The Center for Biological Diversity's “On Shaky Ground: Fracking, Acidizing and Increased Earthquake Risk in California” says that of the state's 1,553 active wastewater injection wells used in the processes 6% are within one mile of a known fault, 23% are within five miles and 54% are within 10 miles. Much of the drilling in high-risk zones is located near heavily-populated areas.   read more

A Los Angeles Times story highlighted criticism of the department’s relationship with the developer, who has worked for three decades to put 20,000 homes and 60,000 people along the environmentally sensitive Santa Clara River, just days before another lawsuit was filed to halt the project. A common complaint has been the close nature of relationships between developers and government agencies that oversee them.   read more

On Sunday, Democrats closed out their party convention in Los Angeles by approving a platform that supports a fracking ban, free universal pre-school for 4-year-olds and legal recreational marijuana. All three are opposed by Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat. Polling shows statewide support for all three measures, but it remains to be seen if any of the positions will become law.   read more

Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley issued two rulings that the transfer was a mistake because the state had failed to properly assess the environmental impacts of the move. Critics say those effects have been harsh. “There is essentially no analysis of potential future operational impacts,” Judge Frawley wrote.   read more

Some critics said the expansion was classic mission creep, as government sought to Hoover up any and all information it could get its hands on for indeterminate storage and undetermined use. Other critics went further, saying the entire center should be decommissioned and that the center was still poised to expand at a later date.   read more

It is not clear how successful the bureau has been at solving graffiti cases in the past—nor is it clear if they’ll play a role in this one—but the spray painting of nine homes and a car with testy slogans like “Fuck the 1%” have garnered national attention. “Sometimes the FBI will monitor protest groups and things of that nature,” Atherton Police Lieutenant Joe Wade told the San Jose Mercury News.   read more

“14,500 consumers who partially completed their applications or submitted updates to existing applications within the time frame . . . should either start a new application or resubmit any updates they made.” Around 6,500 applicants who completed their applications and thought they were done are not. Applications from another 16,000 likely Medi-Cal qualifiers were also messed up.   read more

The judge said Prop. 9 “creates a significant risk” that a prisoner’s sentence will be longer than the law mandated when the case was decided. Although the initiative provides a mechanism for a parole board to actually advance a hearing, Karlton found that promise “illusory” because of hurdles the board erects. The judge also found that governors misused Proposition 89 by wielding it as a weapon to arbitrarily delay paroles rather than employ it to review prisoner applications on their merit.   read more

More than 500 people in O.C. applied for permits since the February 13 ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. That exceeds all the county permit requests in 2013. The applicants aren’t waiting to find out if an appeal filed Thursday by California Attorney General Kamala Harris is successful.   read more

Documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times showed that 55% of the 296,030 appeals were approved by the judges between July 2012 and October 2013. EDD workers had denied benefits for a range of reasons, including alleged false statements on forms, quitting a job voluntarily, receiving benefits overpayments and not being available to work. Around 70% of the cases in which EDD employees said claimants had broken department regulations were reversed.   read more

From now on, when two occupants disagree over letting police enter their home without a warrant, the cops can haul the obstinate one to jail and go on in. The U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 to narrow Fourth Amendment prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure by focusing on the presence of someone asserting that right. The ruling was a victory for law enforcement agencies.   read more

Two workers were burned when acid from a broken pipe splashed them. The next day investigators for the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) visited the refinery. They want to return to gather more information but Tesoro lawyers say it lacks jurisdiction. I can't think of another refinery or chemical plant that has taken a position that injuries aren't serious enough for us to investigate and that we lack jurisdiction,” CSB Managing Director Dan Horowitz told the Contra Costa Times.   read more

The initiative was relegated to the back burner by supporters who will stop gathering signatures. It would have let people 21 and older buy less than an ounce of marijuana and grow up to six plants for personal use. It also would have levied a stiff 25% tax on pot sales. Alliance Deputy Executive Director Stephen Gutwillig said that waiting until 2016 has a lot of advantages. The population will be younger and their turnout will be higher in a presidential election year.   read more

A federal judge rejected a lawsuit Wednesday inspired by the National Rifle Association (NRA) to overturn a San Francisco ordinance passed last year that limits to 10 bullets the size of an ammunition magazine possessed in the city. The “right to bear arms,” protected by the Second Amendment to the Constitution, is not denied simply because a gun owner has to snap in another 10-bullet magazine in order to keep firing.   read more

Deputies receive up to 1,000 alerts a day. Most of the false positives are predictable and were actually predicted. An alert goes off when contact with the wireless ankle strap-on device is lost, even if the signal was just blocked by a building or lost to a dead battery. It also goes off if the wearer travels someplace he shouldn’t be, which is hard not to do.   read more

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth District ruled 2-1 (pdf) that restrictions put in place by San Diego County under the California law violated the Constitution’s Second Amendment by requiring that an applicant show “good cause” to carry a gun. They should pretty much only have to indicate they want a gun for protection, the court said.   read more