Hazardous Materials

A shipment of radioactive rods that went missing Thanksgiving Day was found Friday in Tennessee by the shipping company FedEx. Though the materials, used for medical equipment, posed little threat to the public, the misplaced shipment underscores the need to track low-hazard materials that could be used in small-scale terrorist attacks, experts say. The rods, used to calibrate quality control in CT scans, contain little energy and a low...

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has agreed to pay $27.6 million to settle charges that it violated California environmental laws in its handling and disposal of hazardous materials, prosecutors involved in the case announced Monday in San Diego. The settlement was signed by San Diego County Superior Court Judge Linda B. Quinn. The San Diego County district attorney's office and the state attorney general's office had filed a civil complaint last month alleging that all of Wal-Mart's 236 stores, Sam's Club stores, distribution centers and storage facilities in the state were in violation of environmental laws.

After years of legal wrangling, the federal government agreed Wednesday to remove a fleet of mothballed military ships that has dropped tons of heavy metal pollution into a waterway northeast of San Francisco. As part of a settlement with environmental groups, the U.S. Maritime Administration said it would remove 52 obsolete and decaying vessels -- nicknamed the Ghost Fleet -- from the estuary between the San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Five others have been removed since November.

One day last week officer Al Polehonki took his police cruiser out for a garden tour of Los Feliz. He was looking for a toxic plant called angel's trumpet, a plant common in Southern California that is known for its large, flared flowers that Polehonki described as looking "like lilies with long necks." Each time he spotted the plant in front of a house, he got out, knocked on the door and asked whoever answered: Do you know that kids pick these flowers and chew them to get high?

Los Angeles officials are close to completing a deal that would relocate a metal finishing company that has long been the bane of a poor neighborhood -- the final piece of an ambitious quarter-billion-dollar plan to bring affordable housing to a pocket of South L.A. The company, Palace Plating, has become symbolic of the enduring troubles that followed South L.A.'s slapdash development. Opened in 1941, it's the type of factory that drew thousands of working-class families to the city during the boom years of World War II. Yet it was wedged onto a narrow street next to homes and across from 28th Street School, which soon became one of the largest elementary campuses in the nation.

The U.S. manufacturers of a toxic flame retardant commonly used in television sets have agreed to phase out production under a deal with federal regulators. The retardant, known as deca, is one of a class of chemical compounds that have been found in California residents at the highest levels in the country, a consequence of widespread exposure linked to the state's strict flammability standards for furniture. Deca is a polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE), a group of flame-retardant chemicals used in the manufacture of electronic equipment, furniture cushions, upholstery textiles, carpet backings, mattresses, cars, buses, aircraft and construction materials.

A safety scare involving the holiday season's hottest toy cooled off Monday after federal safety regulators quickly put to rest claims that one model of the bestselling Zhu Zhu Pets contained toxic levels of the element antimony. "The Consumer Product Safety Commission confirmed today that the popular Zhu Zhu toy is not out of compliance with the antimony or other heavy-metal limits of the new U.S. mandatory toy standard," agency spokesman Scott Wolfson said. "We will still do our own independent testing at CPSC.

Bhopal residents are still angry with Union Carbide, owner of the chemical plant that 25 years ago today released a poisonous gas cloud that killed more than 15,000 people and injured hundreds of thousands in what's been termed the world's worst industrial accident. Residents are also angry with Dow Chemical Co., which acquired Union Carbide Corp. in 2001 and washed its hands of any inherited responsibility. But many are at least as angry with their own government, which settled with the rich foreigners for what they say was a ridiculously low sum and has since failed to care for its people.

A Los Angeles firm agreed to pay $31,500 to settle allegations that it imported and sold toys that were hazardous to young children, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said. TGH International Trading Inc. brought more than 11,000 toys into the U.S. from March 2005 to June 2006 that contained small parts that presented a choking hazard to children. Many of the hazardous toys were seized at the Port of Long Beach by federal officials before they could reach store shelves, the agency said, and those that did reach stores were recalled.

Nancy and Bryan Lara, ages 10 and 8, knew something was wrong when they saw a tractor surrounded by white clouds near their school bus stop in Caruthers. "I know that clouds are not on the ground, they're in the sky," Bryan said. The children hid behind a row of grapevines, but they could taste the noxious blend of liquid sulfur, gibberellic acid, insecticide and fertilizer as the rig rolled past them, billowing out its chemical cargo. Moments earlier, the mist had enveloped 17-year-old Carina at another stop about two blocks away.