OAK VIEW : Youths Clean Up 10 Tons of Trash

By the time the kids from Ojai’s Camp Ramah finished cleaning out an illegal dump in Oak View on Friday by removing 10 tons of trash, the side of Santa Ana Road above the site started to look like a junkyard.

“With 10 abandoned cars hauled up from the (Ventura) riverbed, it looked like an automobile graveyard,” said Scott Mathes, director of the California Environmental Project.

For the second straight year, a group of teen-agers from Camp Ramah, a Jewish summer camp, chose to clean up the illegal dump in the river canyon rather than pursue recreational activities, he said. The youths spent the last three weeks on the project. “Cleaning the canyon wasn’t fun compared to surfing, art or drama, but the kids know it is something that lasts and they appreciated the opportunity to make a difference,” Mathes said.

Last year, camp participants pulled up six tons of refuse and discarded appliances, he said. This year, they returned to haul 10 more tons of debris from the site that had been used as an illegal dump for 20 years.

Besides the junked cars, among the items recovered from the canyon were couches, refrigerators, dishwashers, water heaters, filing cabinets, tables, chairs, carpets, fiberglass insulation, yard waste, scrap wood, 60 gallons of motor oil and four 55-gallon drums containing what appeared to be oil residue. The last of the abandoned cars was scheduled to have been hauled away by today.

“Every time we pulled up something, we found something else underneath,” Mathes said. “But in most areas, we have finally dug our way down to clean dirt.”

Mathes said volunteers who help the Glendale-based California Environmental Project come to realize that cleaning up debris in canyons is important to protecting the environment.

“We hope people will recognize that the trash they throw into the canyons and ravines has the potential for poisoning our ecosystem,” Mathes said. Mercury, Freon and lead from appliances can leak into the ground water at illegal dumps like the one in Oak View, which is located on an important local supply of drinking water, he said.

“Cleaning up trash is not very glamorous, but it’s gratifying to see the difference,” Mathes said.