It seems reviews bands reunited new kids on the block certain to new kids on the bloock details be a campaign issue in next year's city elections. Since California Adventure made its debut six years ago, billed as Disneyland's hipper, edgier younger sibling, the entertainment colossus founded by Walt Disney has wandered far from the Orange County city where he launched his first park in 1955. Now, with Disney executives planning a massive retooling of the struggling California Adventure, the company is showing a renewed push to transform Anaheim's Resort District -- as much as possible -- in the image of the spectacularly successful Walt Disney World. Rather than a one- or two-day stop for guests, Disney hopes to keep visitors at its Anaheim attractions for longer stretches. "They see a hub here they didn't realize they had," suggested Al Lutz, who owns and edits the popular fan website Miceage. While the California Adventure makeover is the clearest sign yet that Disney is looking homeward, there have been recent signals the company was reinvesting in Anaheim. Last month, Disney announced it was adding 50 time-share units to the Grand Californian Hotel & Spa and broke ground on a 250-room expansion. There are also plans to bring its popular cruise line to the West Coast and capture big-spending consumers with boutique hotels. And there is continued speculation about a long-awaited third park on what is 53 acres of strawberry fields and parking lots. The California Adventure remodel comes at a time when tourism is booming in Orange County, with a reported 45 million visitors last year -- a six-year high -- and a record $8 billion in visitor spending. "This will be kind of a second renaissance for the area," said Elaine Cali, a spokeswoman for the Anaheim/Orange County Visitor and Convention Bureau. "The first came when they built California Adventure, Downtown Disney and expanded the Convention Center. "At the same time, Disney and Anaheim city leaders have been locked in a stormy yearlong dispute over a proposal to build condominiums and low-cost apartments near the parks. The battle has fueled a lawsuit, competing ballot initiatives and regular protests at council meetings -- odd behavior in a city that had a cozy relationship with Disney. Disney has found itself face-to-face with union and religious leaders who have demanded that the entertainment giant do more to provide affordable housing for its low-wage earners. It seems certain to be a campaign issue in next year's city elections. . A woman perished in a house fire late Tuesday in the 1800 block of East Kramer Drive, officials said. Firefighters arrived at the woman's two-story home about 11:30 p. m. to find the building engulfed in flames. Rescuers found the woman lying near the stairs on the first floor, Los Angeles County Fire Inspector Frank Garrido said. . Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies are investigating the vandalism of Sholom Chapel at Glenhaven Memorial Park and Mortuary sometime Friday night or Saturday morning. According to the Sheriff's Department, a vandal or vandals caused $35,000 to $50,000 in damage, tipping over pews, emptying fire extinguishers and dragging empty caskets around the Jewish chapel.

Deputies also found what they called gang-style graffiti on the sidewalks and curbs next to a mausoleum in the cemetery's Christian area. danny wood new kids on the block . Santa Barbara — Hillary Hauser walks, talks and drives as if she's in a race new kids on the blook . A race to save the ocean. Every few minutes, her outrage bubbles up and she practically spits her words. "Santa Barbara should be ashamed!" she fumes new kids on the blocl . Ashamed that a few steps from the major beachfront hotels, signs often warn against ocean swimming because of high bacteria counts. Not that Santa Barbara is alone new kids of the block . Beaches in Malibu and parts of Orange County have been notoriously fouled for years. But Hauser's area of expertise is the spectacularly scenic coastline from Goleta to Ventura. "Look at this," she says while driving across Mission Creek just above Cabrillo Boulevard in Santa Barbara. A current of green sludge with disgusting clumps of floating gunk flows past the back of a hotel and under the boulevard on its way to the sea. "It's in-sane!"I hung out with Hauser a couple of weeks ago.

She's a former Santa Barbara News-Press reporter who covered the waterfront, got hooked on trying to save the coast and eight years ago began a muckraking research and advocacy outfit called Heal the Ocean ( healtheocean. org). I knew The Times' five-part series on human destruction of the world's oceans was about to run, and I wanted to hear Hauser's thoughts on what we can do locally to make a difference. Her passion is rooted in her memory of what the coastline used to be like dirty dawg new kids on the block . In 1954, when Hauser was in fifth grade, her family moved to Miramar Beach in Montecito and she grew up marveling at the sea creatures outside her back door. "There were crabs, anemones, little shells with animals inside and hermit crabs It was a tidal pool, with eel grass, lobsters, fish newkidsontheblock . It was alive. New Kids on the Block tickets "But decades of overdevelopment, toxic runoff and the dumping of waste into the ocean have changed all that. "We killed it," Hauser says nkotb tour . The seabed where she once splashed around now looks like a dusty underwater desert. What happened?The long answer was in last week's series by my colleagues Kenneth R Weiss and Usha Lee McFarling nkotb . We've used the world's oceans as dumping grounds for sewage, chemicals, cigarette butts and disposable plastics New Kids on the Block - nkotb . We've filled the air with burned fuel that falls into the ocean by the tons each day, feeding the strangling growth of algae and bacteria New Kids on the Block - wikipedia . It's an overwhelming juggernaut, Hauser says. But there are places where water quality has been improved through human intervention, and there are ways each of us can have a hand in reversing or at least stalling the damage. In Los Angeles, for instance, her friend and counterpart Mark Gold of Heal the Bay is encouraging people to send a letter or go make a stink at the Sept.

14 meeting of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, which has failed to enforce bacteria-pollution limits on local beaches (check healthebay. org for more information). "It's better not to put fertilizer on your lawn," says Hauser hang tough new kids on the block . "It's better not to throw trash into creeks and junk down your drain nkotb merchandise . But to our way of thinking, there's this massive infrastructure problem in which we're using the ocean to dump sewage into new kids on the block dte . That is the elephant in the room. "Conventional wisdom in the Santa Barbara area and also on Santa Monica Bay is that untreated storm runoff is a bigger cause of ocean bacteria than sewage dumping, which is treated before being pumped to sea. Why's that your problem? Because the grease spot in your driveway, the greeting card left by your dog, the hamburger wrapper that blows out of your hand -- they're all likely to end up in the ocean. Or if you live along the coast and you have a leaky septic tank, you may end up swimming in the last thing you flushed. In Hauser's office is an aerial map of all the septic tanks between Goleta and Carpinteria, with a red dot for each new kisd on the block . The map is full of them, and Hauser says all that red means a lot of septic crud is leaching into groundwater and emptying into creek beds that flow to the ocean. Her veins bulge when she talks about the history of using septic tanks instead of modern sewage systems in places like Hope Ranch in Santa Barbara and in Malibu as a means of controlling growth. "Un-be-lievable!"She's fought to regulate septic tanks and hook homes up to sewage systems. But she's also screamed and yelled about the need to upgrade ancient sewage pipes and extend pumping farther out to sea, especially since hepatitis A and enteric viruses have been detected on beaches. She bristles when she recalls a 2004 fight in Montecito, one of the wealthiest communities in the nation, to modestly raise sewer rates so the city could upgrade the sewage system. Even with the increase, the rate is less than the average monthly cost of cable TV service. Although most experts agree that secondary treatment breaks down nearly all solids and disinfects sewage, Hauser thinks we can do better.

Upgrading to tertiary treatment, she says, would cost less than an additional $13 a month in the city of Santa Barbara. Hauser has dived near outfalls along the Santa Barbara coast, where she has seen solids surge from pipes ill be loving you forever new kids on the block . Summerland, she says, dumps its sewage 740 feet from the beach in 19 feet of water new kids on the bolck . Carpinteria discharges 1,000 feet out in 25 feet of water. It ought to be at least a mile or 80 feet of water, Hauser argues, whichever comes first. She and I stand on the bluff at Butterfly Beach, next to the Biltmore Hotel, and she points to a spot just 1,550 feet offshore new kids on the blokc. That's where Montecito's outfall pipe dumps millions of gallons of sewage into just 22 feet of water. "Right into the surf zone," Hauser says "With the right wind and light, you can see the boil And look at this nkotb t shirts . You've got kids swimming down on the beach. "As we stand above the rolling surf, a short walk from where Hauser once investigated tidal pools teeming with life, the midday sun casts a golden glow on a fragile stretch of paradise. "I really believe that one of these days," Hauser says, "we're going to say, 'We did what!? We were out of our minds!' "Reach the columnist at steve. lopez and read previous columns at latimes /lopezIn Los Angeles, for instance, her friend and counterpart Mark Gold of Heal the Bay is encouraging people to send a letter or go make a stink at the Sept. 14 meeting of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, which has failed to enforce bacteria-pollution limits on local beaches (check healthebay. org for more information). "It's better not to put fertilizer on your lawn," says Hauser. "It's better not to throw trash into creeks and junk down your drain.

But to our way of thinking, there's this massive infrastructure problem in which we're using the ocean to dump sewage into . That is the elephant in the room. "Conventional wisdom in the Santa Barbara area and also on Santa Monica Bay is that untreated storm runoff is a bigger cause of ocean bacteria than sewage dumping, which is treated before being pumped to sea. Why's that your problem? Because the grease spot in your driveway, the greeting card left by your dog, the hamburger wrapper that blows out of your hand -- they're all likely to end up in the ocean. Or if you live along the coast and you have a leaky septic tank, you may end up swimming in the last thing you flushed. In Hauser's office is an aerial map of all the septic tanks between Goleta and Carpinteria, with a red dot for each new kids on the blcok . The map is full of them, and Hauser says all that red means a lot of septic crud is leaching into groundwater and emptying into creek beds that flow to the ocean. Her veins bulge when she talks about the history of using septic tanks instead of modern sewage systems in places like Hope Ranch in Santa Barbara and in Malibu as a means of controlling growth . "Un-be-lievable!"She's fought to regulate septic tanks and hook homes up to sewage systems nkotb tickets . But she's also screamed and yelled about the need to upgrade ancient sewage pipes and extend pumping farther out to sea, especially since hepatitis A and enteric viruses have been detected on beaches. She bristles when she recalls a 2004 fight in Montecito, one of the wealthiest communities in the nation, to modestly raise sewer rates so the city could upgrade the sewage system . Even with the increase, the rate is less than the average monthly cost of cable TV service New Kids on the Block . Although most experts agree that secondary treatment breaks down nearly all solids and disinfects sewage, Hauser thinks we can do better. Upgrading to tertiary treatment, she says, would cost less than an additional $13 a month in the city of Santa Barbara. Hauser has dived near outfalls along the Santa Barbara coast, where she has seen solids surge from pipes. Summerland, she says, dumps its sewage 740 feet from the beach in 19 feet of water.