The Mecca Spill

MECCA - Crews reported significant progress Tuesday in cleaning up a chemical spill after a train derailment Monday night near this farm worker community that triggered a precautionary evacuation of a nine-square-mile rural area.

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Residents near the crash site were rousted by emergency workers in the middle of the night and given minutes to flee.

Ernest Lo said he was awakened shortly after midnight by firefighters who pulled up to the gate of his Kimco Fish Farm on 69th Avenue.

“They were shouting, ‘Leave here right away! There’s poison in the air!” Lo said. “We grabbed our wallets and left.”

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No injuries reported from either the train accident or the chemical spill, which involved hydrochloric acid and phosphoric acid, officials said. The two spills were within about 100 to 200 yards of each other.

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The mishap forced Kinder Morgan Energy partners to shut down a 20-inch pipeline that moves gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from Colton to Phoenix.

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The derailment was the fourth Union Pacific train wreck in the Salton Sea area within the last year, according to records from the Federal Railroad Administration.

On April 3, 2007, blue-cheese salad dressing and a concrete sealant spilled when 19 cars derailed at Highway 111. On Sept. 16, one person was injured when a train struck a tractor-trailer truck.

Nov. 10, an engineer and a conductor were killed in Imperial County when two trains collided.

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The heart of Mecca’s agricultural industry lies about two miles from the derailment site.

….{snip}….

Staff Writer David Danelski contributed to this report.

Reach Steve Fetbrandt at 951-763-3473 or sfetbrandt@PE.com

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Culinary Workers, HIV Positive, also victims at Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada

 More Test Positive For Hepatitis

10 Former Center Patients Had HIV, Doctor Says

POSTED: 7:35 am PST March 5, 2008

UPDATED: 8:19 am PST March 5, 2008

LAS VEGAS — Eight more former patients at the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada have tested positive for hepatitis B and C, according to one Valley physician. This revalation comes as the Southern Nevada Health District closes a sixth facility managed by the same physician. Dr. Mike Karagiozis worked with Lab Corp. to test hundreds of people Saturday who were exposed to the virus by the Endoscopy Center. During that round of testing, Karagiozis said there were eight more people diagnosed with hepatits B and C. These patients said they did not have hepatitis before being treated at the center, but officials have not determined if they infected from their procedures from the facility. If they are able to make that determination, it will bring the number of cases to 14. Most of the patients tested on Saturday were culinary workers. During their testing, Karagoizis said they told physicians they had HIV while they were patients at the Endoscopy Center. This means that patients at the facility have the chance to be exposed to HIV, he said.

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Health Care Panic in Las Vegas

Sixth Medical Center Closed, DA Looks At Criminal Charges

Updated: March 5, 2008 08:02 AM PST

 County Suspends Licenses of Medical Centers
 
If charges of criminal neglect go forward, they could see a potential of thousands of years in prison.

The city said the clinic demonstrated a willful failure to be sanitary and called it a public nuisance.

A sixth gastroenterology center in the valley has shut down. The latest one is in North Las Vegas and was closed late Tuesday afternoon.

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The following centers are now closed:

Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada, 700 Shadow Lane
Desert Shadow Endoscopy Center, 4275 S. Burnham
Gastroenterology Center of Nevada, 4275 S. Burnham 
Spanish Hills Surgical Center, 5915 S. Rainbow Blvd.
Gastroenterology Center of Nevada, 2610 W. Horizon Ridge Parkway
Gastroenterology Center of Nevada, 1815 E. Lake Mead Blvd. #207
It now has to stop all operations or face arrest. Management must go before the North Las Vegas City Council on the 19th to appeal.

Tuesday at the fifth clinic, a Henderson city inspector met with staff and went out to his car for contact information and paperwork. When he came back, the doors were locked and management told everyone to leave before the inspection even began.

The City of Henderson then pulled the license.
City employees used the clinic, so now they must also be tested. City Manager Mary Kay Peck says the City of Henderson will pay for those tests, but she is furious the clinic and that its doctors could be so bold.

….{snip}….

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Push on for marijuana legalization - Missouri

Push on for marijuana legalization 

Updated: 2008-03-05 14:04:21-06

Patients who could benefit from the legalization of marijuana for medical use in the state of Missouri and their supporters gathered in the Missouri state capitol today. Their purpose was to ask Speaker Rod Jetton to assign House Bill 1830 to a committee so that it will have a chance to be heard. 

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Medical Marijuana Bill Clears Senate Committee in Illinois

Salem-News.com

A multiple sclerosis patient’s testimony appears to have reached legislators.

(SPRINGFIELD, Ill.) - For the second year in a row, members of the Illinois Senate Public Health Committee voted in favor of a medical marijuana bill, 6-4, after receiving written and oral testimony from medical professionals, patients, and policy experts today.

SB 2865, sponsored by Sens. John Cullerton (D-Chicago) and Donn E. Trotter (D-Chicago), both of whom serve as majority caucus whips, would protect seriously ill patients who use medical marijuana with a doctor’s recommendation from the threat of arrest and jail.

 

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The Printing Press Economy

For example, between the end of December and the middle of February alone, the money supply M2 has expanded by a compound annual rate of 12%, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. This compares with a growth rate of only 5.5% from the four weeks ending February 19, 2007 through the four weeks ending July 23, 2007.

The rate of growth for highly liquid funds which the St. Louis Fed calls MZM (money zero maturity), is even greater. It soared by an annual rate of 22.7% between December 24, 2007 and February 18 of this year.

Guess what all this money has accomplished. That’s right, Virginia, it has created a whole lot of inflation.

http://urlet.com/explain.way

Blue Lake’s gun arsenal called shocking

Blue Lake’s gun arsenal called shocking

Thadeus Greenson/The Times-Standard

Article Launched: 03/05/2008 01:30:40 AM PST

Until recently, the Blue Lake Police Department had a chief, a sergeant, two officers and 27 submachine guns.

It’s the last part that is raising some eyebrows and some concerns.

The Feb. 8 arrest of Blue Lake Police Chief David Gundersen on charges of spousal rape, and the subsequent investigation, has shed a new light on one of Humboldt County’s smallest police forces. And some information coming out of Gundersen’s case file has some wondering what was going on in the department.

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Gregory Lee, a retired supervisory special agent for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and a former FBI Academy instructor, who now works as an expert witness on police procedures, said the numbers coming out of Blue Lake are shocking.

”You sure as hell don’t need 27 machine guns for a department of four officers,” he said.

….{snip}….

Thadeus Greenson can be reached at 441-0509 or tgreenson@times-standard.com

 

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Judge refuses to block medical marijuana operation

Judge refuses to block medical marijuana operation

SIGNONSANDIEGO NEWS SERVICES

6:59 p.m. March 3, 2008

RIVERSIDE – A federal judge refused Monday to issue a preliminary injunction against a Cathedral City medical marijuana dispensary, saying that while he understood the city’s “frustration,” he did not have authority to order the business to cease operations. “This is complicated by a number of factors,” said Riverside-based U.S. District Judge Stephen G. Larson, before issuing a decision regarding Cathedral City-based Essential Herbs and Oils.

“It’s complicated by the will of the people of California and the will of the people of Cathedral City. The question is whether the city has a right to bring this action to this court at this time.” Larson said he could find no Congressional or U.S. Supreme Court precedent to validate a “private right of action” by Cathedral City, emphasizing that a federal preliminary injunction for alleged violations of the 1970 Controlled Substances Act should have been sought by the U.S. Justice Department.

“I understand the city’s frustration,” the judge said. “But I cannot resolve whether the court has the authority to do what you’re asking it to do.”

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