Search Results for "Michael Collins"

Space Monkey Business

Critics say NASA is taking a giant leap backwards by irradiating monkeys in space-travel tests designed to simulate intense radiation astronauts would experience in voyages to Mars.

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 […]

BRENTWOOD’S TOXIC GRAVE

Historic dumping grounds beneath the spectacular VA land finally get tested. By Michael Collins 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 […]

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.

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 […]

Atomic Tombstones – January 13, 2008

Exclusive 2019 Update: VICTORY AT THE VA – West LA Veterans Administration master plan protects old nuclear dump from development These disconcerting photographs clearly show soldiers’ tombstones in the West Los Angeles VA’s biomedical nuclear and chemical dump. It is a surreal and sad scene. Three days later, EnviroReporter.com‘s Michael […]

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 […]

RECALL RANCH

Washington Mutual may end up conserving Ahmanson Ranch, the land it fought to develop for more than a decade By Michael Collins Los Angeles CityBeat/ValleyBeat – September 18, 2003 With the recall election bearing down on California, Gov. Gray Davis’ administration is in high gear advancing a newly progressive agenda. […]

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 […]

WHERE THE BODIES ARE BURIED – LA CITYBEAT

Brentwood dump contains radioactive remains from decades of animal and human tests By Michael Collins Los Angeles CityBeat – May 25, 2006 During the 1950s and ’60s, both UCLA and the Veterans Administration were deeply engaged in the Atomic Age, doing their part for the Cold War by performing radiation […]

DAWN IN DESERT WONDERLAND

A road trip – and retreat – full of personality By Michael Collins Los Angeles CityBeat – September 13, 2007 We were roaring up Highway 62 through charred desert mountains toward the outer fringe of the Los Angeles apocalypsphere in a candy apple red 1969 Ford Fairlane Cobra fastback with […]

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 […]

I ENVY THE DEAD

By Michael Collins Los Angeles magazine’s “LA to Z” issue – December 1997 William Mulholland’s epitaph. The DWP chief spoke these words at a D.A. inquiry into the Saint Francis Dam disaster. Shortly before midnight on March 12, 1928, 12 billion gallons of water exploded from a reservoir near present-day […]

MUD DWELLINGS

Mojave mansions from the ground up By Michael Collins Los Angeles magazine’s “LA to Z” issue – December 1998 At the California Institute of Earth Arts and Architecture in Hesperia, Iranian-born architect and author Nader Khalili has perfected the “superadobe,” which combines the ancient traditions of earth architecture with futuristic […]

ZAP

By Michael Collins Los Angeles magazine’s “LA to Z” issue – December 1997 Electric bicycle, or the sensation of being stopped by a cop riding one. The ZAP Force bile has a 0.75-horsepower electric engine powered by a 12-volt battery. ZAP Power Systems, a company launched three years ago in […]

JONATHAN PARFREY

By Michael Collins Los Angeles magazine’s “LA to Z” issue – December 1996 (1958- ) Atom smasher. As regional leader of Physicians for Social Responsibility, Parfrey has taken his battle against nuclear power around the Pacific Rim. Born in Manhattan, Parfrey attended Santa Monica High and UC Berkeley. After a […]