Community Health

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Silent Threats, Unseen Risks: The Public Safety Gap at San Onofre

San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station may be decommissioned, but its spent fuel remains a pressing hazard.

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Golden State Pride: CalEnviroScreen

CalEnviroScreen is a mapping tool that has become the shining example for how to best track where inequity and environmental injustice meet. A look back at how the CalEPA set an international standard for determining where the most need for environmental action is.

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Regulatory Blind Spots: Who Really Protects Us at San Onofre?

The decommissioning of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in 2015 transferred emergency responsibility from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to Southern California Edison and local agencies. While intended to streamline management, this shift has created a complex web of regulatory gaps that experts say leaves millions of residents at risk.

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Surfing on the Edge: Recreation Meets Risk at San Onofre

San Onofre State Beach, known for its waves and wide sandy shores, draws surfers, campers, and families year-round. Yet few visitors realize that beneath the scenic cliffs lies one of the country’s largest nuclear waste storage sites. The decommissioned San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station houses millions of pounds of spent nuclear fuel in canisters located just steps from the Pacific Ocean.

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Buried in Plain Sight: America’s Forgotten Nuclear Waste

Across the U.S., shuttered nuclear plants leave behind a toxic inheritance: spent nuclear fuel with no permanent home. This waste is not just inconvenient; it remains hazardous for hundreds of thousands of years, far beyond any human planning horizon. Yet, in the absence of a national repository, utilities store it onsite in steel canisters or concrete casks, often near water, sometimes in areas vulnerable to natural disasters.

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Democracy and Disasters: Why Voting Matters in High-Risk Zone

Natural and man-made disasters often seem beyond local control. But in high-risk zones, from wildfire-prone hillsides to coastal nuclear sites, civic participation may be the strongest form of protection.

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Heatwaves and the Energy Crunch: A Dangerous Feedback Loop

California’s summers are getting hotter, and heatwaves are now longer, stronger, and deadlier. As temperatures soar, the demand for electricity spikes, straining the grid and triggering rolling blackouts. This cycle creates a dangerous feedback loop: burning more fossil fuels to stay cool drives the very warming that fuels future heatwaves.

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Youth Powering Change: Inside the Climate Tech Classrooms of Tomorrow

In California, where climate change collides daily with droughts, wildfires, and rising seas, a new generation is stepping forward with innovation in hand. Across the state, classrooms are evolving into climate tech incubators, equipping young people not just to understand the crisis, but to engineer solutions.

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Sound the Alarm: What Your City Isn’t Telling You About Disaster Risk

We hear of natural disasters in other countries that take more lives because warnings systems don’t exist. We expect better across the United States. But many communities have public alert systems that are often flawed, outdated, and untested.