California

"Los Angeles has been blackballed. The city has completed a program of covering open-air reservoirs with floating "shade balls" to protect water quality."

"The EPA touted its only preliminary finding of discrimination in a civil-rights case, but the complainants were less than thrilled with the outcome".

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has ordered a new round of air quality tests for a South Bay neighborhood after detecting a variety of contaminants inside homes near two federal cleanup sites."

"An environmental group petitioned the federal government on Thursday to immediately inspect more than 200 miles (320 km) of undersea oil pipelines off California's coast."

"The battle to tame California's fiercest wildfire this year, the big Rocky blaze north of Napa Valley wine country, neared a turning point on Thursday as ground crews fighting the flames for an eighth day steadily extended their control lines."

"California water quality regulators have asked state Attorney General Kamala Harris to consider enforcement action against the owner of an oil pipeline that ruptured near Santa Barbara in May, spilling petroleum onto beaches and the Pacific Ocean."

"LOWER LAKE, Calif. — Firefighters were working aggressively to regain control after a raging Northern California fire jumped a highway that had served as a containment line for the massive blaze — one of 20 wildfires burning in California."

"The U.S. Coast Guard was investigating a large, patchy oil sheen that appeared off the Southern California coast west of Santa Barbara on Wednesday, not far from the site of a petroleum pipeline spill in May, officials said."

"Flames raged unchecked for a second day through tinder-dry brush and scrub oak in Northern California's ranch country on Thursday after destroying three homes and forcing hundreds of residents to flee, as firefighters sought to benefit from subsiding winds, officials said."