Environment

MOST RECENT STORIES

• Algal blooms

  Thousands more dead fish surface in Marina del Rey harbor

  County workers filled about 150 garbage bags with dead anchovies and other fish Monday afternoon that might have fallen victim to deoxygenated water inside the harbor at Marina del Rey this weekend. In all, tens of thousands of fish were scooped into about 300 garbage bags after a massive die-off Saturday night brought concern from the community over heaps of dead, rotting fish piling up in the upscale marina. The dead fish are intended to be composted and used for...

  Sandy Mazza
  |1 week, 1 day ago

• Algal blooms

  Thousands of dead fish clog Marina del Rey harbor

  Thousands of anchovies and other coastal fish, thought to be starved for oxygen in the ocean, washed up dead in the Marina del Rey harbor Sunday morning. Scientists believe the unusual mass die-off, reminiscent of a near identical episode three years ago in Redondo Beach, was likely due to an algae bloom that depleted oxygen in the water or possibly the recent high...

  Sandy Mazza
  |1 week, 2 days ago

• Wildfires

  Studies: Wildfires worse due to global warming

  WASHINGTON >> The devastating wildfires scorching Southern California offer a glimpse of a warmer and more fiery future, according to scientists and federal and international reports. In the past three months, at least three different studies and reports have warned that wildfires are getting bigger, that man-made climate change is to blame, and it’s only going to get worse with more fires starting earlier in the year. While scientists are reluctant blame global warming...

  By Seth Borenstein The Associated Press |1 week, 2 days ago

• Air quality

  Smoke advisory issued for Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange counties

  LOS ANGELES (CNS) - The South Coast Air Quality Management District said today it had issued a smoke advisory for parts of Riverside and Orange counties because of smoke from wildfires in San Diego County. Unhealthy air quality conditions are likely to persist throughout the day in the Temecula, Anza, Lake Elsinore and Perris areas, the AQMD said, and air quality is likely to be unhealthy today for sensitive groups in all of Orange County, areas in and around Riverside, Hemet, Banning...

  City News Service |1 week, 3 days ago

• Education

  Thousands turn out for LAUSD’s Kids Ocean Day beach cleanup

  On its 21st birthday Thursday, Kids Ocean Day came full circle as an alumnus returned to clean up the beach with her class of North Hollywood third-graders. Fair Avenue Elementary School teacher Armine Pogosian was a youngster in 1993 when she attended her first Kids Ocean Day, pitching in to pick up litter on the beach and learning about trash’s often fatal impact on marine life. It was precisely those memories that prompted Pogosian to pack up her class for a trip to...

  Thomas Himes
  |1 week, 5 days ago

• Water conservation and preservation

  Rip out your lawn, get paid double, says drought-minded Metropolitan Water District

  LOS ANGELES — The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is hoping that sweetening financial incentives will encourage residents and businesses to conserve water during the statewide drought. Metropolitan’s Board of Directors is doubling the incentive for turf removal, as well as extending rebates for rain barrels and high-efficiency toilets, to further entice Southern Californians to institute water-saving practices at home and in businesses. The new...

  City News Service |1 week, 6 days ago

• Transportation

  L.A. rolls out the paved carpet for Bike Week L.A.

  It’s time to spin your wheels — literally. This year’s Bike Week L.A. is officially under way, and events are planned through the weekend, from a Blessing of the Bicycles to a scenic Guided Ride leaving from Union Station. A kickoff ceremony Monday pedaled along nicely with the release of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition’s

  Christina Villacorte
  |2 weeks, 1 day ago

• Alternative and sustainable energy

  Caltech receives $15 million grant for sustainable energy

  PASADENA >> Timely considering all the talk of climate change, Caltech has received a monetary gift to help further the school’s research in human sustainability. Entrepreneurs and philanthropists Lynda and Stewart Resnick last week donated $15 million to the Resnick Sustainability Institute. Founded in 2009, the institute at Caltech was established to propel clean-energy and sustainability of sciences. Of the $15 million, $3 million will go toward the Resnick Institute...

  Adam Poulisse
  |2 weeks, 1 day ago

• Wildlife

  Investigators stumped by peafowl killings, now at 47, in Rolling Hills Estates

  Nearly two years after the killings of peafowl began in Rolling Hills Estates, investigators remain stumped as to who’s responsible. The official count now is 47 dead birds, said Lt. Cesar Perea, director of cruelty investigations for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Los Angeles. “We started tracking this group of birds in 2012,” he said, adding the first report was from May 30, 2012. “There’s been a large increase in the...

  Donna Littlejohn
  |2 weeks, 1 day ago

• Rising sea levels

  NASA spots worrisome Antarctic ice sheet melt

  WASHINGTON (AP) — The huge West Antarctic ice sheet is starting a glacially slow collapse in an unstoppable way, two new studies show. Alarmed scientists say that means even more sea level rise than they figured. The worrisome outcomes won’t be seen soon. Scientists are talking hundreds of years, but over that time the melt that has started could eventually add 4 to 12 feet to current sea levels. A NASA study looking at 40 years of ground, airplane and satellite...

  The Associated Press |2 weeks, 1 day ago