Subject: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

• The Foothills in your Headlights: The Extension approved

  Yesterday, the board members of the Foothills/Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency voted 12-3 to approve the $875 million Foothills South (241) extension, which will cut through both San Onofre State Beach and the Donna O'Neill Land Conservancy. But that ominous rumbling you hear in the distance isn't the sound of bulldozers starting, it's the chuckling of herds of attorneys thinking about all the billable hours this vote guarantees them. Because this vote, far from being the end of the matter

  February 24, 2006

• Good Timing, Bad Air

  The Orange County Register reports this morning that the Irvine-based Beckman Foundation has donated $20 million to the City of Hope in Duarte, to help finance cancer research. The Foundation has an excellent sense of timing– because, as every other newspaper in the state is reporting this morning: Californians breathe the second-dirtiest air in the nation, with residents of Los Angeles and Orange counties exposed to a cancer risk that's about double the national average, according to a ne

  March 22, 2006

• Dancing around a great problem at The Great Park

  The El Toro Shuffle? The Great Park Gavotte? The Irvine Ranch Water District Toxic Waltz? We should come up a name for the little dance. It's a simple four step dance, and very familiar one. Scientists point out a looming environmental threat and call for government action. The Bush administration, refusing to act and attempting to dismiss the scientists as panic-mongers and tree-huggers, calls for even more scientific study before it will even consider acting. The further study is completed, a

  July 28, 2006

• Let justice roll down...

  "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an overflowing stream." That passage from the Book of Amos (5:24) is the sort of thing lawyers working for nonprofit organizations repeat to themselves before marching off to court to fight the good fight. Of course, it may not be what the lawyers in the latest good fight will be repeating to themselves– and if it is, they may want to specify that justice shouldn't be like the water they are suing over. Just two days after a sewage

  August 3, 2006

• Troubled Waters

  Normally, when a major clean-up effort for a polluted site is announced-- an effort which will bring to bear the resources of both the local and federal government-- environmentalists are happy. But this is Orange County, where the eco-friendly have often seen their green hopes fade to grey (and then get paved), so the announcement yesterday at Aliso & Wood Canyons Wilderness Park that the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers will be joining the county to detox and otherwise improve Aliso

  August 31, 2006

• "Intersex" inside the Beltway

  If you've ever shaken your head over news coming out of the nation's capital, and muttered "It must be something in the drinking water there", it turns out you may have been more correct than you knew. The Associated Press reports: Scientists say abnormal "intersex" fish, with both male and female characteristics, have been discovered in the Potomac River and its tributaries across the Capitol Region, raising questions about how contaminants are affecting millions of people who drink tap water

  September 6, 2006

• The Memory Hole Goes Green

  Having previously suppressed, ignored, and dishonestly redacted scientific reports that proved politically inconvenient, the Bush administration has taken the next logical step. The Environment News Service reports: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is closing its Headquarters Library to the public, as well as its own staff, effective October 1. The decision, formally announced Wednesday in a Federal Register notice, cites lack of funding for the closure. The Headquarters Library c

  September 26, 2006

• Rohrabacher, Big Oil: a Match Made in Hell

  Ah, Huntington Beach with its smelly smokestacks, oily bathtub-ring-like shoreline and human waste bobbing in the ocean. What's not to love? Your congressman, the esteemed Dana Rohrabacher (R-Abramoff), certainly showed he's got your back, Surf City-zens, as he voted just last night to let those poor, starving, raggamuffin oil companies drill for natural gas off the California coastline. Unfortunately for you hicks, a higher slice of the rest of the House--including scores of members of Dana's o

  May 19, 2006

• White House Oil Men: OUT! More Taxes on Gas: IN!

  My how times change. The boost that 9/11 gave the oily men in the White House was as short-lived as any post-Seinfeld sitcom starring Jason Alexander. It seems like only yesterday that Dickless Cheney was defending our latest Blood for Oil campaign by suggesting Americans essentially have a God-given right to our "way of life"--even if, no, ESPECIALLY if that means giving a petroleum-jelly-covered middle finger to Kyoto, worldwide imbalances in energy consumption and all the nasty diseases assoc

  May 23, 2006

• Something Stinks

  You know how the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Environmental Protection Agency announced recently they are joining forces to clean up stinky Aliso Creek (finally), which spews its filth into South Laguna's Aliso Beach? Yeah, when have we heard that before? Oh, yeah, eight years ago. Anyway, you'd think such an announcement would be embraced by the local environmentalists who have worked tirelessly to clean that cesspool up. But, in the LA Times story on the agreement, Penny Elia, who chairs a

  September 15, 2006

• A River Runs Beneath It

  January 20, 2000

• 240 Million Gallons a Day

  February 7, 2002

• Flush TwiceIts a Long Way to Huntington Beach

  May 16, 2002

• !Ask a Mexican!

  March 30, 2006

• Letters From OC Weekly Readers

  January 8, 2009

• It Doesnt Suck!

  WEB EXCLUSIVE! Breathe easy, Simpsons fans. The movie is eeeexellent

  July 26, 2007

• Road to Nowhere Fast

  Foothill-South delayed until 2011, possibly forever

  March 15, 2007

• An Inconvenient Slope

  Big Bears ski resorts are covered in snow despite a chronic lack of natural snowfall. So where are the crowds? Dont blame global warmingblame the media

  February 15, 2007

• Go with the Flow

  September 2, 1999

• Commie Girl

  Make Levees Not War
  We go a-visiting at the Nixon Library

  February 23, 2006

• Beyond the Valley of the Dirt People

  November 11, 2004

• Its Snot Unusual

  Im George W. Bush, and I Approve This Destruction

  September 2, 2004

• Letters

  May 6, 2004

• Earth Daddy

  April 22, 2004

• Watching the Carbon Detective

  January 15, 2004

• Best Shopping and Porn

  October 30, 2003

• Spy the Friendly Skies

  October 9, 2003

• More Backyard Trash Fires!

  July 10, 2003

• MTBE Lies I Told You

  June 19, 2003

• Fatalizer

  May 15, 2003

• Raw Sewage Deal

  May 15, 2003

• Deadly Plants

  February 27, 2003

• Reform-School Congress

  July 25, 2002

• Cook the Toxic Books

  January 24, 2002

• Toxic Company

  May 24, 2001

• Poop Chute

  March 22, 2001

• Just Build More Roads

  March 15, 2001

• Christine Todd Witless

  January 18, 2001

• Disneylands Downwinders

  October 19, 2000

• HBs Secret Santa

  December 16, 1999

• Alien Toxins

  December 9, 1999

• Fill 'Er Up

  April 22, 1999

• Same Place, New Debacle

  March 4, 1999

• Ron Packard, Military Whore

  October 8, 1998

• Nixon Library Museum Store is Green With Ennui

  The private Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace Foundation (not to be confused with the public Richard Nixon Library and Museum) has really gotten into the spirit of Earth Day. The foundation is directing shoppers to its cash cow, the museum store, with an email blast that states:Celebrate Earth Day Keep It GreenDid you know? Richard Nixon was the first "environmental President."In 1970 he established the Environmental Protection Agency.Thank you Mr. PresidentIf you hear "You're welcome" from

  April 17, 2009

• State Beaches May Not Be Ashtrays Much Longer

  California could become the first state in the nation to ban smoking at state parks and beaches after the state Senate today passed legislation it says protects the marine environment and reduces fire danger. Introduced by Sen. Jenny Oropeza (D-Long Beach), Senate Bill 4 now moves to the Assembly, where no hearing has been scheduled. In its current form, the bill would establish a $100 fine for smoking at parks or beaches.Already in Orange County, Seal Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Hunting

  May 14, 2009

• Ed Royce Puts On Greenface

  Ed Royce (R)We all know that lead is bad stuff. Kills babies. Makes bullets. So there's plenty of reason to be glad that Orange-based Continuous Coating Corp. is shedding 70,000 pounds of lead from its production process. The firm, which makes continuous coil electro-zinc line (probably very essential!) already has a nice record with Scorecard, "the pollution information site." The de-leadening is a part of its participation with the Environmental Protection Agency's NPEP, "a voluntary partnersh

  May 27, 2009

• More Federal Brownfields Cleanup Funds Coming Long Beach's Way

  EPA.govMiller's Childrens Hospital in Long Beach previously received federal brownfields cleanup funds.​A proposed Long Beach job training resource has been awarded a chunk of nearly $2 billion in federal grant money aimed at cleaning up contaminated sites in California known as "brownfields," the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced.Brownfields are sites where expansion, redevelopment, or reuse may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollu

  August 6, 2009

• More Federal Brownfields Cleanup Funds Coming Anaheim's Way, Too

  Betsy Ross Park in AnaheimYesterday's release from the Environmental Protection Agency on California projects receiving Recovery Acts funds to clean up contaminated "brownfields" did not mention it, but Anaheim's Betsy Ross Park is also getting in on the action, the Orange County Register reports today.   A $450,000 EPA grant will help the city nearly double the size of the park at 1280 W. Santa Ana St. from 5.5 to 9 acres. The same park project received a $200,000 gra

  August 6, 2009

• Clothes Lines: a Green Solution That's Been Clotheslined

  ​They are an old-fashioned device that could save household energy as well as machine-damaed and worn-out clothing. Unfortunately, they are also banned in several U.S. communities. Just try installing a clothes line in Irvine or any Orange County gated community and see what happens. Torture is allowed and encouraged for even thinking such a thing.

  October 22, 2009