VISUAL IMPACT: The Clear Air Fund, administered...

VISUAL IMPACT: The Clear Air Fund, administered by the Ventura County’s Air Pollution Control District, has helped pay for a 13-minute educational video, “Our Future Is Up in the Air,” about the local smog problem. The program was narrated--at no cost--by “Star Trek” veteran Leonard Nimoy. District spokeswoman Barbara Page, who produced “Our Future,” says the actor was “very prepared . . . it took him less than two hours” to narrate the video, which was a finalist for an international video award.

SOLAR SWIM: Allen Carrozza helped Buena High in Ventura cut 175 pounds of air emissions annually when he used a $20,000 grant from the Clean Air Fund to reconnect the solar heating system attached to the school’s pool. . . . Carrozza, president of Scholfield Solar Energy Co. in Ventura, says he was determined to fix the system, which yearly saves up to $15,000 in heating bills. “For 10 years, I would drive by that system. . . . It was bugging me to no end that [it] was sitting idle.”

CLEAN BUS: Crews have been working feverishly at APS Systems in Oxnard to prepare for today’s rollout of an all-aluminum, electric-powered bus that will join Santa Barbara’s municipal fleet. Uzi Cantoni, APS vice president, says the low-floor, 35-passenger bus “doesn’t have any hump” where the differential would normally go. . . . This is the 15th electric vehicle delivered by APS, a defense contractor that makes warplane ground-support systems.

SKY HIGH: Oxnard science teacher Dennis Lang helped the pollution control district shape a high school lesson plan called “Sky High” that focuses on the county’s air quality problems. “The whole purpose of the curriculum is to get the kids to realize that they’ve got to make some hard decisions to clean up the air,” says Lang. . . . Students developed several solutions, “such as charging for parking at shopping centers for any car with fewer than three riders.”