Water Pollution

Ten percent of water samples at California beaches last year contained more human fecal bacteria than the state allows, according to a study released today by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Violations of daily maximum bacterial standards at 227 California beaches increased 4% from 2007 to 2008, the study found. "Many Californians were sickened or became ill after going to polluted beaches last year," Michelle Mehta, an attorney with the council's water program, said in a written statement.

The effort to bring waves back to Long Beach by dismantling its massive breakwater will get federal consideration. President Obama signed an appropriations bill Wednesday that gives the Army Corps of Engineers $90,000 to review the city's study of reconfiguring the rock wall to create bigger waves, cleaner water and beaches, and more tourism. The 2.2-mile rock barricade, built during World War II to shelter Navy ships from waves, has been blamed by environmental groups and surfers for trapping in water pollution.

A sea of ancient water tainted by the Cold War is creeping deep under the volcanic peaks, dry lake beds and pinyon pine forests covering a vast tract of Nevada. Over 41 years, the federal government detonated 921 nuclear warheads underground at the Nevada Test Site, 75 miles northeast of Las Vegas. Each explosion deposited a toxic load of radioactivity into the ground and, in some cases, directly into aquifers. When testing ended in 1992, the Energy Department estimated that more than 300 million curies of radiation had been left behind, making the site one of the most radioactively contaminated places in the nation.

Santa Barbara County supervisors this week began a crackdown on oil companies that repeatedly spill fuel, asking staff to draft legislation that would increase penalties, make companies pay for the emergency response and give the county the tools to shut down repeat offenders. The tough plans were prompted by the many complaints that supervisors heard Tuesday during a four-hour hearing on the Greka Energy Corp., a Santa Maria-based company with fields in northern Santa Barbara County.

Millions of gallons of polluted runoff from state highways in Los Angeles and Ventura counties will be prevented from contaminating local waters and beaches every year under a court agreement reached Friday between Caltrans and environmentalists. Caltrans vowed to reduce storm water pollution by 20% below 1994 levels along more than 1,000 miles of state highway in the region, according to the agreement in federal court with the Natural Resources Defense Council and Santa Monica BayKeeper.

City officials have shut down a second well in two weeks after it was discovered to contain trace amounts of the potentially cancer-causing gasoline additive MTBE. The Kinoshita well, which is off Camino del Avion at Alipaz Street, was found to have an MTBE content of 2.9 to 4 micrograms per liter, officials said. State and federal health standards allow a maximum of 13 micrograms, officials said. Last week, officials closed a well near the Old Hot Springs Dance Hall on Paseo Adelanto.

Sewage-treatment plants in Southern California are failing to remove hormones and hormone-altering chemicals from water that gets flushed into coastal ocean waters, according to the results of a study released Saturday. The preliminary findings were part of the most ambitious study to date on the effect of emerging chemical contaminants in coastal oceans.

After several weeks of draining, Silver Lake Reservoir is nearly empty now, save for some random puddles on the basin's bottom. The emptying of the reservoir began in January. Water officials said the action was necessary to eliminate water contaminated by bromate, a carcinogen formed by the interaction of bright sunlight, chlorine and natural bromides that exist in groundwater.

Jefferson "Zuma Jay" Wagner sails up Latigo Canyon Road in his Dodge minivan. He is complaining about the "beautiful people" marring Malibu with their egos -- building colossal homes on this iconic stretch of coast. He has a wry, low-lidded gaze and bears such an uncanny resemblance to Clint Eastwood that he once did a beer commercial in Japan as Dirty Harry. His van has 275,000 miles on it and smells of unwashed wetsuits. "I have a mega-mansion myself, 4,000 square feet," he says.

Citing repeated delays and violations of environmental law, federal regulators Tuesday sent their own work crews to finish removing oil and contaminated water released into a Santa Maria creek by Greka Energy Corp. About 200 barrels of crude oil and toxic water leaked out of a corroded pipe at Greka's Bell lease site Jan. 29, migrating to a tributary of Sisquoc Creek, officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said.