CALABASAS : Water District Offers Free Compost

After much preparation, the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District is now offering free compost to its customers, as well as to clients of the Triunfo Sanitation District.

Last Saturday, on the first day the compost was offered, 48 customers showed up at Rancho Las Virgenes Composting Facility, the district’s new sludge-recycling facility, said Bobbe Wymer, the district’s spokeswoman. A total of 20 cubic yards of the product was given away.

“The people who came,” Wymer said, “ranged from people in Mercedeses, who put five-gallon buckets into the trunks of their cars, to people in pickup trucks who filled up the back.”

The state-of-the-art sludge-processing facility--which has been touted as the answer to the area’s recycling needs--opened in September. Sludge is carried by pipe from the Tapia Water Reclamation Facility, about two miles away, and processed at Rancho Las Virgenes.

Under the free composting program, customers can come every Saturday and take home a limit of one pickup truck full per customer, Wymer said. Customers must provide their own containers and load the compost themselves.

Landscapers and other commercial enterprises are not eligible for the compost, which is safe to use on gardens.

“One guy wanted to bring his dump truck, and I told him he couldn’t,” said Jim Graham, the facility’s compost marketing coordinator.

Pickup hours are 9 a.m. to noon each Saturday at the facility, at the intersection of Las Virgenes and Lost Hills roads in Calabasas, Wymer said. The facility will be closed on Dec. 24 and 31 for the holidays. It will be open Nov. 26, the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

The district plans to contact the program’s participants later and ask how them how well the compost is performing, said Graham. “We want to know how well their plants like it,” he said.

In three months, the district’s Board of Directors will review the program to see how well it is working, said Wymer.

Meanwhile, the district has approved a contract with Carson-based Kellogg Supply Inc., which will market most of the compost generated by the facility, Graham said.

Under the five-year contract, Kellogg will provide free sawdust needed to make the compost, Graham said. In exchange, Kellogg will get the finished compost for free.

The district must buy back the compost that is provided to Las Virgenes’ customers, Graham said. The facility is now producing 350 cubic yards per month of compost.