Environmental Report

NBC Universal's ambitious plans for a $3-billion overhaul of Universal City passed a milestone Thursday with the release of the long-awaited city report on how the project might affect neighbors and the surrounding area. Much of the study, known as a draft environmental impact report focuses on the traffic that would be generated by adding nearly 3,000 residences to the famed studio property in the San Fernando Valley. The plans also call for the construction of additional studios and offices for producing movies and television shows, as well as a hotel, shops and tourist attractions.

Though the proposed Westside subway extension is expected to provide substantial benefits for transit users, the multibillion-dollar project — contrary to one of its selling points — will do little to relieve traffic congestion in West Los Angeles or the county, a new environmental review shows. Released Friday, the subway's draft environmental impact report states that the project will give transit riders more options and allow them to travel across town much faster than the buses that serve the densely populated corridor along Wilshire Boulevard.

In a reversal that further signified the current shaky nature of thoroughbred horse racing in Southern California, Oak Tree Racing Assn. announced late Friday that it would hold its 2011 autumn meeting at Hollywood Park, not Del Mar. Oak Tree had said this week that it would move to Del Mar in 2011, after holding this year's meeting, starting Sept. 30, at Hollywood Park. Sherwood Chillingworth, executive vice president of Oak Tree, said that meetings at Del Mar on Thursday produced indications that environmental reports for the low-lying areas of Del Mar during October would take longer than at first thought.

In Pasadena's historic civic district, there's a conflict between two images of sacred space. The dispute involves a church, but it's a battle over architecture, not theology, that's dividing residents of the well-heeled city. For years the large and venerable All Saints Episcopal Church and its often-spotlighted rector, the Rev. J. Edwin Bacon, have been in a deadlock with preservationists who say the church's expansion plans are intruding on the architectural history of the district.

The Port of Long Beach moved forward Thursday with its plan to replace the deteriorating Gerald Desmond Bridge, releasing a draft of its revised environmental impact report on the proposed project. Port officials say the current bridge -- which was built in 1968 and crosses a key shipping channel in Long Beach -- is too low to the water, rendering that part of the Cerritos Channel impassable to the world's biggest cargo ships, which can hold more than 14,000 containers. The bridge's other main problem, port officials say, is that it wasn't built to carry the traffic it does now, adding stress to the structure.

Nearly a century after Los Angeles drained Owens Lake by diverting its water to the Los Angeles Aqueduct, the city now hopes to generate solar energy on the dusty salt flats it left behind. The Department of Water and Power's board of commissioners Tuesday unanimously approved a renewable energy pilot project that would cover 616 acres of lake bed with solar arrays -- a possible precursor to a mammoth solar farm that could cover thousands of acres. City utility officials hope that, along with generating power for L.A., the solar panels would reduce the fierce dust storms that rise from the dry lake bed. To comply with federal clean air standards, the DWP must control the dust that has plagued the Owens Valley for decades.

A San Bernardino County Superior Court judge has ordered the city of Rialto to invalidate its approvals for a proposed Wal-Mart supercenter because the city did not adequately analyze the project's environmental effect, among other factors. In two companion cases, one filed by a grass-roots organization and the other by the city of Colton, Judge Donald R. Alvarez decided last week that Rialto's approval violated the California Environmental Quality Act and other land-use laws.

Santa Monica Baykeeper plans to file suit today challenging Malibu's approval of the environmental report for a park that would double as a storm-water treatment facility, contending that the project fails to meet state water quality standards. Tatiana Gaur, the environmental group's staff attorney, said the city erred in certifying the report for Legacy Park because the project had been fundamentally changed from the original proposal and the city did not allow the public adequate opportunity to comment on the revisions.

The Port of Long Beach is expected to release the final environmental impact report today on a 10-year, $750-million harbor expansion that would accommodate the world's largest ships, reinforce the nation's Pacific Rim trade and create 14,000 permanent local jobs. If all goes according to plan, work on the massive Middle Harbor project could begin as early as December.

A real estate developer has won its legal battle to build 24 homes on a vacant hillside in the Los Angeles neighborhood of El Sereno -- and is now looking to recoup its financial losses from City Hall. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant ruled Monday that the City Council had no authority to order Monterey Hills Investors LLC to perform a new environmental impact report on its proposed subdivision of single-family homes.