for more radiation testing are significant; the department missed the most important stuff.”
Who Are These People?
Some of these folks are sparkling writers like Joan Trossman Bien, D’Lanie Blaze, and Margery Brown. Others are devoted activists like Christina Walsh and Bill Bowling, people who are making the continued development and expansion of EnviroReporter.com so exciting.
“Your journalistic practices”
“Dear Mr. Collins – without getting into the content of your story, I’d like to point out to you that your quote from Ms. Winger on our staff was so badly twisted out of context that it is utterly meaningless,” began the rant that we were about to read that confirmed to us what we have found wanting in the councilman’s office — competence and follow-through.
