U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

'The Hangover Part III': Heart of Fartness

The so-called Wolf Pack punches down

3 OC Beaches Ranked Among Cleanest in U.S. by NRDC, But Dirty Doheny Gets Spanked Again

Three Orange County beaches are among the cleanest of 200 popular beaches around the country, according to a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).However, the NRDC's "Testing the Waters" survey also identified three separate stretches of Doheny State Beach in Dana Point as be ... More >>

Mitsubishi i-MiEV SE is an Electrifying Ride

One in an occasional series reviewing consumer vehicles that are powered by water, natural gas, electricity, hybrid motors, high-efficiency gasoline engines or some other alternative source.My first item in the "Ride Me" category was an obituary for Seal Beach's Doug Korthof, an environmentalist and ... More >>

[UPDATED with 2 Closures Sought:] To Flee or Not to Flee, That is the Question as County Workers Say Building Makes Them Sick

​UPDATE, FEB. 29, 11:48 A.M.: Facing the Orange County Board of Supervisors Tuesday, an employee union official said there are actually two government buildings workers want closed due to fears the air inside makes them sick.Fortunately, movers would not have to go far as the buildings are next to ... More >>

Freeway Pollution Linked to Brain Damage, Autism

​Robert Lee Hotz of the Wall Street Journal, of all places, put it best: "Congested cities are fast becoming test tubes for scientists studying the impact of traffic fumes on the brain."And what are these researchers in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Boston, New York, North Carolina, Beij ... More >>

[UPDATED with New Kern County Stink:] Courts Weigh Orange County Poop

​UPDATE, MAY 26, 12:42 P.M.: There's an interesting nugget about Orange County and the Carlyle Group in coverage of the ongoing court battle over human waste from Southern California spread atop farmland in Kern County.Anyone trying to put the Bush 43 years behind them may have forgotten about the ... More >>

Radiation Detected in Japan's Tap Water and Anaheim's Air

​If you don't want to be exposed to radiation, don't drink the water in Japan.Or . . . gulp . . . breathe the air in Anaheim. The Japanese government says today elevated levels of radioactive iodine from a crippled nuclear plant we ... More >>

Just What We Needed--An Email Hoax Warning California Residents of 'Acid Rain'

Go ahead and sing in the rain. It's OK.​In case you weren't freaked out enough over last week's report of a radioactive plume heading this way (which officials say was innocuous), a prank email with the heading "Acid Rain Precautions" has been in circulation, warning California residents that part ... More >>

[UPDATED] Rohrabacher, Calvert and Campbell Support Bad-Air Bills, NRDC Says

​UPDATED, JAN. 28, 11:04 A.M: Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn), who authored House Resolution 97, backed by Rohrabacher, Calvert and Campbell, issued this response to claims the bill supports polluters over the health of citizens: "The NRDC's connection between greenhouse gasses and ... More >>

Always a Cover-Up at Wal-Mart. Always

Kathrine Shimaji, the whistleblower who caught Foothill Ranch Wal-Mart employees illegally dumping hazardous waste, wants to know why the Orange County district attorney's office didn't prosecute the higher-ups

Go Green Auto Rally is a Different Kind of Event for the Home of the Grand Prix

​Long Beach is home to an annual grand prix that has high-performance race cars zooming through city streets.But this weekend, a different kind of racing event starts in the LBC and follows a 100-mile course that ends in Malibu, one that does not necessarily reward its drivers for speed.

EPA Takes a Dump on Cruise Ships, Cleans Coast

Flickr User Bruce Tuten​Twenty million fewer gallons of sewage will taint the 1,624 mile California coastline starting next year. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday that it will ban all large cruise ships and other commercial vessels from discharging sewage withi ... More >>

Map Brings Home British Petroleum Disaster

​The website If It Was My Home allows anyone to personalize the magnitude of the British Petroleum (BO) Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and spill--also known as "the greatest environmental disaster in United States history."The site opens with a map superimposing the shape of the spill as of t ... More >>

OC Environmentalists Celebrate Momentous Decisions

Ancestor walks take on new meaning after efforts to carve a toll road through Pahne failed.​Holiday celebrating started early for local environmental groups.On Friday, a diverse coalition of allies marked the one-year anniversary of a U.S. Department of Commerce decision that effectively stopped t ... More >>

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. T ... More >>

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 ... More >>

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 rep ... More >>

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 essenti ... More >>

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, w ... More >>

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 ... More >>

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 ... More >>

"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 ... More >>

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 ... More >>

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 la ... More >>

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, ... More >>

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-give ... More >>

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 mor ... More >>

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 i ... More >>

Commie Girl

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

Its Snot Unusual

Im George W. Bush, and I Approve This Destruction

Earth Daddy

Denis Hayes organized the first Earth Day, and all he got was this lousy planet

Watching the Carbon Detective

UCI prof Sue Trumbore is out to find the Missing Sink

Spy the Friendly Skies

More Backyard Trash Fires!

And the Beatles vs. the beetles

MTBE Lies I Told You

An apology by Will Swaim

Fatalizer

Ironite is your silent, potentially dangerous friend in the garden

Deadly Plants

Reform-School Congress

Flush TwiceIts a Long Way to Huntington Beach

Why wont the sanitation district clean up the massive sewage plume off the countys coast? Follow the money

240 Million Gallons a Day

What could be badder and assier than OCs daily sewage stat?

Cook the Toxic Books

Lawyer twists facts to thwart Great Park

Poop Chute

County agency will ask EPA to renew ocean-dumping permit

Just Build More Roads

Is the Auto Club working for you or for the auto industry?

Christine Todd Witless

Bushs EPA pick has much to learn

A River Runs Beneath It

Santa Ana River toll road elevates eco-fears

HBs Secret Santa

Ed Lairdplanning commissioner, paint maker, bank investor, political bankroller

Alien Toxins

Area 51's sci-fi folklore masks a truly spooks reality

Go with the Flow

Fill 'Er Up

Even Jesus wouldn't try Irvine water district's plan to turn crap into tap

Ron Packard, Military Whore

Beneath the South County Congressman's Mr. Vanilla exterior beats the heart of an old-fashioned, log-rolling, back-scratching, pork barreling special-interest pol