CHANNEL ISLANDS BEACH : Regional Recycling Plan Given Support

Directors of the affluent, unincorporated community of Channel Islands Beach have voted to support countywide planning to build regional recycling facilities.

At the same time, officials with the Channel Islands Community Service District criticized Oxnard city officials for pushing ahead with plans to build a facility of their own.

“We don’t want a rush to judgment,” said Patrick Forrest, board president, about Oxnard’s independent pursuit of a recycling center. Forrest warned the board that recycling facilities have been dubbed “green elephants” by communities that have invested large sumsof money in them only to see them fail.

In an advisory vote this week, the directors recommended that county supervisors approve the proposed Ventura County Waste Management Authority that would select two sites for regional recycling facilities.

Such a public agency would represent as many of the county’s 10 cities as want to participate, as well as the county government.

Approval by five of the 11 potential members is required before the joint-power agency can be formed.

So far, the cities of Camarillo and Ojai have approved the plan.

The Santa Paula City Council voted to delay any decision to join until a later date.

Solid waste experts consider regional recycling centers essential for local governments to meet state-mandated goals to reduce the trash going to landfills by 25% by 1995 and 50% by 2000.

Gerard W. Kapuscik, general manager of the Channel Islands Beach community, said approval of a countywide approach would reinforce the district’s successful lawsuit last year against the Ventura Regional Sanitation District over its support of an Oxnard facility.

In the suit, the district argued that the sanitation district should have examined other sites in its environmental study of the Oxnard facility.