Environment

Activists Rally in Mission Trails Park to Oppose SDG&E Gas Pipeline

June 19, 2018 by Source

By Colleen Cochran

This past Father’s Day, many San Diegans celebrated their dads amidst the green, rolling hills of Mission Trails Regional Park. One group, holding colorful signs, gathered for more than celebration; they were there to protect this 7,000-acre wilderness area.

SDG&E and SoCalGas would like to install a new gas pipeline to run approximately 47 miles through San Diego County. These utility companies are considering several potential routes for this pipeline, one of which cuts through the park.

The rally’s attendees sought to bring public attention to the fact that pipeline installation will destroy wildlife habitat and forever mar the landscape. They warned about the dangers of continued reliance on fossil fuels, which causes climate change and, thus, leads to drought and harm to plant, animal, and human life.

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Cape Cod: Colonial Folly To Nuclear Demise

June 4, 2018 by Michael Steinberg

Nuclear Shutdown News May 2018

By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of the nuclear power industry in the US and beyond, and highlights the efforts of those working to create a nuclear free future. Here is our May 2018 report.

Cape Cod: Colonial Folly To Nuclear Demise

US history indoctrination begins early in our lives. Before formal education even begins we are taught to look forward to the Thanksgiving holiday, an annual celebration that upon sober reflection really celebrates gluttony, greed and genocide.

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Trump Wants to Expand Oil Drilling to 90 Percent of Our Seas. We’re Marching on June 9 to Stop Him.

May 25, 2018 by Source

The March for the Ocean is promoting a rapid transition from drilling and spilling to clean, job-generating renewable energy.

By David Helvarg and Bill McKibben / The Nation

Summer beckons—and with it, the season’s first trip to the beach, which remains the number-one outdoor recreational activity for Americans of all classes and ideologies. It may be one of the last truly nonpartisan activities we do together.

But thousands will come out of the water on June 9 for the first ever March for the Ocean—and that should be nonpartisan too.

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To Save Coral Reefs, Hawaii on Verge of Banning Sunscreen

May 9, 2018 by Frank Gormlie

In order to save the coral reefs and other marine life that surrounds Hawaii, state legislators there just passed a measure banning sunscreen. In particular they want to ban the sale of sunscreens containing oxybenzone and octinoxate by 2021. The governor has yet to sign the bill, making it law.

Scientists have determined oxybenzone and octinoxate can be toxic to coral – a vital part of the ocean ecosystem. Only with a medical prescription, would people be able to purchase sunscreen with the chemicals. Plus the measure itself doesn’t ban online purchases or does it ban tourists from bringing their own to Hawaii.

But sunscreen makers would be forced to change their formulas or be banned from selling the lotions in Hawaii.

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Earth’s Atmosphere Crosses Another Threshold

May 7, 2018 by Jim Miller

Last week after I sent off my column about why I wrote Last Days in Ocean Beach, a novel about living on the border between dread and wonder in the Anthropocene, the news cycle was full of coincidental but eerie echoes. A Los Angeles Times story observed of the recent floods in Kauai, “A Hawaiian island got about 50 inches of rain in 24 hours.

Scientists warn it’s a sign of the future,” while the Washington Post reported, “’Fallen off a cliff’: Scientists have never observed so little ice in the Bering Sea in spring.”

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Holtec Wants to Build High-Level Radwaste Dump in New Mexico

May 2, 2018 by Michael Steinberg

Nuclear Shutdown News April 2018

By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of the nuclear power industry in the US and beyond, and highlights the efforts of those who are working to create a nuclear free future. Here is our April 2018 report.

Holtec company wants to build “interim” nuclear dump for high level radwaste from shutdown US nuke plants in New Mexico

Last month’s report featured the shenanigans of the Holtec’s company’s mishandling of high level nuclear waste it is removing from the San Onofre nuclear plant

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Ocean Beach Climate Rally and March – Sat. April 28

April 25, 2018 by Frank Gormlie

Join your fellow OBceans and other San Diegans at Saturday’s Ocean Beach Climate Rally & March – April 28. Hosted by San Diego Climate Mobilization Coalition, the rally begins at 10:00 a.m at the at the foot of Newport Ave. in Ocean Beach on the grass.

There’s a rally with music and speeches. and then march to the Ocean Beach Post Office to post on the door the demand

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San Onofre Surf Community Starts to Wake Up About Nuclear Waste on Their Beach

April 20, 2018 by Source

By Jake Howard / Dana Point Times

To be frank, the surf community’s response to the nuclear waste situation at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) has been apathetic at best. Somehow, the toll road dilemma generates more attention and more buzz than the fact that at this moment there are four questionable canisters of nuclear waste buried yards from the waterline at San O. Why aren’t there more “No Nukes” bumper stickers on cars around town?

The amount of nuclear waste stored at the SONGS site includes 51 old canisters and potentially 73 new ones, which can be hazardous to human health—there are even signs posted by the fences that ward off people from going near the facility.

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Landmark Lawsuit Against SANDAG Ends With a Victory for Clean Air

April 16, 2018 by Staff

The San Diego County Superior Court has formally ordered the San Diego Association of Governments to decertify its defective Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for 2011 the Regional Transportation Plan. SANDAG has also agreed to cover attorney’s fees in the amount of $1.7 million for the petitioners in this public interest case.

It has taken six long years to reach this point, with the lawsuit going to the California Supreme Court. The two precedent-setting court opinions arising from this case will guide SANDAG and other agencies in addressing greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, and public health impacts of regional transportation planning.

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Do Something for the Ocean or Watch It Die!

January 19, 2018 by Source

By David Helvarg / Blue Notes / January 16, 2018

Two new reports in Science magazine confirm what we’ve been seeing for years: climate change and nutrient pollution are contributing to dead zones in the world’s ocean – in part because a warmer, more acidic ocean holds less dissolved oxygen.

Another study of 100 reefs showed coral bleaching is occurring globally at least once every six years. The most recent wave reduced half of the corals in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (watch the Academy-Award nominated film ‘Chasing Coral’).

And of course, climate-induced extreme weather events like hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria contributed to making 2017 the costliest year for natural disasters in U.S. history.

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Burying 3.6 Million Pounds of Nuclear Waste at San Onofre State Beach Is a Terrible Idea

January 3, 2018 by Source

It’s heating up around the shuttered nuclear plant at San Onofre because locals are not happy with the plan to bury 3.6 million pounds of nuclear waste at San Onofre State Beach. There were protests recently in the nearest city, San Clemente, against this plan.

Meanwhile, a local group, Citizens Oversight, has submitted a formal petition to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission under NRC Regulations that govern how the nuclear industry handles spent nuclear fuel. They believe the containers of the toxic nuke spent fuel should be designed for 1,000 years rather than the current requirement of only 40 years.

Everybody is talking about San Onofre. In the current San Diego Reader, Don Bauder has a piece about how nuclear waste in the sand now will create a toxic ocean later. Sarah “Steve” Mosko, at Boogie Green writes there’s a ticking time bomb at San Onofre Nuclear Plant.

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Do Nukes Kill? – Nuclear Shutdown News – December 2017

January 2, 2018 by Michael Steinberg

By Michael Steinberg

Do Nukes Kill?

While the decline of the nuclear power industry has become undeniable, one of the more significant aspects of this story still receives scant attention. In order to function, nuclear reactors generate radioactive materials and must release them into the air and water of surrounding communities. This doesn’t just happen during serious accidents as at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, but during day-to-day operations at nuke plants.

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Nuclear Shutdown News November 2017: Lawsuit vs. San Onofre Rad Waste and ‘Last Nuke’ in California

November 30, 2017 by Michael Steinberg

By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of the nuclear industry in the US and beyond, and highlights the efforts of those who are working for a nuclear free world. Here is our November 2017 report:

Lawsuit Challenges Storage of Radioactive Waste at San Onofre Nuke

…

Last Running California Nuke Plant Inches Towards Shutdown

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A Summary of Nuclear Waste Issue at San Onofre

October 23, 2017 by Source

By Gary Headrick

I was recently asked to clear up some confusion about our nuclear waste strategy in an email thread between some good friends. I thought it might be worth sharing a refined version of my reply with you.

Also if you have not signed and shared our Petition yet, please do.

Here is the basic objective:

Delay the date for silos on the beach to get loaded with extremely radioactive waste.

This allows time to consider better alternatives that make us safer while deadly waste remains here cooling off for perhaps decades before it can be moved. We must deal with the fact that they are using canisters that can’t be monitored to prevent leaks, can’t be repaired

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The Heat Is On: How Climate Change Is Making Western Wildfires Worse

September 12, 2017 by Source

By Sher Watts Spooner / Daily Kos

Let’s look at the other set of natural disasters that is being exacerbated by climate change.

Major wildfires are burning in British Columbia in western Canada and in at least nine states throughout the American West: California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. California, Montana, and Oregon are bearing the worst of it.

So far in 2017, more than 8 million acres have burned.

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What a Difference a Year Makes for America’s Public Seas: Obama vs. Trump

August 16, 2017 by Source

By David Helvarg / Blue Notes / Aug. 15, 2017

Both 2016 and 2017 will be remembered as years of contrast in the way the United States approached its public seas, an ocean frontier that like our 19th century western frontier has been ruthlessly exploited but remains an essential element of who we are as a people and what we might yet achieve.

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Eleven Reasons an Electric Car Wouldn’t Be for You

August 8, 2017 by Source

Not a sequel to the 1999 movie: 10 things I Hate About You.

By Bill Adams / San Diego UrbDeZine

I’ve been driving my electric car (aka EV for electric vehicle) for a little shy of a year now. While I love it (I even bought a second one), I realize they’re not for everybody. Below are some reasons you might hate an EV:

  1. You love gas stations: The ritual, the delay in getting home, to work, or that trip out of town; and the drama of rising and falling gas prices.
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Nuclear Shutdown News from July 2017

August 2, 2017 by Michael Steinberg

By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of the nuclear industry, in the US and abroad, and highlights the efforts of those working to create a nuclear free world. Here is our July 2017 report:

Hackers Hit US Nuke Plants

On July 6 the New York Times published, “Hackers Are Targeting Nuclear Facilities, Homeland Security and FBI Say.”

“Since May hackers had been penetrating computer networks of companies that operated nuclear power stations of companies that operate nuclear power stations and other energy facilities, as well as manufacturing plants in the US and other countries,” the Times reported.

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Downtown Protest Today – June 1st – in Response to Expected Trump Decision to Abandon Climate Agreement

June 1, 2017 by Staff

Climate

Grassroots climate advocacy group SanDiego350 is calling for people to protest President Trump’s widely expected decision to pull the U.S. out of the international Paris Climate Agreement.

A demonstration is set for 5:30-7pm today (Thursday, June 1) at the Federal Building (880 Front Street) in downtown San Diego.

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Nuclear Shutdown News May 2017: San Onofre Shenanigans Continue

May 31, 2017 by Michael Steinberg

By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of the nuclear industry in the US and abroad, and highlights the efforts of those who are working to create a nuclear free world. Here is our May 2017 report:

San Onofre shenanigans continue–and so does resistance

On May 27 KPBS along with the Associated Press reported the story “Customers May Never Know How They Got Stuck With $3.3 Billion Paid For San Onofre Shutdown.”

This report details how the San Francisco-based California Public Utilities Commission –

“once again failed to release sources of emails it exchanged with Governor Jerry Brown’s office” concerning the “nuclear plant’s closure.”

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Nuclear Shutdown News April 2017: Safety Value Malfunction at Oyster Creek Nuke

May 3, 2017 by Michael Steinberg

By Michael Steinberg / Black Rain Press

Nuclear Shutdown News chronicles the decline and fall of the nuclear industry in the US and abroad, and highlights the efforts of this who are working to create a nuclear free world. Here is our April 2017 report:

40 + Nuke Club

On April 18 Patch Media reported “Nuclear Regulatory Commission Finds Oyster Creek Safety Valve Malfunctioned For Nearly Two Years.” The emergency safety valve in question was “inoperable between October 11, 2014 and September 19, 2016” in the New Jersey nuke plant’s reactor, patch.com reported.

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Trump Wants To Roll Back Two Decades of National Monuments

May 2, 2017 by Source

Editor’s Note: On April 26th, Trump signed an executive order that covers a review of national monument designations going back 21 years. It was an executive order that is monumental—and not in a good way.

By Mark Sumner / Daily Kos

In the spirit of patriotic occupiers of wildlife habitat who don’t believe any place is so beautiful, historic, or ecologically significant that it couldn’t be improved by a Walmart and/or a strip mine, Trump wants to do in a few national monuments.

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Why the People’s Climate March Matters Now More Than Ever

April 24, 2017 by Jim Miller

Climate March

By Jim Miller

In the lead up to Earth Day, Elizabeth Kolbert, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction, accurately observed that this year there wasn’t much to celebrate.

She’s right. An administration that can’t seem to stop stepping on its own feet in nearly every other area has been pretty darn good at gearing up to kill the planet. As Kolbert writes in the New Yorker:

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Present at the Creation: Walter Cronkite and the ‘Environment Story’

April 21, 2017 by Source

By Ron Bonn/ SanDiego350

You could say I was present at the creation.

Looking back in our lives, we rarely know exactly when something started. But regular television news coverage of man-made climate change, with all it implies, started on New Year’s Day, 1970.

The staff of “The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite”: producers, writers, technicians; a couple dozen of us in all, were sitting around the newsroom waiting for something to happen—because nothing happens on New Year’s Day—when the man himself stormed in. “Goddamn it,” he said to us, “we’ve got to do something about this environment story.”

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Proposed San Diego Budget Bad News for Urban Forestry

April 21, 2017 by Source

By Anne Fege / San Diego Free Press

The City’s FY 2018 budget was released on April 13, with a proposed cut of $880,000 for shade tree pruning—a grave disappointment.

With the City’s commitment to the Climate Action Plan, existing and large trees provide the most canopy cover, and they need to be managed and protected to maximize their health and life span.

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It’s Spring: Time to Save the Planet

April 20, 2017 by Source

planet

March for Science San Diego – Saturday, April 22, 10am

People’s Climate March San Diego – Saturday, April 29, 10am

Upcoming weeks offer several opportunities to join the fight against global warming. And in the age of a Donald Trump administration, the environment needs all the friends it can get.

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SeaWorld Ends Summertime Fireworks for Now

April 17, 2017 by Staff

SeaWorld has announced its Mission Bay theme park will not shoot off fireworks this summer. Fireworks will still go off during 3-day holiday weekends and a few other special events. Plus, SeaWorld will not disclose whether nightly fireworks are gone for good, only that they are on “hiatus for the foreseeable future.”

The “official story” is that SeaWorld is preparing for its new “Electric Ocean” a nighttime lighting display. In typical fashion, SeaWorld could not admit that maybe – in its effort to be more environmentally-sensitive – that the summertime tradition is halting due to public pressure. (For more of the official line, see SDU-T)

For years, San Diegans have signed petitions calling on SeaWorld to stop their summer explosions over the Bay.

From our July 2015 post,
Seaworld Pet vs firewords picHit the link and sign the Petition that calls on the San Diego City Council to ban the nightly fireworks at SeaWorld.

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OB Planning Board’s Project Review Committee Looks at Companion Unit Permit at 4528 Cape May on Wed., April 19

April 17, 2017 by Staff

On the agenda of the Project Review Committee – a subcommittee of the OB Planning Board – is an application for a permit to construct a 700 square foot companion unit over a carport and to demolish the existing car garage and storage shed.

The site is located at 4526 Cape May Avenue.

COME INSIDE FOR OFFICIAL AGENDA

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Ocean Beach Planning Board to Meet Wed., April 5th

April 4, 2017 by Staff

The OB Planning Board holds their regular monthly meeting this Wednesday, April 5th. They meet in the OB Recreation Center, at 4726 Santa Monica Avenue. The meetings usually begin sharply at 6pm.

The Board will certify the recent election results, review the applications of people who wish to be appointed to the Board for seats 1, 3 and 5, appoint a new Executive Committee for the year, decide whether to make a recommendation to the City about the Soccer City proposal for Qualcomm Stadium, and have a quick overview of the city’s development process by chair John Ambert.

Come Inside for the official agenda

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More Questions About “Villa Famosa” on Camulos Drive in Point Loma

April 3, 2017 by Frank Gormlie

After a closer look at the site of the planned project called “Villa Famosa” on Camulos Street right off Famosa Slough, this reporter, at least, has more questions about the project.

On March 28th, we reported:

The “Villa Famosa” project is slated for a remodel of one already existing 2-story apartment building at the site on Camulos Drive, the 90 degree “turning” of the other already-existing 2-story, and the construction of a brand new third 2-story building that will hold 6 units.

The plans also call for a underground parking garage that will include 22 spaces for cars, and an additional 2 for motorcycles and 8 for bicycles.

And it also calls for a new driveway into the lot at Temecula Street.
New Photos of Site Raise Questions

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