Feature Archives

On April 16th, over 300 people gathered for a protest at Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo County. They called for the closure of nearby Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant and insisted that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must halt PG&E's relicensing application process for the structure.

Modesto Anarcho writes: The Modesto Earth Day celebration held every year is an exercise in how the world is not changed.... Looking at these sponsors, the event itself becomes even more laughable. The sponsors of this year's Earth Day Festival include... major polluters such as a petroleum company and a waste incinerator. The Modesto Earth Day Festival is a marriage of corporate, state, and media interests, united together in brandishing themselves as protectors of the environment and friends of the earth.

Stop Smart Meters! and allies held a protest in Mountain View on April 14th as Julius Genachowski, Chair of the Federal Communications Commission, spoke about the need to increase wireless capacity, ignoring those who suffer ill health from "electrosmog" throughout the U.S. Several passers-by stopped and joined the demonstration. Activists smuggled a Stop Smart Meters! banner inside the talk and just when they thought everyone in the audience was about to go to sleep, they stirred things up with a classic banner drop disruption.

4/24 updates: Committee to Protect Sogorea Te Responds to Vallejo Times Herald Op-Ed | Day 10: Hundreds attend community gathering at Glen Cove

Despite efforts by Sacred Sites Protection and Rights of Indigenous Tribes (SSP&RIT) to negotiate a preservation agreement, the Greater Vallejo Recreation District has so far refused to abandon efforts to develop Glen Cove, a sacred Native American burial site also known as Sogorea Te in the Ohlone language. With bulldozing slated to get under way as soon as Friday, April 15th, SSP&RIT has called for an assembly to gather on April 14th at Glen Cove, in preparation for a ceremony to honor the ancestors buried at the site the following morning.

A spike in the level of radioactive iodine from Japan's Fukushima Daichii plant was discovered in milk samples in California's San Luis Obispo County in late March. On April 2nd, the EPA issued a press release stating that radioactive material in California's rainwater is the result of the nuclear disaster in Japan. While health officials assure the public that the increases present no danger, Californians are expressing deep concern about nuclear reactors that are poised near earthquake faults on the coast. Scheduled protests include in San Francisco on April 14th, Avila Beach, California, near Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, on April 16th, and Menlo Park on April 26th.

Because of agricultural discharges from Salinas Valley farms, the lower Salinas River has been found to have one of the highest levels of nitrates of any river in the world. During the summer, the river is bright green with a thick mat of toxic algae. The fertilizer doesn’t just impair the Salinas River. When the first rain comes in the fall, a huge pulse of sediment and fertilizer flushes out into Monterey Bay. This pulse has been associated with toxic algae blooms that sicken or kill sea otters, sea lions, and sea birds.

Weeks after a giant tsunami engulfed Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. is still struggling to bring the radiation crisis under control. Radiation has seeped into the soil and seawater and made its way into produce, raw milk and tap water. The Japanese government has admitted that its safeguards were insufficient to protect the nuclear plant. Radiation levels have increased in 15 US states from the nuclear disaster in Japan.