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Three environmental groups have filed suit against a Pittsburg chemical plant alleging that for five years it dumped hazardous materials in an unauthorized wastewater treatment system or incinerated them in a substandard furnace. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Air quality concerns prompted a temporary shelter-in-place warning Tuesday following an explosion at a tank farm at a NuStar Energy facility in Rodeo. The shelter-in-place was lifted at about 9:30 p.m., several hours after officials advised residents to stay indoors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A portion of the Fairmont Hotel in downtown San Jose was evacuated Saturday after a suspected suicide involving a poisonous gas sent several other people to the hospital, according to San Jose fire officials. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A suspicious package delivered to a Facebook mailroom in Menlo Park tested negative for hazardous substances, company officials said Tuesday. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

State health officials on Friday removed radioactive materials from a San Carlos home, officials said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In a battle over transparency and the fate of a $5 billion redevelopment project, an environmental watchdog group is suing the U.S. Navy for withholding information about radioactive substances on Treasure Island. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With a high-tech economy and strict environmental codes, the Bay Area is not known as a hub of heavy industry and dangerous pollution. But there is still opportunity for dangerous chemicals to stir up a scare. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Whole Foods Market will pay $1.64 million to settle claims by 21 cities and counties in California that its stores improperly handled and disposed of hazardous wastes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In early May, a retired San Francisco police officer contacted The Chronicle with intriguing information: The city had moved a group of elite officers into a building on a Superfund waste site in the late 1990s, and some police employees still worked there. Reporters Jason Fagone and Cynthia Dizikes began speaking with veterans of Building 606, ultimately interviewing 30 former cops who'd worked there. Through public records requests, they obtained thousands of pages of documents and emails related to the building and its surroundings. Reporters also examined records of the Navy's Cold War radiation experiments at the National Archives in San Bruno. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A building at a sewage treatment plant near Lake Merced Park was evacuated Friday morning as San Francisco fire officials responded to a hazardous materials situation, authorities said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A bit of lunchtime street theater came to the Financial District on Monday as attorneys who have filed a lawsuit against the firm accused of failing to clean up the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, along with a few of their clients, tried unsuccessfully to present their lawsuit to Tetra Tech and its spokesperson. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Thirty-five patients are getting treated for chemical exposure after a San Jose pool attendant poured the wrong type of chemicals in pool tanks at the Shadow Brook Swim Club around noon Thursday, officials said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Mayor Mark Farrell wants to set the record straight: He absolutely would recommend the San Francisco Shipyard development to friends or relatives looking to buy a condominium, regardless of the escalating scandal over the botched cleanup of the Superfund site. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

(Editor's note: The San Francisco City Attorney announced at 5:30 p.m., Wednesday, May 16, that San Francisco and nine other California cities and counties have reached a settlement agreement to fund remediation of lead paint. As part of the settlement, NL Industries has agreed to immediately withdraw support of the Healthy Homes and Schools initiative, according to the press release.) [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It's one thing to read about "environmental justice." It's another thing to see it play out before our very eyes. Case in point: the unfolding saga of the Hunters Point Shipyard cleanup, which could be one of the worst environmental injustices in California history. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A lawyer representing Bayview-Hunters Point residents has filed a class-action lawsuit against Tetra Tech, the environmental engineering company recently accused of fraud related to the $1 billion cleanup of the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The company accused of fraud in the $1 billion environmental cleanup at the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard aggressively defended itself Tuesday, its executives contending the work was done strictly by the book and saying the firm would pay for a retesting of the property. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite state laws and repeated warnings from its own staff, California State University has done a poor job of protecting half a million students and employees from hazardous materials used in labs and classrooms, the state auditor said in a report released Tuesday. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A city commission on Tuesday unanimously approved a comprehensive reimagining of the 400-acre former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard project as an "incubation zone," with a hotel, schools and maker spaces. The vote took place even as the U.S. Navy has admitted that the $1 billion clean up of the Superfund site was botched by widespread fraud and cheating. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Home Depot has agreed to pay $27.8 million to settle a lawsuit by the state accusing the company of illegally dumping hazardous wastes from its California stores and discarding customer records without concealing the customers' identities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A Palo Alto man pleaded guilty Wednesday to illegally transporting hazardous materials to his chemical supply company in Union City and will step down as chief executive, federal prosecutors in San Francisco said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

San Francisco Police on Thursday night barricaded a 1� block strip beneath the Hilton Hotel in Union Square while crews worked to remove a piece of debris dangling from the roof. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An overpass to Highway 101 in Novato looked like a science experiment gone awry Tuesday when a several containers of an acid used as a pool cleaner apparently fell off a vehicle and caused the roadway to bubble and smoke, officials said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The apparent release of pepper spray inside a J.C. Penney department store in Antioch on Tuesday night is believed to have caused 11 people to have trouble breathing, officials said Wednesday. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A substance released into the air inside a J.C. Penney department store in Antioch on Tuesday evening caused 11 people to have trouble breathing, officials said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A San Jose middle school was evacuated for about three hours Friday when a staff member found an backpack containing a bottle labeled "Nitroglycerin" - police said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Big Lots Stores Inc. will pay $3.5 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that the discount chain mishandled hazardous waste, the Alameda County district attorney's office said Thursday. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The third mercury spill in the same Antioch neighborhood since December shut down part of a residential street Monday afternoon as a hazardous materials team worked to contain it, official said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Firefighters battled and extinguished a three-alarm blaze early Saturday at a lab at Stanford Hospital that contained bio-hazardous waste, officials said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Investigators were still trying to figure out on Tuesday why a 70-foot-tall oak tree toppled on a quiet street in east Ukiah, smashing through the roof of a single-story home and crushing to death a 35-year old woman who was lying asleep in bed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A woman was being treated for exposure to lead oxide and lead azide after a small explosion at a South Bay plant, authorities said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

At least 26 employees at a San Francisco Recology Center were sickened Friday morning after a hazardous-materials situation inside the company's Pier 96 building, fire officials said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A tiny Wine Country town with little more than a popular barbecue joint and a smattering of homes has become the latest battleground over trains hauling hazardous fuel. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A Hayward painting company admitted Thursday that at least one of its workers dumped sealcoating liquid into a creek in an unincorporated area of Alameda County, angering residents who demanded the county clean the water. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An employee of a Palo Alto company was hospitalized and more than a dozen co-workers were evaluated for chemical exposure after an "unexpected" chemical reaction, authorities said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The California Supreme Court reinstated a multimillion-dollar jury verdict Monday for the family of a worker who inhaled asbestos dust on the job and later died of lung cancer. The ruling provided some legal protection - though not in this case - to suppliers of dangerous products who count on manufacturers to warn consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The S.S. Jacob Luckenbach sank more then 60 years ago after colliding with another ship 17 miles southwest of the Golden Gate Bridge, but the 469-foot freighter is still posing an environmental hazard from its ocean grave, leaking hundreds of thousands of gallons of bunker oil that has left birds coated in the gunk, officials said Monday. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday proposed spending $176.6 million from the state's general fund to expedite testing and cleanup of the former Exide battery-recycling facility in the Los Angeles County industrial city of Vernon. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Comcast has agreed to pay nearly $26 million to settle claims by the state and Alameda County that the company routinely and illegally dumped hazardous electronic equipment into local landfills and failed to shred records that contained customers' names, addresses and phone numbers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Several Oakland businesses were evacuated Monday morning after a package containing a "suspicious powdery substance" was sent to an office, prompting officials to close a section of Ninth Street, police said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A strange odor prompted the evacuations of at least 120 people from several buildings in San Francisco's Mission District Wednesday morning, but a hazardous materials team was unable to find the source of the foul smell, authorities said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Dollar Tree has agreed to pay $2.7 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that it illegally threw hazardous waste products into trash bins, prosecutors said Friday. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit by environmental groups over shipments of volatile crude oil to the Richmond rail terminal, saying they had waited too long to challenge regulators' approval of the project - approval they discovered only after the deadline for going to court. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

San Francisco officials this week released the addresses on Treasure Island where higher-than-normal radiation readings were detected underground in recent months. And they again sought to assure the public that the tests did not indicate there is a health threat. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

New research from San Francisco State University suggests that people with schizophrenia may have an easier time completing larger tasks if they are broken down into smaller pieces. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The state Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to decide whether a former Bay Area man who is dying of an asbestos-related cancer can sue a company that employed his uncle, who used to come home with his clothes covered in asbestos dust. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A federal magistrate signaled Friday that he's likely to dismiss a lawsuit by environmental groups challenging the government's approval of 50 pesticides over nearly a decade. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Oakland's Lake Temescal will be closed to swimmers, waders and cannonball divers for the foreseeable future after a scuzzy layer of toxic blue-green algae has enveloped the lake, park officials said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Pharmaceutical companies argued Friday that Alameda County's first-in-the-nation law, requiring them to pay for disposing of leftover drugs in medicine cabinets, places an unfair burden on out-of-state drug manufacturers. But a federal appeals court seemed skeptical. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]