Orange County beaches once again scored well on Heal the Bay's annual survey, with 95 of 102 testing spots being given an A or B during the summer. By the way, our county leads the state in number of testing spots.
But it's not all sunshine and clean waves as two perennial dirty South County beaches made Heal the Bay's Top 10 Beach Bummers.
Ask Roger Faubel, and he'll tell you the answer is no. He'll tell you this despite the fact that between 2006 and April of this year, he served as both a publicly elected representative of the Santa Margarita Water District (SMWD) and as a paid consultant to Poseidon Resources Inc., the company interested in selling the district pricey, desalinated water. Faubel quietly departed the water district's board of directors last month, saying the growth of his PR firm, Faubel and Associates, required too much of his attention.
Faubel tells the Weekly there was no conflict of interest because he was a Poseidon consultant five years before the start of his first term. He referenced a 2009 legal analysis conducted by Best, Best & Kreiger, which said that despite having a paid Poseidon employee on the board, Faubel's long relationship legally allowed SMWD to pursue a contract with the company. Faubel was quick to add that he was still required to recuse himself from discussions involving Poseidon and report the relationship to the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC). He maintains that in both cases, he followed the advice of district lawyers.
Call it "A Tale of Two City Takeaways:" Newport Beach and Huntington Beach's mayors, at opposite ends on whether to remove fire rings along their beaches, heard--and reacted differently to--state data indicating what's emitted from a pit over one evening equals the pollution spewed by a heavy duty diesel truck driving 564 miles.
Uh, this doesn't sound good.
A day after federal judges ruled that Southern California Edison (SCE) can't reopen its troubled San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) without a full public review--something that won't happen for months--SCE is announcing a Friday media relations meeting to discuss possible power outages throughout Orange County this summer.
More »
By Joel Robinson
Vandalized sign
In east Orange (the sprawling part, where history was erased), my mom received another code violation for her native habitat garden in her front yard. It has been five years since we won our legal effort to preserve our native habitat garden. And here we go again
More »
In yet another major setback for the scandal-plagued San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) has ruled that the power plant may not open without a full public review. 
In doing so, the panel of federal judges granted a petition filed by the environmental lobbying organization Friends of the Earth, which argued that Southern California Edison (SCE), which operates the plant, had failed to account for damage to steam generator tubes in its latest safety reports to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, (NRC).
The ASLB's ruling derails SCE's hope of swiftly restarting SONGS this summer and was heralded as a major victory by the plant's opponents, who are calling it a "stunning rebuke."
Poseidon Resources Inc., the company hoping to build a $1 billion desalination plant on Huntington Beach Shores, left out vital information when applying for a permit for its Carlsbad facility in 2007. That's according to California Coastal Commission (CCC) documents obtained by the Weekly which say the Connecticut-based company "misrepresented or omitted material information related to its claimed reduction in imported water." 
Currently, Poseidon finds itself in a rough patch as it tries to have its HB plant operational by 2017. In addition to a letter issued last month by the CCC citing project issues (like how it plans to cleanup toxic soil), the Huntington Beach City Council voted on a measure Monday allowing members to individually send letters to the CCC requesting denial of Poseidon's permit request. These factors, along with Poseidon's previous dealings with the CCC, could prove troublesome for the company as it seeks approval on its Surf City project.
More »
Brandon Ferguson
Daniel Weintraub, editor of the California Health Report, compared the census zip codes 92707 (Santa Ana) and 92657 (Newport Beach) on the online state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment tool and found stark contrasts. Despite those places being relatively close to each other, one is among the cleanest in California, the other is one of the dirtiest.
Can you guess which is which?
See Also:
*50 Reasons Why Orange County id the Worst Effing Place in America
*The Five Cleanest Cities in Orange County
The state EPA's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has an online mapping tool that allows Californians to see a detailed report card for the places they frequent. A "pollution burden score," which is based on 11 environmental-quality measurements, is combined with demographic indicators such as asthma, poverty and low-birth-weight rates to determine "CalEnviroScreen" results. Each census ZIP code (not always identical to a postal ZIP code) gets a score, so based on that, here are Orange County's five best places.
Find everything you're looking for in your city
Find the best happy hour deals in your city
Get today's exclusive deals at savings of anywhere from 50-90%
Check out the hottest list of places and things to do around your city
Email to Friend
Write to Editor
Print Article
