February 10, 2024 VC Star Among other benefits, mulch and compost can help prevent erosion from heavy rain. Mulch on soil surface works immediately after being applied correctly, reducing the impact of rain and slowing the flow of runoff. Compost, incorporated into soil, works long after being applied by promoting the growth of soil-holding roots.…
VC Star February 3, 2024 By David Goldstein No one I know would intentionally dump plastics into the ocean, but we are all doing it unintentionally. Steve Sprinkel, an Ojai Valley farmer, returned last month from the 44th Annual EcoFarm Conference at Asilomar, in Pacific Grove, where he learned about the extent of ocean pollution…
VC Star January 27, 2024 By David Goldstein The electronic gifts you gave in December may have drained batteries by now. Some electronics come with low-quality, single-use batteries, ensuring a toy or device works long enough to make it unreturnable to a store. Perfectly good toys end up in thrift stores or garbage carts because…
December 16, 2023 VC Star The 28th United Nations Conference of Parties — COP28 — bringing together the 197 countries that signed a 1992 agreement on climate change wrapped up in Dubai last week. They came to unanimous consensus on a tentative world agreement related to transition away from fossil fuels. However, the Alliance of…
Ventura County Public Works Agency Awarded Project of the Year Honorable Mention (VENTURA COUNTY, Calif.) – December 7, 2023 – The Santa Barbara-Ventura Branch of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) announced on December 7, 2023, that Ventura County Public Works Agency (VCPWA) has received an honorable mention for the 2022-2023 Project of the Year.…
November 25, 2023 VC Star Last year, during the week after Thanksgiving, Rosa Cruz, manager of Coastal Byproducts in Oxnard, received an unusual phone call from a homeowner in Montecito. “Can you please come collect cooking oil from my house?” the caller asked. Cruz explained the minimum requirements of her company, saying, “Drop-off here is…
November 18, 2023 Last week, I had the honor of making a lunchtime presentation to the lovely ladies of the Somis Thursday Club. I asked them, “How do you know whether something is recyclable?” The first response was, “Three arrows in a triangle! …Right?” For more than 100 years, their social club and service club…
November 11, 2023 VC Star The United States Flag Code is a federal law, but compliance depends on goodwill. Within our country’s general population, inconsistency is common. Many people seem to take great offense when someone refuses to honor the code’s rules for standing in the presence of the flag during the playing of the…
November 5, 2023 VC Star You probably know you can place food scraps in your organics curbside cart, but do you know what types of organics belong in the garbage cart? The organics cart at many homes is still labeled “yard waste only,” even though lumber has always been allowed and food scraps are now…
November 2, 2023 Ojai Valley News A new website with resources to inform, educate and help prepare people for flooding has been launched by the Ventura County Public Works Agency. View the website at https://vcfloodinfo.org/. The website shows real-time storm data, linked from the Ventura County Flood Warning System, showing the status of flooding in…