CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
March 11, 2011 | By Tony Barboza, Los Angeles Times
In a victory for environmental groups, a federal appeals court panel has found Los Angeles County and the county flood control district responsible for discharging polluted storm runoff that flows down the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers to the Pacific Ocean. An opinion Thursday by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the Natural Resources Defense Council and Santa Monica Baykeeper, which argued that the county should be liable for allowing billions of gallons of heavily polluted stormwater to flow untreated each year into the region's rivers and eventually to the ocean, where it can sicken swimmers and surfers.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
January 25, 2010 | By Corina Knoll
Tina Cassar spent last week watching rain flood her backyard and overflow from her pool. So when the sun came out Sunday morning, the Los Alamitos resident took her family for brunch and a stroll along Seal Beach. There they encountered a stretch of sand littered with mangled shopping carts, bicycle tires, tennis shoes and thousands of plastic cups and bottles. "It's awful," Cassar, 37, said as she walked along the shore. "It just shows what kind of pollution comes through the river system."
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
November 17, 2009 | Louis Sahagun
A tipster's recollection of a hazardous substance spill in Los Cerritos Wetlands in the 1950s has led to the discovery of elevated levels of carcinogenic PCBs that could derail a controversial proposal to restore the degraded Long Beach salt marsh, officials say. The Environmental Protection Agency is scheduled to present the results of its study of the contamination to the Long Beach City Council today. "The informant, who wishes to remain anonymous, was an apprentice electrician in his late teens in the early 1950s," said EPA spokesman Robert Wise.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
April 20, 2009 | David Zahniser
A man was found dead Sunday in the bed of the San Gabriel River near the 60 Freeway, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department asked the public for information about the death. The man, who was not identified, suffered blunt force trauma to his upper body, authorities said. Homicide investigators can be reached at (323) 890-5500. -- David Zahniser
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
October 31, 2008 | Louis Sahagun, Sahagun is a Times staff writer.
A rehabilitated green sea turtle the size of a manhole cover was set free in the San Gabriel River on Thursday after two months of intensive veterinary care at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. Aquarium veterinarian Lance Adams grabbed the two ends of the 44-pound reptile's mossy carapace and let it go in the murky water under the East Second Street bridge south of the 405 Freeway, silently urging it on.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
October 25, 2008 | Louis Sahagun, Louis Sahagun is a Times staff writer.
The moment the green sea turtle hit the veterinary emergency ward at the Aquarium of the Pacific, it was swept into a whirlwind of critical care starting with X-rays that revealed broken digits and infected lacerations in two front flippers and a 3-inch gash on its carapace. In a rear flipper, veterinarians found a fishing hook.