Compost and Contests at Earth Day Festival : Event in Oxnard will have many displays of items and ideas friendly to the environment.

This weekend, at the Earth Day Festival in Oxnard, Jessica Craven will be dispensing pots full of compost. “It’s my own special blend,” she said while preparing the stuff at Oxnard College, the site of an all-day environmental rock ‘n’ roll, show-and-tell event Saturday.

Craven is an Oxnard city employee with the mysterious title of solid waste intern. Her concoction, which will be offered free in a flower pot with an accompanying seed packet, will be featured at the Oxnard Beautiful booth. A score of such displays and environmentally friendly food booths, along with four bands and three dance groups, will provide Ventura County residents a fun setting to check out the latest eco-trends.

Depending on what kind of kids you have, certain booths and displays may be of special interest. For a dollar, the Audubon Society can keep them busy building a birdhouse. Nearby, youthful imaginations might be engaged by the “Sewer Sucker,” a huge device being exhibited at the festival by the folks from the city’s waste water treatment plant.

Craven, my official informant on such matters in Oxnard, confessed to having named the machine, which performs a sort of subterranean angioplasty. Normally it’s called “System Vactor.” Star Trek comes to waste management.

As part of the Interpretive Outreach Program, the city of Ventura will operate a booth stocked with reptiles to demonstrate the place of creatures such as gopher snakes and turtle hatchlings in our local ecosystem.

The Humane Society of Ventura County will have a pet adoption booth for those who want to take an animal home from the festival.

The county’s Solid Waste Management will have a contest booth where you can match wits with the manufacturers of powerful household products you see advertised on TV. The game is to formulate your own version of cleansers that are nontoxic and non-polluting and can be made at home.

Kids will probably prefer to contemplate the musical challenges provided by the rock bands--Trouser Trouts, Lion I’s, Brutal DLX and Ska Daddyz--scheduled to play at the festival.

My favorite booth will be the display by Materials Exchange, operated by the Ventura County superintendent of schools. As Earthwatch readers know, I relish the very idea of finding novel reuses for things.

Since January, Elaine Daughtery, a science teacher on special assignment to the county, has been conducting the Materials Exchange program Saturdays at the superintendent’s headquarters.

There, she collects and redistributes a dazzling variety of stuff. Saved from being put in landfills thanks to environmentally minded local businesses, the stock consists of everything from odd-lot printing paper to used computers to weatherstripping to desks.

This week she will begin providing--on loan--a remarkable environmental videotape. Teachers can sign up for it at the booth. The five-minute tape is the environmental message of a remarkable 12-year-old girl, Severn Suzuki, whose father, David, is a famous Canadian scientist who hosts the television show “The Nature of Things,” seen on PBS in this country.

Severn Suzuki delivered her message to world leaders at the Earth Summit in Rio. The power of her speech, combined with the astounding poise of her delivery, merits wide notice.

“Parents,” says Severn, in one part of the tape, “used to sacrifice so kids could have a good life. Now you are saying we kids must sacrifice our future so you can have a good life today.”

On this Earth Day, or any Earth Day, I cannot think of a better thing to recommend for contemplation and inspiration.

Details

* WHAT: An Earth Day Festival and Open House includes 17 exhibits, 12 food booths, four bands, three dance groups, one sewer sucker.

* WHEN: Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

* WHERE: Oxnard College, 4000 S. Rose Ave., Oxnard.

* HOW MUCH: Admission is free.

* FYI: 385-8060 or 986-5847.

* ETC: Those interested in purchasing a copy of Severin Suzuki’s videotaped speech at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio can call the Center for Environmental Education at (310) 454-4585. The tape is $5.