What an incredible effort on behalf of these volunteers to clean up our waterway… letter to the editor follows the photo, but here’s a key quote:

…our band of enthusiastic volunteers picked up 212 pounds of trash and recyclables, plus at least 1,000 pounds of large items such as couches, tires, lawnmowers, and construction material. You read right, there are folks using an embankment off south Matilija Road as their personal landfill.

(photo (c) Rich Reid)

On Saturday, September 20, 22 volunteers from the Ojai Valley gathered on Highway 33 near Matilija Dam with the goal of picking up as much litter as possible in three hours. The clean-up was coordinated by Mary Maranville of the Ventura County Conservation Resource District and the Ojai Valley Green Coalition. This event also partnered with the 24th annual California Coastal Clean-up (the third Saturday of each September), which in turn is tied in with the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup—the largest organized volunteer event in the world.
We didn’t head down to the beach because, well, we have plenty of litter in our own backyard and the thought was “Let’s catch the litter before it heads to the ocean.” Information from the Coastal Commission’s after-event press release bears out the appropriateness of that idea:

Past Coastal Cleanup Day data tell us that most (between 60-80 percent) of the debris on our beaches and shorelines comes from inland sources, traveling through storm drains or creeks out to the beaches and ocean. Rain or even something as simple as hosing down a sidewalk can wash cigarette butts, bits of Styrofoam, pesticides, and oil into the storm drains and out to the ocean.

The press release further echoes the sentiment of the volunteers:

The California Coastal Commission is asking all Californians to take responsibility for making sure trash goes where it belongs: securely in a trash can, recycling bin, or hazardous waste dump when appropriate.

Cleaning up between south and north Matilija Road, plus litter from the dog leg of Rice Road off Fairview, our band of enthusiastic volunteers picked up 212 pounds of trash and recyclables, plus at least 1,000 pounds of large items such as couches, tires, lawnmowers, and construction material. You read right, there are folks using an embankment off south Matilija Road as their personal landfill. So with this mass of debris, it would have been impossible to clean up the area right without the generosity of E. J. Harrison, the waste management hauler for the city of Ojai and other parts of the valley. Through the efforts of representative Nan Drake, not only did the company drop off and pick up a 40-yard roll-off bin at no charge, they also waived dumping fees.
As demonstrated by all the volunteers and E.J. Harrison, it takes a village…
Thank you.
Deborah Pendrey
Ojai Valley Green Coalition