Watts and Wine : Brush and other overgrowth from your yard can be a valuable resource once it’s cut and removed.

This is one of my favorite type of stories--where the hero is provoked into virtue. The title is, “We Turn Weeds into Watts and Wine.” The hero is you, me or the landscape contractor.

The virtue involved is, of course, helping the environment. The thing provoking us is the threat of getting into trouble with the Fire Department if we let weeds and brush on our property grow high, dry out and constitute a fire hazard. But how does it help the planet if we grind up the undergrowth?

“People in Ventura are going to have such a problem with weed and brush growth this year because of the rains,” says Kathy Taylor, head of the weed abatement program for the Ventura Fire Department. “We want the Fire Department to be customer-service oriented, not just enforcement (oriented). So we have a special program this year.”

Generally, she explained, if you ignore weed growth on an empty lot you own, or within less than 100 feet of your house or garage, the Fire Department comes in and cuts the weeds to the regulation three inches. Then they send you the bill.

This month and next, Ventura residents who have received their annual weed abatement notice from the Fire Department can unload their first truck or trailer load free of charge at California Wood Recycling.

This Ventura firm is in the business of providing city residents with a place to take weed and brush and tree trimmings--instead of to the landfill. The second load--or loads from communities other than Ventura--will be charged a modest fee, such as $6 for a six-foot-truck bed load.

This might seem like a great way to rid yourself of useless, fire hazard organic material. In fact, weeds and brush can be a valuable resource once they are cut from your yard.

But this wasn’t always the case. Until recently this kind of “green waste” was being dumped--taking up almost a third of our expensive landfill space.

Roena Holland and her husband Richard, co-owners of California Wood Recycling, began accepting brush along with scrap construction lumber this week, and crating and forklift pallets about a year and a half ago.

They grind two sorts of mulch. Smaller than one inch or “yard fine” is meant for sale locally. Larger than one-inch is sold to broker Jim Leguri from the San Joaquin Valley who trucks it to Fresno. There it is burned in generators to make electricity. Leguri’s users are privately owned power plants in central California who sell electricity to Southern California Edison Co. These generators are environmentally equipped and don’t pollute.

Leguri also collects orchard trimmings, weeds and brush. This is mulched for sale as soil amendment and water-retaining ground cover for vineyards that supply Dole foods with organic raisins and Gallo with organic wine grapes.

This brings me back to Ventura County. We can utilize “yard fine” mulch hereabouts just as Dole does. California Wood Recycling produces it for sale at $6.50 a cubic yard if you pick it up.

But you don’t have to buy it from somebody else. You can make it and use it yourself.

“Mulch mowing your own place is coming on here in California because of ecology. We always did it at home in the Midwest because of the leaves--for fertilizer,” Emil Wolf told me when I called Empire Tractor Co. in Oxnard.

It’s just a matter of getting a “mulching kit” for your current mower. Whether you have a “walk-behind” or a ride-on, you can get these attachments from Emil or any other mower dealer for between $30 and $100. It enables you to whack those weeds down to the regulation three inches and simultaneously recut them into less than one-inch bits. These get blown down among the stalks for duty as soil amendment.

Kathy Taylor of the Fire Department says it’s legal to leave your trimmings on the ground in this manner. Just don’t try to stack up piles over three inches high. You can rent big specialty “weed mowers” for larger growths. Call a mower dealer or mower renter and describe your situation. He’ll tell you how to be a hero.

* ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Earthwatch columnist Richard Kahlenberg has worked on behalf of Greenpeace and has been active in The Urban Resource Network and The Environmental Coalition.

* FYI

* City of Ventura Weed Abatement Program (which has been extended to June 30 this year) offers free dumping of cleared weeds and brush. Kathy Taylor 339-4336.

* California Wood Recycling 650-8852.

* Empire Tractor of Oxnard (mulching kits), 483-3515.

* Simi U-Rent (mulch mowers), 526-5261.