Pollution Control

Los Angeles residents who have hazardous household materials such as paint thinner, motor oil, old batteries and pesticides stored in garages and beneath sinks can safely dispose of them under a new program, city officials said Monday. Residents may drop off such materials on a specified day at eight locations beginning Jan. 21 and ending Nov. 18, and workers will haul the waste to a licensed landfill.

A federal appeals court has ruled that the owners of the San Juan Generating Station, a huge coal-fired power plant near Farmington, N.M., must continue with plans to install strong pollution controls. Several California cities purchase electricity from the plant. The federal Environmental Protection Agency ruled last fall that the plant was required to install strong "selective catalytic reduction," or SCR, equipment to cut its yearly output of 16,000 tons of ozone, fine particulate matter and other pollutants in order to meet federal standards.

President-elect Barack Obama sent an explicit message Tuesday to international negotiators of a new global warming treaty that, under his administration, the U.S would move to slash its own greenhouse gas emissions by more than 80% by mid-century, and "help lead the world toward a new era of global cooperation on climate change."

Former General Motors Co. Chief Executive Robert Stempel, an engineer who led the development of the catalytic converter but was ousted in a boardroom coup, died Saturday in Florida. He was 77. The cause of death was unclear, but family friends in Detroit said he had been hospitalized recently in West Palm Beach, Fla., near a home the family owned there. During his three decades at the company, Stempel helped to develop many of the fuel-efficient and pollution-control technologies still in use today, including front-wheel-drive cars, the catalytic converter and battery-powered cars.

Bugs. Bugs on the sidewalks. Bugs on the street. Bugs on the lamp posts, the bridges, the boats, the cars. The landscape wrapped in a blanket of squishy, buggy fur. Piles of bugs. Sometimes it seems like miles of bugs. Bugs on your toes and your nose. Bugs on your thighs. Here's bugs in your eyes. Bugs in your mouth, too, if you are not careful. Oops! Crunch. The mayflies are back, and for many folks along the Upper Mississippi River, there is no escape.

In a step toward eliminating smoke-belching trucks and transit buses from the road, Detroit Diesel Corp. has built the first methanol-powered engine for heavy duty vehicles that meet new, tougher California emission standards, the company said Friday.

The Commerce Department reported that U.S. businesses spent an estimated $8.4 billion for equipment to control air and water pollution and dispose of solid waste in 1984, a 7.7% increase over the previous year. The 1984 estimate is based on a survey conducted last year of non-farm businesses.

in Glendale said it received its first orders for air-pollution monitoring systems from Turkey and Uruguay. The company also announced plans to move into significantly larger facilities in Glendale in April that would triple its manufacturing capacity. Increased orders for its systems fueled a 38% jump in the company's profit for the first nine months of 1993, to $885,000 from $641,000 a year earlier. Sales rose 6%, to $4.93 million from $4.63 million.

Hoping to help clean the waters at local beaches, the Laguna Beach City Council this week approved a water pollution control plan for the city. The plan calls for the city to meet with representatives from the county and other agencies to discuss pollution-testing protocol for streams and beaches and to step up a campaign to educate residents about how to avoid polluting local waters, especially Laguna Canyon Creek.

A bill to protect schoolchildren from the threat of harmful emissions released by nearby factories is on its way to the governor's desk after being passed overwhelmingly by both houses of the Legislature last week in the waning hours of the legislative session.

After months of negotiations and weeks of delay, Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) will unveil their plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions and spur clean energy growth Wednesday — and the biggest challenge will be selling the notion that the bill has any chance of passage. Kerry and Lieberman's efforts took a major hit when their Republican co-architect, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, walked away from the bill shortly before its scheduled rollout last month.

Southern California air regulators proposed tougher rules Friday to ensure that the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach reduce their share of deadly emissions from ships, trains, big rigs and cargo-handling equipment, prompting harsh objections from harbor officials. The so-called backstop rules, unveiled during a South Coast Air Quality Management District governing board meeting in Long Beach, would enable regulators to enforce the voluntary pollution reduction targets set by the ports to control soot and smog over the next decade and impose financial penalties if needed.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Sunday unveiled a five-year, $475-million plan to revitalize the Great Lakes, including cleaning up polluted water and beaches, restoring wetlands and fighting invasive species such as Asian carp. Federal and state officials call the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative Action Plan "historically unprecedented" in size, funding and coordination between branches of government. The plan calls itself light on study and heavy on action, seeking to heal the Great Lakes ecosystem from "150 years of abuse" and to ensure that "fish are safe to eat; the water is safe to drink; the beaches and waters are safe for swimming, surfing, boating and recreating; native species and habitats are protected and thriving; no community suffers disproportionately from the impacts of pollution; and the Great Lakes are a healthy place for people and wildlife to live."

You have to be a scuba diver to see the difference, but areas of Santa Monica Bay that were historically fouled by sewage discharges are making a strong comeback. The new State of the Bay report notes the revival of bottom-dwelling marine life in the wake of treatment upgrades at the two big wastewater plants that empty into the bay several miles from shore. Diver surveys have documented sea animals and plants on the sea floor "where really it was barren before," said Shelley Luce, executive director of the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission, which issues the report every five years.

Air pollution from U.S.-flagged oil tankers and cargo vessels will be reduced by about 80% under new engine and fuel standards finalized Tuesday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a move that could improve Los Angeles' air quality. The new standards, however, will apply only to existing U.S.-flagged ships, which account for about 10% of the vessels that visit U.S. ports each year. The vast majority of the estimated 6,000 large ships that berth annually at the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex are foreign-flagged.

The world's poorest and fastest-growing developing nations appear, increasingly, to hold the fate of a new climate agreement in their hands. The choice they face is, deal or no deal? As the Copenhagen climate summit barreled into its penultimate phase Tuesday, wealthy countries ramped up pressure on emerging economies China and India, as well as African and island nations, to compromise and drop near-daily procedural tactics and protests that have slowed the negotiations. Rich nations still hold some bargaining chips, chiefly how much money they're willing to commit to help developing countries adapt to climate change and shift their energy sources over the long term.

Immediately eliminate pollution along the nation's shores or risk permanent danger to human and marine life, an environmental group urged the federal government. The Natural Resources Defense Council unveiled its program to address short-term health threats within five years, and maintain the long-term health of coastal waters within 10 years.

Faced with a finding that their facility's emissions may have harmed local residents, operators of a Lockwood Valley clay mine have agreed to pollution control measures at the rural back-country site. A study by Ventura County's Air Pollution Control District found that Pacific Custom Materials is violating its permit by releasing 1 1/2 times as much sulfur dioxide--the precursor to acid rain--as standards allow.

Negotiations between representatives of the world's largest economies appeared stalled Thursday on a particularly touchy aspect of attacking global warming: how to make sure countries actually do what they pledge to do to combat climate change. The challenge of ensuring that promises come true looms even larger than such issues as reducing greenhouse gas emissions and providing financial aid for developing countries, diplomats and environmentalists said. "Among the major emitters, this seems to be the biggest issue," said Melinda Kimble, a former U.S. climate negotiator who is a senior vice president at the United Nations Foundation and closely engaged in the talks.

India found itself under growing pressure this week to set an emission reduction target after China and the United States announced their pledges in advance of a global summit on climate change that opens early next month. The two Asian powerhouses, both of which have eschewed binding targets over concerns about undercutting national development, are seen in some Washington circles as the biggest impediment to an agreement. China and India, as the world's two most populous nations and with rapidly developing economies, have said they will work toward a common position on a climate deal.