"California has proposed closing by October up to 140 oilfield wells that state regulators had allowed to inject into federally protected drinking water aquifers, state officials said Monday."
"Regulators in California, the country's third-largest oil-producing state, have authorized oil companies to inject production fluids and waste into what are now federally protected aquifers more than 2,500 times, risking contamination of underground water supplies that could be used for drinking water or irrigation, state records show."
"WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will help Fresno, Calif., plan a bike-share system to improve air quality and offer an inexpensive method of transportation as part of the Building Blocks for Sustainable Communities program."
"LOS ANGELES -- California has experienced one of the driest Januarys on record, and the lack of rain during a time of year when the weather is usually wet indicates the state is likely headed for a fourth straight year of drought, officials said."
"State workers performed a California winter ritual Thursday, poking hollow aluminum tubes into Sierra Nevada meadows to measure the snowpack. In what scientists see as a harbinger, they didn't find much."
"POINT REYES NATIONAL SEASHORE, Calif. — The once-bustling oyster farm and sales shack at the end of the dirt road had the look of sudden abandonment."
"Southern California gets the vast majority of its water from four aqueducts that flow from the north, but all of them cross the San Andreas Fault. That means millions of people are just one major earthquake away from drying out for a year or more."
"Federal investigators are blaming company safety culture, flawed emergency response and inadequate federal regulations for a 2012 fire at a Chevron Corp. refinery in California."
Winnifred Bird and Jane Braxton Little, a former SEJ mentor program pair, describe (with humor!) the process of how they turned their shared interest in the Fukushima disaster's affect on forest ecosystems and rural communities into a successful writing collaboration.
