>> I seriously LOL’d when I got an email from Terry O’Day, executive director of Environment Now, with this subject line: “CA’s Coast, Water, and Air Finally Cleaned Up.” Well I guess Terry no longer has a job now!

In reality, it’s still smoggy out there, and the overly sensational email was actually about Top Achievements of the Environmental Community in Southern California (PDF), an annual publication from Environment Now that highlights good Cali enviro news. Measure R and the port cleanup regulations are cited among the victories.

>> The USC Center for Sustainable Cities also released a new report: Justice in the Air: Tracking Toxic Pollution from America’s Industries and Companies to Our States, Cities, and Neighborhoods, which ranks cities, states, and companies that are failing to protect the socially disadvantaged from dirty air.

The study uses EPA data “to track which states and metropolitan areas have the biggest gap between the health risk from toxic air pollution faced by people of color and the poor compared to their proportion of the population” and to rank “the industrial companies who emit the majority of their air pollution in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods.”

Luckily, Los Angeles doesn’t show up in the list of “Ten Worst for Protecting Minorities” or “Ten Worst for Protecting the Poor” — perhaps because Terry O’Day finally cleaned it all up last year :P San Diego’s the only Cali city that makes the list, ranked 8th worst for protecting minorities.

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