Environment California

Re "Villaraigosa reelected; Greuel leads," March 4 Wow. I guess Los Angeles has already given up on change and hope. What a resounding endorsement of waste and substandard performance. All the children currently getting Ds in the schools the mayor so arrogantly tried to expropriate should be encouraged to see how poorly one can do and still be a success. Good news, kids: The lowering of the bar is acceptable -- and voter-approved. Edward Bowers Sherman Oaks -- Re "Solar energy plan still trails," March 5 Despite Measure B's possible defeat, public support for solar power is waxing, not waning.

After the failure of Gov. Pete Wilson and legislative leaders to agree on a water bond, officials were scrambling Friday to pull together the details of a quickly drawn $235-million bill to consummate a historic water deal among San Diego County, the Imperial Valley and the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. The Assembly had been poised to take up the bill Friday night, but abruptly put off the vote until Monday, the last day lawmakers are in session.

Standing on a seaside bluff in Santa Barbara, U.S. Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer issued a warning meant for local ears and for environmental voters throughout California. "Please wake up," Boxer told a small gathering that included three television news cameras. "If you sleep through this, you could wake up to increased offshore oil drilling, and more oil spills."

In a settlement of a decade-long oil spill dispute that could cost $200 million, Unocal Corp. will perform major surgery on tiny Avila Beach, digging up the town's commercial core and tearing down a number of homes and businesses to remove tons of contaminated soil. Announced Wednesday, the unusual agreement is designed to clean up a 400,000-gallon spill that has been threatening to contaminate the Central Coast town's water table and the Pacific Ocean with crude oil, diesel oil and gasoline.

Rendering a historic decision in a debate that has endured 10 years, a U.S. appeals court ruled Wednesday that the federal government must comply with laws protecting endangered salmon and other wildlife when it channels water to Central Valley farmers. The ruling is a major victory for California environmentalists, who have battled to force the federal government to restore water to the San Joaquin River, one of the west's most abused rivers.

After two years of study, the Clinton administration has drafted a revision of regulations protecting some of the nation's most environmentally sensitive lands, opting for a program that critics said Wednesday would leave pockets of wetlands across the country open to development. Among the newly vulnerable sites are undeveloped sections of Orange County and northern San Diego County, according to a spokesman for the Los Angeles chapter of the Sierra Club.

When researchers try to explain why a major new study hints at an improved coastal environment, they keep coming back to the fish. Fewer fish appear diseased, according to researchers who worked on a new study released by the Environmental Protection Agency this week. Livers of certain other sea creatures showed sharp decreases in DDT and PCB concentrations. The pollution-intolerant brittle star has become more abundant in sediments that were once heavily tainted with pollution.

One of Sonny Bono's last acts as a Palm Springs congressman was to invite House Speaker Newt Gingrich on a helicopter tour of the dying Salton Sea, figuring that a visit by one of the most powerful men in Washington would raise political consciousness about a lost California treasure. Bono worried that the speaker would not accept, and died on a Lake Tahoe ski slope Jan. 5 before getting word that he had.

After hearing five hours of testimony, the state Fish and Game Commission on Wednesday voted 4 to 0 not to ban the importation of live bullfrogs and turtles used in some Asian cultures for food and medicinal purposes. Instead, the commission proposed that signs be posted at all food markets that sell the amphibians noting that it is illegal to sell the animals live to customers. They must be slaughtered on the premises before being sold.

The $480-million deal to save the Headwaters Forest in Northern California hit a potentially lethal snag Thursday with federal negotiators unable to agree on how to protect forest streams and other wildlife habitat from damage inflicted by logging. "It is fair to say that the sides have broken apart and there's an impasse, and it's a major impasse," said U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.