California

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday a new study by the largest toxic waste dump in the West showed its level of cancer-causing chemicals was too low to harm the health of a nearby community where an unusually high number of babies have been born with serious birth defects."

As part of a settlement, air filters will be installed in the schools of five communities around the Port of Los Angeles, where almost 22% of children suffer from asthma, compared to a rate of 14.2 percent nationwide.

"A coalition of environmental and farmworker groups said in a lawsuit announced Monday that state pesticide regulators improperly cut off public comment on a controversial agricultural fumigant in order to secure its passage before Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's term ended."

"Heavy storms ruptured mains and disabled pumps, spilling thousands of gallons of sewage into the ocean along Southern California's coast."

"In the face of withering media coverage in LA Weekly and elsewhere, the Schwarzenegger Administration has pulled an about-face on the gutting of new chemical regulations by the state's Department of Toxic Substances Control."

"Southern California laid miles of pipe and tunneled through mountains to import water. But it also built a storm drain system to quickly get rid of rainfall. The contradiction played out again this week."

"The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta would become a "national heritage area" and receive federal funding and planning oversight under a controversial provision slipped into a massive spending bill that died a sudden death Thursday night."

"The cap-and-trade system will limit emissions from 600 major industrial plants in the state, starting in 2012. Firms could buy pollution offsets from timber companies that preserve carbon in forests."

"A federal judge yesterday threw out a federal scientific study that forms the basis for protecting the delta smelt in California's sprawling Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta."