After more than a decade of getting approved for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grants to remediate "brownfields" (contaminated properties), Oakland has been turned down.

This is the first such rejection in a long time - and it will delay both cleanup work and possible development in West Oakland.

West Oaklanders and the Port of Oakland may have a new chance to clean up the air in the asthma-plagued neighborhood, now that a U.S. District Court Judge upheld the right of the Port of Los Angeles to implement a Clean Truck Program.
 
Though already facing an appeal, the Court’s ruling late Friday on Los Angeles’ innovative Clean Truck Program has been greeted as likely to serve as legal precedent, paving the way for ports elsewhere to cut diesel emissions by regulating the trucking fleets serving their ports.

In the past week, BP America, the oil giant responsible for the oil leak taking over the Gulf of Mexica, has established social media accounts, clearly as part of their tactic to do crisis management of the spill. It's easy when you review their accounts to see that BP's intent in using social media is not to communicate more directly with concerned citizens, but to find new ways to manage the story to their advantage. 

Thousands of barrels of crude oil are steadily gushing into the Gulf every day, threatening the lives, health, economy, and environment of an entire region. The catastrophe in the Gulf Coast has already taken the lives of 11 workers. Communities should not have to risk their health and safety to support their families.