Santa Barbara Green Guide 2024

SA N TA B A R B A R A G R E E N G U I DE

S A N TA B A R B A R A

Green Guide BROUGHT TO YOU BY

2024/25

2024 –2025

SIMPLE / SMART / SUSTAINABLE / STORIES

SantaBarbara GreenGuide.com

DRIVE LESS/BIKE MORE · ECO INSPO FOR HOMES AND GARDENS THE SUSTAINABLE CHUMASH · NATURE WE’VE PRESERVED FEEL-GOOD SEAFOOD · INNOVATORS AT UCSB’S BREN SCHOOL SPONSORED BY

SantaBarbara GreenGuide.com marthasvineyard. .com

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OUR TEAM

S A N TA B A R B A R A

Green Guide Read stories from this magazine and more at

SantaBarbara GreenGuide.com BROUGHT TO YOU BY

Publisher Brandi Rivera Editor in Chief Marianne Partridge Executive Editor Nick Welsh Senior Editor Tyler Hayden Senior Editor Matt Kettmann Advertising Director Sarah Sinclair Digital Marketing Specialist Graham Brown Advertising Account Executives: Camille Cimini Fruin, Suzanne Cloutier, Bryce Eller, Remzi Gokmen, and Tonea Songer

Production Manager Ava Talahakemi Production Designer Jill Critelli Graphic Designer Bianca Castro Web Content Manager Don Brubaker Marketing & Promotions Administrator Richelle Boyd Operations Administrator Erin Lynch Distribution Supervisor Greg Hall For a full Santa Barbara Independent list, visit independent.com/about-us For advertising, email advertising@independent.com For story ideas, email tips@independent.com The Santa Barbara Independent is the leading source for news, arts & entertainment, and lifestyle coverage in the greater Santa Barbara area. We print more than 25,000 copies of the paper every Thursday and also publish daily online for more than 300,000 monthly readers at Independent.com.

Follow us on Instagram and Facebook: @sbindependent and X @sbindynews

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SANTA BARBARA Green Guide 2 0 2 4 – 2 0 2 5

“

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. On it everyone you love .” – Carl Sagan

Bluedot, Inc. President Victoria Riskin CEO Raymond Pearce Publications Director Jamie Kageleiry CFO David Smith Editor Nicki Miller Senior Editor Jim Miller Associate Editor Lily Olsen Editorial Intern Emily Cain Copyeditor Robin Jones Creative Director Tara Kenny Designer, Production Manager Whitney Multari Digital Projects Manager Kelsey Perrett Digital Assets Manager Alison Mead Consumer Marketing Laurie Truitt Advertising Sales Director Megan Stetzel (megan@bluedotliving.com)

Contributors: Randi Baird, Pascale Beale, Ingrid Bostrom, Jaclyn DeSantis, Lizzy Fallows, Leslie Garrett, Victoria Woodard Harvey, Addison Jerlow, Holly Lepere, Kori Nielsen, Nancy Ransohoff, Hugh Ranson Sign up for the Santa Barbara Bluedot Living newsletter, along with any of our others, the BuyBetter Marketplace, our national ‘Hub” newsletter, and Daily Dot newsletter: bit.ly/SBNewsletters Find Bluedot Living on Instagram, Threads, and Facebook, @bluedotliving

WELCOME

W

e're delighted to present the Santa Barbara Green Guide, a collaboration between the Santa Barbara Independent and Bluedot Living, with lead sponsorship from the Community Environmental Council (CEC).

Santa Barbara has a storied history in the environmental movement. Earth Day began in April of 1970, several months after an oil well blew and poured three million gallons of oil into our coastal waters, killing thousands of seabirds, seals, and dolphins and damaging the shoreline. The enormity of the event began a worldwide movement and left a lasting impression of how quickly what we have can be destroyed.

Today, thousands of us living along the Central Coast have chosen to live more sustainably, aware of our responsibility to our community and the planet. Hundreds more in Santa Barbara, many from UCSB, are inventing solutions-based technology, products, and services.

In this inaugural edition of the Green Guide, we bring together stories and ideas inspired by a few of the many community members and organizations dedicated to the care of our environment: nonprofits, nature preserves, bird sanctuaries, fishers, hikers, bikers, innovators, architects, builders, homeowners, gardeners, refill stores, pre-loved clothing stores, recycling programs, and more, including the CEC. We celebrate all that’s been accomplished.

We live in one of the most beautiful regions of the country, perhaps the world, and there is much to appreciate and protect — together.

Let's talk!

Please email sbeditor@ bluedotliving.com

Good Day,

S A N TA B A R B A R A !

PHOTO BY INGRID BOSTROM

We are grateful to each member of our teams, including the Independent’s Nick Welsh, Tyler Hayden, and Matt Kettmann, and Bluedot Living Santa Barbara editors Nicki Miller and Jim Miller, as well as all our contributors and supporters.

We hope you enjoy these pages, and we welcome your thoughts and ideas.

We hope to make this publication a community resource and the basis for good conversation.

Marianne Partridge Editor in Chief and Co-Founder Santa Barbara Independent

Victoria Riskin President and Founder Bluedot Living

SantaBarbara GreenGuide.com

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CONTENTS RESOURCES

6 Simple, Smart, Sustainable Handbook

Volunteering, buying secondhand, zero-waste

shops, recycling, compost, advocacy, and more.

15 Electrify Your Life 63 Notes From the Home Front: Forest Schools in Santa Barbara

64 Dear Dot: Our Advice Columnist Answers Your Questions

FEATURES

20 Pedal Power 26 Problem-Solvers in Training:

UCSB's Bren School 28 The Sustainable Chumash 30 The Best Santa Barbara Birding 40 Painting to Preserve Nature 45 Tribute: The Creation of

Potter’s Point 52 Day Tripping to Channel Islands National Park

FIELD NOTES

17 Community Environmental Council:

Reducing Our Dependence on Plastic 54 Los Padres Forest Association:

How to Hike With Care 57 Ojai Raptor Center:

Prevent Wildlife Injuries 58 Santa Barbara Botanic Garden:

A Guide to Gardening With Native Plants 61 Santa Barbara County Green

Business Program Certification

FOOD AND RECIPES

11 10 Steps to Avoid Food Waste 46 Our Sustainable Seafood: Diverse,

Delicious, and Doing Well 48 Asparagus and English Pea Soup 49 Parchment-Wrapped White Fish With Olive Tapenade 50 Pear Mousse 51 Citrus Salad With Avocado Vinaigrette

HOME AND GARDEN

18 Keeping Your Cool (or Heat):

Reduce Your Climate Impact Passively 34 An Eco-Warrior in a Sun Hat:

Trace Robinson’s Earth-Savvy Approaches to Home Gardening

37 Eco Inspo in a Remodel 58 A Guide to Gardening

With Native Plants Find this magazine online at SantaBarbaraGreenGuide.com COVER PHOTO AND THIS PAGE: RANDI BAIRD

Cover: Lizzy Fallows, who writes our Notes From the Home Front column (see page 63), out for spin on the family e-bike with her daughter Tide.

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ADVERTISER DIRECTORY

PRESENTING SPONSOR

Community Environmental Council ..................Back cover cecsb.org/takeclimateaction

CEC’s Electrify Your Life..................................................................... 8 cecsb.org/EYL

CEC’s The Hub...........................................................................................62 envsirohubsb.org

MAIN SPONSORS

Brophy Bros. ....................................................................................................... 1 brophybros.com

Farmer Boy........................................................................................................... 1 farmerboy.com

Benchmark........................................................................................................... 1 benchmarkeatery.com

OTA............................................................................................................................ 1 onthealley.com

Allen Construction..................................................... Inside back cover buildallen.com

CASA: Court Appointed Special Advocates........................55 californiacasa.org

Farmacy................................................................................................................11 farmacyshop.com

How’s Our Air Quality?

Green is Good!

Your Guide to Using the Air Quality Index (AQI) 0-50: Good It’s a great day to be outside!

Go for a hike, relax at the beach, or picnic in the park.

51-100: Moderate

It’s a good day to be outside, but stay alert to changes.

101-150: Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups

Kids, seniors, pregnant women, and those with health conditions should take precautions.

The AQI assigns a color and a numerical ranking to the current conditions for ozone and particulate matter.

Check 24/7 air quality conditions throughout Santa Barbara County Sign up to receive Air Quality Alerts issued when the AQI is elevated

151-200: Unhealthy Everyone should limit outdoor activity.

201-300: Very Unhealthy Everyone should stay indoors and avoid exertion.

www.OurAir.org

@OurAirSBC

Indy Parenting................................................................................................12 indyparenting.com

Good Samaritan..........................................................................................55 goodsamaritanshelter.org

La Sumida Nursery & Gifts Shop...................... Inside front cover lasumida.com

Mickey Flacks Journalism Fund for Social Justice............. 10 sbcan.org/journalism_fund

Moving Miss Daisy’s Consignment & Auction House....... 9 consignmentsbymmd.com

Mission Refill......................................................................................................7 missionrefill.com

MOXI, The Wolf Museum of Exploration + Innovation...55 moxi.org

Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District........ 5 OurAir.org

Santa Barbara County Resource Recovery & Waste Management Division .............................................................................13 LessIsMore.org

3D Studio Gallery........................................................................................19 fazzino.com

VNA Health....................................................................................................... 10 vna.health/loancloset

SantaBarbara GreenGuide.com

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SIMPLE, SMART, SUSTAINABLE HANDBOOK • RESOURCES

Simple, Smart, Sustainable Handbook

Keep this list of resources — it will come in handy all year long.

Photos by Randi Baird

LOCAL RESOURCES

BEACH CLEANUPS

COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL (CEC)

This nonprofit with more than 50 years of leadership on the Central Coast is working to reverse the climate crisis. This is a go-to hub for whatever you want to know about environmental policies, issues, programs, and more. cecsb.org

HEAL THE OCEAN: If you want to host a

beach cleanup, you can find resources here to help make it a success. healtheocean.org

SANTA BARBARA CHANNELKEEPER: This nonprofit hosts at least four major cleanups each year. sbck.org

LIBRARY OF THINGS

The Santa Barbara Public Library offers an assortment of objects that you can borrow and then return. Want to try a new instrument? Go on a fishing trip? Bring binoculars on a hike? Borrow items and avoid buying things you may not use again. 40 E. Anapamu St.

VOLUNTEERING ACTIVISM

CITIZENS PLANNING ASSOCIATION: This

organization advocates for sustainable urban design and land use, as well as natural resource protection. As a volunteer, you can write letters to government officials, assist with clerical work, or be a Watchdog Leader of a project. citizensplanning.org

ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE CENTER:

This group takes legal action to protect the local environment. You can volunteer at the organization’s events and help with a range of administrative work. environmentaldefensecenter.org

Helen Wong is a master gardener at Trinity Gardens.

COMMUNITY GARDENS

TRINITY GARDENS: Assist with planting, weeding, and harvesting at this community garden, which donates produce to the Santa Barbara’s food bank and other organizations. trinitygardenssb.org

CONSERVATION

CHANNEL ISLANDS RESTORATION: Collect native seeds, help remove invasive species, and maybe even be a sheep docent at the Channel Islands. cirweb.org SANTA BARBARA COUNTY TRAIL COUNCIL: Join the trail maintenance team

or serve on an advisory committee for this organization, which advocates for trail access and improvements so nature lovers can enjoy the outdoors. sbtrails.org

YOUR CHILDREN’S TREE: This student-run John Grable is an avid beach cleaner.

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nonprofit aims to restore local ecosystems by planting trees. Sign up for one of the many tree-planting events online. yourchildrenstreesatucsb.org

RESOURCES • SIMPLE, SMART, SUSTAINABLE HANDBOOK

WILDLIFE

GRAY WHALES COUNT: Become a guardian of marine wildlife by volunteering as a counter between February and May each year. graywhalescount.org OJAI RAPTOR CENTER: This wildlife rehabilitation center offers volunteer opportunities to partake in animal care, wildlife transportation, educational programs, data entry, and much more. ojairaptorcenter.org

SANTA BARBARA AUDUBON SOCIETY:

Volunteer at the Eyes in the Sky program to participate in educational initiatives and care for birds. santabarbaraaudubon.org

BUYING SECONDHAND

You don’t have to buy new when you can find unique and affordable items at any of Santa Barbara’s antiques, thrift, and vintage stores. Here are just a few to get your shopping excursion started:

ANTIQUE ALLEY, antiques, 706 State St.,

Loveworn specializes in vintage denim.

LOVEWORN, vintage, 11 Anacapa St., shoploveworn.com

MOVING MISS DAISY'S CONSIGNMENT & AUCTION HOUSE, consignment, 3845 State St.,

antiquealleysb.com

consignmentsbymmd.com

BLUE DOOR, antiques, 4 E. Yanonali St.,

UNITY SHOPPE, thrift, 1209–1207 State St.,

CROSSROADS TRADING, thrift, 1025 State St.,

WESTWARD GENERAL, vintage,

thebluedoorsb.com

crossroadstrading.com

unityshoppe.org

160 W. Alamar Ave., westwardgeneral.com

NEW ZERO-WASTE REFILL STORE FOR SUSTAINABLE HOME ESSENTIALS Upgrade your home and body care with eco-friendly choices. Embrace plastic-free, non-toxic options from Mission Refill with over 50 refillable products.

20% OFF

YOUR FIRST PURCHASE Coupon valid in-store only when you are added to our customer list. Expires 12/31/2024.

5733 Calle Real, Goleta 93111 (Near Trader Joe’s)

www.missionrefill.com

@missionrefill

805.331.7387

SantaBarbara GreenGuide.com

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SIMPLE, SMART, SUSTAINABLE HANDBOOK • RESOURCES

ZERO-WASTE SHOPS Why throw away packaging and containers every time products run out when you can refill them instead?

At the area’s refill shops, bring in a jar, fill it with the product you want, pay, take it home, and repeat.

MISSION REFILL: Buy less wasteful products like

bamboo straws and reusable paper towels, or choose from a selection of over 40 refillable products. 5733 Calle Real, Goleta, missionrefill.com

SUNKISSED PANTRY: Find home essentials for

everything from kitchen to beauty to pet products without single-use plastic packaging. 31 E. Canon Perdido St., Santa Barbara, sunkissedpantry.com

RECYCLING AND COMPOST BLUE BIN RECYCLING

Contents of blue bins are consolidated at various facilities, where they are sorted by material and processed for reuse. Among the items that can go in the blue bins are paper, glass, metal, #1 and #2 plastic bottles, and rigid #5 plastic containers that are gallonsized or larger. Make sure everything is clean, dry, and not in a bag. To learn more about what can and cannot

FREE electric vehicle (EV), EV charger, solar, and energy efficiency incentives assistance for residents and businesses of San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura Counties.

The Community Environmental Council is your local non-profit resource for switching to clean energy and energyefficient solutions.

Our FREE Electrify Your Life service will help you navigate incentive and rebate programs that pay up to 100% of the costs.

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Do you want to purchase an EV but are confused about what incentives are available?

Are you a business owner interested in adding EV chargers to your property to create an additional revenue stream?

Are you a homeowner or property manager who would like to modernize your appliances or add solar but are worried you can’t afford these new technology solutions?

Contact our team today. cecsb.org/EYL

SANTA BARBARA Green Guide 2 0 2 4 – 2 0 2 5

Fill your empty containers at Mission Refill.

be recycled where you live, go to the county’s Less Is More website (lessismore.org).

What to do with some items not accepted in the blue bin?

Do your local research based on where you live to confirm the most current information, including disposal and transportation requirements.

BATTERIES: Put tape on the ends and place them in a sealed plastic bag on top of — not inside — your blue bin or in the orange buckets at apartment buildings.

(This does not apply to Carpinteria, Lompoc, or Santa Maria.)

ELECTRONICS: Bring to your local electronic waste collection location, which may include MarBorg in Goleta (20 David Love Place), Santa Barbara (132 Nopalitos Way), or Buellton (97 Commerce Drive) or South Coast Recycling and Transfer Station (4430 Calle Real, Santa Barbara).

LIGHTS: Fluorescent bulbs and LEDs should be taken to your local hazardous waste facility. String and solar lights should be taken to your local electronic waste collection location. Incandescent light bulbs can be placed in the black trash bin.

RESOURCES • SIMPLE, SMART, SUSTAINABLE HANDBOOK

sold for use by homes, farms, and businesses. This is a great service for those who do not have a yard where they can make their own compost.

DIY HOME COMPOSTING

The ReSource Center sorts food waste from trash to generate energy and compost.

COURTESY OF SANTA BARBARA COUNTY PUBLIC WORKS

CARDBOARD PIZZA BOXES: Residents of the

South Coast, Santa Ynez Valley, and the Cuyama Valley can put these in the trash. They will be sorted out into compost at the ReSource Center. Residents of the Santa Maria and Lompoc Valleys should place these in their green bins. Carpinteria residents should bag their pizza boxes along with food waste.

PLASTIC BAGS: To keep film plastics like shopping

bags, bread bags, and Ziploc bags (just remove the zipper part) out of the trash, drop them off at Ablitt’s Fine Cleaners and Tailors (14 W. Gutierrez St., Santa Barbara) during one of their recycling events.

Composting your organic waste has multiple benefits, not least of which are the nutrient-rich compost you’ll have for your garden and a lower trash services bill.

Keep in mind that the following organic materials shouldn’t go in your home compost bin: dairy products, pet waste, produce treated with pesticides, oils and fats, and meat.

NEED A COMPOST BIN? Get a discounted Earth Machine composting bin for $55 at one of these locations: • South Coast Recycling and Transfer Station (4430 Calle Real, Santa Barbara) • Santa Ynez Valley Recycling and Transfer Station (4004 Foxen Canyon Road, Los Olivos) • North County Public Works Building (620 West Foster Road, Orcutt)

LEARN ABOUT BACKYARD COMPOSTING:

Less Is More offers free workshops. lessismore.org largest sustainable shopping experience in town

STYROFOAM: Bring to MarBorg in Goleta (20 David Love Place) or Santa Barbara (132 Nopalitos Way).

GREEN BIN COMPOSTING

Yard waste, such as grass clippings, small branches, leaves, and plants, go in the green bin in all of Santa Barbara County. Residents of the unincorporated Lompoc and Santa Maria valleys may mix food scraps with yard waste (it’s composted and used in local agriculture), while residents of Santa Ynez Valley and the South Coast should not. Carpinteria residents may also put food scraps in the green bin, but they must be placed in plastic or paper bags first.

Mulch from green bin contents is available for free at South Coast Recycling and Transfer Station (4430 Calle Real, Santa Barbara) and Santa Ynez Valley Recycling and Transfer Station (4004 Foxen Canyon Road, Los Olivos).

BLACK BIN COMPOSTING

Residents of Santa Ynez Valley and the South Coast should put all food waste in the black trash bins. The waste from the black bins is then machine-sorted and put into an anaerobic digester at the ReSource Center.

This generates methane, which is turned into renewable electricity at a power plant, and the compost is then

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ask your friends!

SCAN FOR WEBsite

FASHION BOUTIQUE

open 11am-5pm closed tuesday LIVE JAZZ EVERY SUNDAY 2-5PM 3845 state street former Sears

805-770-7715

SantaBarbara GreenGuide.com

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SIMPLE, SMART, SUSTAINABLE HANDBOOK • RESOURCES

public meetings. Find calendars and agendas of public meetings posted at Santa Barbara’s City Hall or at santabarbaraca.gov or through your own city.

Tips for Giving Public Comments

• Make it personal. Talk about your own experiences that pertain to the measure under consideration.

• Stay on topic, speak clearly, and pace your comment. Take note of the time limit on the agenda and be concise. Practice speaking slowly.

• Strategize if you’re part of a group. Each person should highlight a different point.

ADVOCACY

Got something to say about pending legislation?

Call your elected officials or give a comment at a public meeting. With elections in November, get upto-date contact information for your representatives at countyofsb.org.

Is there a public meeting where you can give a comment?

Whether you are part of an advocacy organization or just a concerned citizen, you can make a difference at

BECOME A CLIMATE STEWARD

The Community Environmental Council’s Climate Stewards certification program is a nine-week course for community members, nonprofit leaders, and business owners looking for tools to advance climate solutions. Participants learn about topics ranging from climate science and psychology to community resilience to regional resources. The course costs $300, and scholarships are available. The next cohort begins in September 2024, and there are others regularly scheduled and announced on the website. cecsb.org/climate-stewards.

HELP OUR LOAN CLOSET REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE

Introducing the

MICKEY FLACKS JOURNALISM FUND FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE A fund that directly supports the Santa Barbara Independent’s coverage of social justice and environmental issues.

To make a contribution visit sbcan.org/journalism_fund To read articles supported by the Flacks Fund go to independent.com/mickeyflacks

DID YOU KNOW?

The average wheelchair or walker has a usable life span of more than five years.

VNA Health Loan Closet is the only resource in Santa Barbara County offering free, short-term loans of wheelchairs, knee-scooters, walkers, shower seats, crutches, and canes.



The Loan Closet helps divert usable basic medical equipment from our landfills and saves our community residents more than $1,000,000 each year in costs.

When you no longer need medical equipment, please consider donating or returning it to LOAN CLOSET.

Caring for our communities since 1908 (805) 690-6235

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SANTA BARBARA Green Guide 2 0 2 4 – 2 0 2 5

| vna.health/loancloset

RESOURCES • SIMPLE, SMART, SUSTAINABLE HANDBOOK

10 STEPS TO AVOID FOOD WASTE Being a resourceful shopper and keeping your groceries fresh has a significant effect not just on your wallet, but also on the planet.

By Emily Cain and Lily Olsen About 40% of all food produced in the United States goes unsold or uneaten, and food waste accounts for about 10% of global carbon emissions.

While the biggest food waste concerns are at the institutional level — farms, grocery stores, distribution networks — you can still make a difference in your own home. Here are 10 steps to get started:

1.

PLAN AHEAD: Keep a list of what you already have in your fridge so that you don’t forget items and buy more than you need, and have a menu in mind before going shopping so you only buy what you will definitely use.

2. PUT SCRAPS TO USE: Collect onion and garlic peels, carrot tops, celery ends, and leftover veggies and put them in a bag in the freezer.

When the bag gets full, put its contents into a soup pot, cover with water, season to taste with herbs, salt, and pepper, and boil to make a delicious homemade broth.

3. KEEP TRACK OF LEFTOVERS: Put leftovers in

IMAGE BY ANDREAS160578 FROM PAIXABAY

clear glass containers with the date written on them. Being able to see into the container and knowing when you put them in the fridge will make it more likely you’ll eat them before they go bad.

3. LEARN WHAT TO KEEP SEPARATE: Certain

types of produce are not compatible when it comes to longevity. The key is storing ethylene-producing foods (like bananas, tomatoes, and apples) and ethylene-sensitive items (like broccoli and carrots) separately.

5. STORE CERTAIN PRODUCE IN WATER:

Herbs, asparagus, and green onions should be treated like a bouquet of flowers: Remove rubber bands and place the stalks in a cup of water

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SantaBarbara GreenGuide.com 11

SIMPLE, SMART, SUSTAINABLE HANDBOOK • RESOURCES

(about one inch deep) before placing them in the refrigerator (change the water regularly).

Carrots and celery keep best submerged in water in a sealed container: Cut the tops off of whole carrots before putting them in water, and compost the tops or use them in pesto.

6. KNOW WHAT TO STORE IN THE FRIDGE VERSUS THE COUNTERTOP: Some items, such as onions, potatoes, and bananas, are best stored on countertops. Citrus fruit actually keeps better in the fridge, as it starts decomposing if it sits out.

7

WASH AND DRY SOME PRODUCE BEFORE REFRIGERATION: Berries should be washed in a 1:5 mixture of vinegar and water to kill bacteria and prevent mold; make sure they are thoroughly dry before putting them in a towellined container in the fridge. To prevent leafy greens from wilting too quickly, rinse and dry them completely, then roll them in a towel and put them in the fridge.

8. USE THE FREEZER: Get in the habit of putting

From Tots to Teens

A comprehensive guide for our family-focused audience audience..

Indy Parenting • shares personal stories of parents • highlights kid-related businesses and services • continues our award-winning coverage of issues that are important to families • serves as a hub for our annual issues like the After-School Activity Guide • includes a children/family-focused event calendar

food that’s about to go bad in the freezer. You can use it later for smoothies and soups.

9. LISTEN TO YOUR SENSES MORE THAN BEST

BY DATES: Food is not always bad if it’s past the best by date. If it looks, smells, and feels edible, try a bite.

10. DONATE EXTRAS!

FOOD DONATIONS

Help others and avoid food waste by donating food and scraps to a local organization.

Bring food in good condition to the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County (foodbanksbc.org).

Donate food scraps to animals at Bunnies Urgently Needing Shelter (bunssb.org), Lil’ Orphan Hammies (lilorphanhammies.org), and the Santa Barbara Zoo, which also needs certain plant clippings (sbzoo.org).

Visit INDYPARENTING.COM Presented by:

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SANTA BARBARA Green Guide 2 0 2 4 – 2 0 2 5

See our guide on How to Get Rid of (Almost) Anything at bit.ly/GET-RID

RESOURCES • SIMPLE, SMART, SUSTAINABLE HANDBOOK

LessIsMore.org is Santa Barbara County’s Ultimate Guide on WASTE REDUCTION AND RECYCLING! Visit LessIsMore.org to learn how to:

Recycle common and not-so-common items at home or work

Properly dispose of old paint, batteries, motor oil, and other hazardous materials

Follow important updates on the way we handle our waste

Recycle electronics and appliances

Start composting at home

Cut back on the amount of waste you produce

And So Much More!

Connect with us by phone!

Call (805) 882-3600 to speak directly with solid waste staff.

Brought to you by the Resource Recovery and Waste Management Division of Santa Barbara County Public Works

SantaBarbara GreenGuide.com 13

SIMPLE, SMART, SUSTAINABLE HANDBOOK • RESOURCES

N IC H E NEWSLETTERS

Indy Today Receive fresh news from Independent.com, in your inbox, every morning.

Full Belly Files Matt Kettmann’s Full Belly Files serves up multiple courses of food & drink coverage every Friday, going off-menu from our regularly published content to deliver tasty nuggets of restaurant, recipe, and refreshment wisdom to your inbox.

EXTRA! Your weekly update on everything the Santa Barbara Independent is doing beyond our pages – including events, promotions, contests, quizzes, and more.

The Home Page Sarah Sinclair brings you the inside scoop on real estate in The Home Page. Come along as she takes a peek behind the doors of grand estates, tiny houses, and everything in between. Enjoy each Sunday.

OnCulture A snapshot view of the best of local culture and fun happenings in the worlds of music, theater, visual art, film, dance, books, lectures, and more from Culture Editor Leslie Dinaberg.

r

Scan the QR code for more info.

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SANTA BARBARA Green Guide 2 0 2 4 – 2 0 2 5

All Booked A bi-monthly newsletter from the Santa Barbara Independent exclusively for book lovers.

The Angry Poodle A Saturday morning newsletter with Nick Welsh.

On the Beat An all-things music and music-adjacent newsletter/column by music/arts journalist-critic Josef Woodard.

RESOURCES • ELECTRIFY YOUR LIFE

Electrify Your Life

N

Story by Lily Olsen

avigating the plethora of local, state, and federal incentives available for energy-efficient upgrades and electric vehicle purchases can be daunting. This is where the Community Environmental Council’s (CEC) Electrify Your Life program can help.

Sean McArthur, climate projects manager at the CEC, and his team sort through the rebates to advise participants on their particular situations, free of charge. “The program is really designed to bring electrification to lowto-moderate-income individuals and organizations,” he says.

PHOTO BY RANDI BAIRD

Go electric and save money with this free program’s guidance on tax credits and incentives.

As the CEC's climate projects manager, Sean McArthur helps people learn about tax credits, rebates, and incentives to make big green purchases more affordable.

Home upgrades include solar panels, heat pumps, electric stoves, and more.

The program, which started in April 2023, has already helped many community members go electric. In

2023, Electrify Your Life helped 961 residents, businesses, and nonprofits make use of incentives to purchase EVs, EV chargers, solar panels, heat pumps, electric stoves, and other renewable energy upgrades such as weatherization.

This work included: • Supporting 59 EV purchases.

• Assisting in the installation of 15 EV charger stations.

• Facilitating home energy upgrades in 91 homes.

PHOTO BY RANDI BAIRD

Considering an EV?

Sean was able to help one person get $26,500 off a new Toyota Prius Prime EV, lowering the price to just $4,000 after taxes. The savings inspired Sean himself, who purchased a used Tesla for $9,000. As a renter, he can’t charge at home, but that’s not a deterrent.

“The City of Santa Barbara has a wealth of EV chargers, so public charging is a breeze,” Sean says. “To find chargers in your area, you can use Plugshare, which will list the location on a map, the number of chargers, and the cost. Many vehicles have mapping features built in, taking the guesswork out of when to stop for charging.”

How to Sign Up

The program is free to residents of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Ventura counties in English and Spanish.

Fill out an interest form at cecsb.org/electrify-your-life.

SantaBarbara GreenGuide.com 15

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Discover recipes and waste-saving kitchen ideas.

Introduce you to eco-friendly goods.

Highlight local changemakers.

Share green tips and tricks.

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SANTA BARBARA Green Guide 2 0 2 4 – 2 0 2 5

FIELDNote To: Bluedot Living From: Community Environmental Council Subject: Reducing Our Dependence on Plastic

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or more than 50 years, the Community Environmental Council (CEC) has consistently advocated for strong environmental policies. The playbook is proven and effective: Push cities and counties to pass policies that influence other regions and the state to follow suit. The work CEC does in this community matters, and its impact ripples out beyond the Central Coast.

While CEC works simultaneously on many aspects of climate health, a continuous laser focus is on plastic reduction.

EMPOWER PEOPLE TO REDUCE PLASTIC And while CEC works hard to get new plastic-reduction laws on the books, the organization also makes progress by encouraging meaningful behavior change among residents in our existing legal landscape.

What empowering people looks like: • Encouraging re-use — CEC’s Rethink the Drink program has installed 125 water stations, and counting, at schools, parks, and public spaces to make reusable bottles practical and single-use plastic water bottles unnecessary.

• Supporting grassroots advocacy –– Nine elementary schools in Goleta and three in the nearby Hope Ranch District are introducing metal utensils in their cafeterias, eliminating the need for 57,000 plastic sporks (enough to fill one semi truck) at each school each year.

What stopping plastic looks like: • Encouraging locals to vote for plastic reduction policies.

• Advocating for the election of supportive local officials.

• Organizing constituent-based coalitions.

PHOTOS BY SARITA RELIS PHOTOGRAPHY

STOP PLASTIC AT THE SOURCE Policies and laws that cut off the supply of plastic are the most effective means of reduction; recycling alone doesn’t get it done. Thus CEC has worked to pass nine source-reduction ordinances throughout Santa Barbara County, including: • Plastic bag bans in the cities of Carpinteria and Santa Barbara and the County of Santa Barbara.

• Comprehensive plastic regulations in the City of Goleta that prohibit the distribution and sale of polystyrene products and Mylar balloons, regulate the distribution of plastic disposable foodware, and establish on-premise reusable foodware policies.

• Additional laws that limit the distribution of accessory items like plastic straws, lids, and stirrers.

The water refill stations CEC has installed mean 7.5 million fewer single-use bottles.

• Promoting refill stores that provide plastic-free packaging: • Mission Refill in Goleta • Sunkissed Pantry in Santa Barbara • The Refillery in Ventura • Alerting the public when policy action is needed — CEC’s network of Climate Activists attend city council or board of supervisors meetings where plastic reduction policies are being considered.

Join CEC’s Efforts to Reduce Plastic Pollution

A lot of work has been done and a lot of work lies ahead. Do you want to know and do more?

• Sign up for CEC’s Climate Activist list to be notified of opportunities to take policy action in your community. cecsb.org/become-a-climate-activist • Subscribe to CEC’s e-newsletter to stay in the loop on upcoming events and opportunities to engage. cecsb.org/takeclimateaction

Refilling bulk items at shops like Sunkissed Pantry in Santa Barbara is one way to ditch plastic.

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KEEPING YOUR COOL • HOME AND GARDEN

Keeping Your Cool (or Heat) PHOTO BY JAKE CRYAN

Building or Renovating?

Passive cooling and heating are energy-saving — and eco-conscious — ways to reduce the climate impact of our digs.

By Nancy Ransohoff

We spoke with Ryan Cullinen, a principal at Santa Barbara-based Allen Construction, known for its sustainable building practices for more than 40 years, to get some tips for how to keep cool in summer and warm in winter.

Location and orientation are key in creating passive heating and cooling for comfortable indoor temperatures all year. “The original passive strategy for new homes has focused on siting the structure,” Ryan says. “Eaves and overhangs are designed so that in the cool months you have sun shining in, often hitting thermal mass like concrete floors or walls in the house that absorb the heat during the day and radiate it during the evening. In the hotter months, shading keeps the sun out and the indoor thermal mass stays cool, keeping the home comfortable throughout the day.”

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SANTA BARBARA

HOME AND GARDEN • KEEPING YOUR COOL

New technologies and materials for insulating and air-sealing can combine to increase a home’s “thermal envelope.”

Ryan offers these tips for upgrading:

Whether you’re taking small steps or making larger investments, it all makes a difference in reducing energy bills, increasing energy independence, and contributing to a more sustainable and lowercarbon future.

• Consider replacing doors and windows first. “There’s a lot of heating and cooling leakage through very old windows,” he says.

PHOTO BY JIM BARTSCH

3 Tips for Existing Homes

• The final element to consider is a solar photovoltaic strategy. “We’re seeing more battery storage as a component alongside solar,” he says. “And this goes hand-in-hand with trying to convert your heating and cooling systems to electric when possible.”

PHOTO BY SARITA RELIS

• Insulate your attic and crawlspace areas, which are fairly easy to access.

“The attic has the most heating and cooling effect,” Ryan says. He also recommends insulating walls if there is access.

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Pedal P wer Cycling will be an essential — and fun! — tool for transportation in Santa Barbara, if we let it.

Story by Nick Welsh Photos by Randi Baird

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Most definitely it was my wife’s bike I saw out of the corner of my eye early one cool, gray morning. But just as definitely, it was not my wife walking her bike down the sidewalk.

Only a few months prior, I’d given her bike — a vintage Peugeot collecting cobwebs in our shed — a major makeover of the tutti-frutti variety. Yellow brake cables. Orange derailleur cables. And a new big black puffy seat cushy enough to accommodate any and all asses.

With that bike, Jennie could have joined the circus. Hell, she could have been the circus. Sometimes comfort and fun trump ergonomic purity. The point is to have something you actually want to ride.

Jennie never got that pleasure.

She died suddenly before taking her revamped machine out for a spin.

After her death, I distracted myself in a short-lived frenzy of house cleaning.

I wound up donating her bike to BiCi Centro, an old-school bike kitchen where DIY repair skills are taught to the uninitiated by a large team of staff and volunteer mechanics. It’s also where old bikes — up to 30 a week — get dropped off, refurbished, recycled, and resold.

In other words, it’s a way station on the road to reincarnation.

I quickly wheeled back to the guy holding Jennie’s bike. The encounter could have been awkward. Instead, we shook hands, swapped names, and I told him the story of his bike. He was a well-put-together guy in his mid-30s, his head seemingly on his shoulders and his feet firmly on the ground. He, it also turned out, was homeless. As we spoke, I couldn’t help wondering if our encounter was some woo-woo transmission from the great beyond. Was Jennie reaching out? Either way, she would have approved. The bike would finally be getting some use. And more importantly,

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by someone who really needed it.

I asked the man how Jennie’s bike was working out. “Really good,” he said, but then pointed down to the chain.

It had somehow broken; drooping off the sprocket and scraping along the sidewalk. I was reminded of a story I told at her memorial service that illuminated her defining combination of kindness and ferocity. When she was a little girl, a bigger kid made the mistake of trying to bully her. He pushed her; she pushed back. And down he went with his bicycle in a big clattering tumble. Jennie then picked him up, and his bicycle. His chain had fallen off the chainring, so she put it back on for him. Maybe I wanted to take this broken chain as a sign. Maybe I needed to. I don’t know if it qualifies as a genuinely woo-woo moment or merely woo-woo adjacent. But it worked for me. My new friend walked off to BiCi Centro to get his chain fixed.

FEATURE • PEDAL POWER

REINCARNATING BIKES

As part of its mission, BiCi Centro — a small but critical part of Move Santa Barbara, a sprawling nonprofit dedicated to expanding mobility options beyond those imposed by the monopolistic hegemony of the automobile — works closely with local shelter and homeless service providers to get such bikes into the hands of their clients. And free of charge. BiCi Centro’s mechanics make sure those bikes are roadworthy and safe, fit the riders, and are equipped with lights, locks, and a helmet. In 2023, BiCi Centro gave away 90 such

bikes to homeless people and sold 78 refurbished bikes to the public.

Typically, these are sturdy utilitarian street bikes sold at below-Craigslist prices. But vintage bike collectors can always find a few retro chic gems lurking amid BiCi Centro’s sales racks.

In addition, BiCi Centro repairs about 30 bikes a week. About half of these are straight-up cash-for-service repair jobs like at any other bike shop, though roughly half as expensive. The other half are do-it-yourself repairs by owners with guidance and direction from BiCi’s squadron of mechanics.

That runs $10 an hour. But if you have a

student ID from City College — where BiCi Centro operates a satellite shop — it’s free. The animating principle here is accessibility and affordability.

“In 2023, BiCi Centro gave away 90 such bikes to homeless people and sold 78 refurbished bikes to the public.”

MOVE Santa Barbara County advocates for equitable countywide infrastructure for walking, cycling, and public transit, and empowers and educates residents to choose active and sustainable forms of transportation. They also operate two BiCi Centro community bike shops in Santa Barbara. movesbcounty.org BiCi Centro community bike shops provide low-cost refurbished bicycles and parts, bike maintenance, and opportunities to learn maintenance skills through a DIY program.

• 434 Olive St., Santa Barbara • Santa Barbara City College, 721 Cliff Dr. movesbcounty.org/community-bike-shops-bici-centro

BiCi Centro mechanics make repairs and teach people to do their own.

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PEDAL POWER • FEATURE

In the past seven years, City Hall has invested more than $125 million (state and local dollars) in bike paths and other infrastructure designed to keep cyclists and pedestrians safe and make driving a car a matter of choice rather than of necessity.

COMMUTING FOR JOY AND PROFIT

For most of my adult life, I’ve had the great good fortune of riding my bike to work. I didn’t do it because it was good for me or the planet. That it happens to be both, I chalk up as a happy coincidence.

I started riding when I was a kid, and somehow I never stopped. That detail — not stopping — I think is key. When my friends got their driver’s licenses, they had a tendency to become zombies. Some would drive to visit their next-door neighbor. I was appalled. I looked at cars and driving as yet another friction point over which my parents could exert control. In that formula, bikes equated to independence. They meant freedom.

They meant fun.

Many eons later, they still do, though admittedly for different reasons.

Over the years, I worked as a bicycle messenger in Washington, D.C., still one of the best jobs I ever had. Twice I made multistate bike treks riding from

Wisconsin to D.C., meeting people I would never have met if traveling by car. On a bike, you are semipermeable; you see and experience people and things you simply could not otherwise see. Accidental encounters, over time, engender accidental community. Before long, you’re less alone on the planet.

Yes, there are falls. But you learn to get up. That’s not a bad habit. No matter how tired you are, you discover, you can always shift into that phantom gear and grind your way up the hill.

In recent years, the word “joy” pops up with increasing frequency in our

broader national debate. As a bike rider — and more precisely as a bike commuter — “joy” is not a foreign language. I enjoy joyful pinch-me moments on my bike on a regular basis.

On a bike, you are forced to pay closer attention as a matter of survival. In so doing, you also notice the mundane miracles always hiding in plain sight.

That’s a gift you can’t buy on any car lot. More than a few times, my children would express embarrassed incredulity at the stupid grin on my face as I rode up our street. We should all be so lucky, I would reply, to be so stupid.

“On a bike, you are forced to pay closer attention as a matter of survival. In so doing, you also notice the mundane miracles always hiding in plain sight.

That’s a gift you can’t buy on any car lot.”

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FEATURE • PEDAL POWER

Bikes are cheaper than cars.

There are no monthly payments. No extortion at the gas pump, no repair bills, no insurance, no smog testing, no registration. You can always find free parking. You never have to wait through five or six rotations to get through a red light during rush hour.

When my diet skewed heavily toward beer, ice cream, and donuts, my daily commute kept the poundage down. No gym membership required.

City Hall has invested more than $125 million (state and local dollars) in bike paths and other infrastructure designed to keep cyclists and pedestrians safe and make driving a car a matter of choice rather than necessity. The city council also passed a new bicycle master plan that embraces “Vision Zero” as the goal of traffic violence against pedestrians and cyclists.

Read more online about bike safety in Santa Barbara at https://bit.ly/SB-cycling

PUBLIC, SPEED-SAFE E-BIKES

Also, hiding quietly in plain sight is the apparent success enjoyed by the city’s e-bike share program known as BCycle. The program started in January 2021 with 75 bikes good for trips up to 30 miles. By the end of 2023, that number had mushroomed to 246 e-bikes, 86 stations, and 496 dock spaces. The city has funds for 50 more bikes and 100 more docks, and for more aggressive outreach to lowincome riders, who now make up less than 2% of BCycle’s riders.

BCycle e-bikes don’t seem to count when reckless e-bikers are mentioned, maybe because they top out at 17 miles an hour. The bad news is that BCycle has yet to break even financially in Santa Barbara. For now, it helps that BCycle is owned by Trek, and that Trek’s president and owner, John Burke, lives in Santa Barbara at least part-time.

John is not just a business person who got rich selling bicycles. He’s a true believer in the cause. At a recent cycling forum, he wondered how it

Half the bikes on Santa Barbara city streets are electric, according to bicycle advocate Trisalyn Nelson.

is that a city like Santa Barbara — with its inviting climate year-round — could post such paltry bicycle commuting percentages when a city like Copenhagen, with more than its fair share of wet and cold weather, is leading the world. Like me, John believes there are few problems in the world that couldn’t be solved if only more people rode bicycles. In his case, he’s done the research to back it up: Health care costs, obesity, and diabetes are just the start. For the time being, John is content to put his money where his mouth is where BCycle is concerned.

BCycle is an app-enabled e-bike share

service. Single rides are $8 plus tax every 30 minutes. Monthly passes are $30 plus tax, and include unlimited trips under 30 minutes, with a $3 charge for each additional 30 minutes.

Annual passes are $225 plus tax, and include unlimited trips under 60 minutes, with $3 for each additional 30 minutes. santabarbara.bcycle.com

BCycle has stations with e-bikes all over, which makes it easy to hop on and off as needed.

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PEDAL POWER • FEATURE

GET PEDALING BIKE SHOPS

FASTRACK BICYCLES, 118 W. Canon Perdido St., Santa Barbara, fastrackbicycles.com HAZARD’S CYCLESPORT, 110 Anacapa St., Santa Barbara, incycle.com/pages/retailer/ hazards-cyclesport

ISLA VISTA BICYCLE BOUTIQUE, 880 Embarcadero Del Mar, Isla Vista, islavistabicycles.com

GROUP RIDES

OPEN AIR BICYCLES, 135 E. Carrillo St., Santa Barbara, openairbicycles.com

SANTA BARBARA CYCLIST, meetup.com/Santa-BarbaraCyclists

ECHELON BIKE CLUB, echelonsantabarbara.org

VELO PRO CYCLERY, 15 Hitchcock Way, Santa Barbara, and 5887 Hollister Ave., Goleta, velopro.com

State Street is called out in the city’s Bike Master Plan as the spine for the city’s bicycle network.

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FEATURE • PEDAL POWER

GET OUT OF YOUR CAR

The Santa Barbara County Association of Governments (SBCAG) Traffic Solutions team can help you find alternatives to driving alone, from electric buses to carpools, vanpools, and e-bike lending programs. They also offer an app, SmartRide, for trip planning. trafficsolutions.org

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PROBLEM-SOLVERS IN TRAINING • FEATURE

SCHOOLS AS HUBS FOR CLIMATE ADAPTATION

PROBLEM-SOLVERS IN TRAINING Story by Tyler Hayden

At the UC Santa Barbara Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, the next crop of environmental leaders work together to tackle real-world problems.

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he mission of the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at UC Santa Barbara is as simple as it is noble: to solve environmental problems.

But those problems are anything but straightforward.

That’s why the capstone projects in the school’s master’s programs require students to work in groups made up of students from several different disciplines. An individual option isn’t even offered.

The collaboration model makes the Bren School stand out from many other university master’s programs, where departments are siloed in their own buildings and very little cross-pollination of ideas occurs. Bren takes this approach because, as assistant dean Dr. Satie Airamé explains, “you can’t solve these complex environmental problems alone. It’s just not possible.”

The issue may require an understanding of biology, Satie says, or the way people relate to a habitat. Or it might call for knowledge of economics, political drivers, or social behavior. “There are so many facets,” she says.

Founded in 1991 and named in 1997 after philanthropist and donor Donald Bren, the school has always emphasized complementary skills over individual talent.

Being headquartered in Santa Barbara, the birthplace of the modern environmental movement, hasn’t hurt either.

“We’re in a community where people support innovation,” says Satie, naming the city and the county, water districts, private companies, the Channel Islands National Park, the Los Padres National Forest, and others as valuable partners and clients. “It’s a wonderful place to live and work.”

These three capstone projects by Bren School teams represent the school’s two main master’s programs — Environmental Science and Management, and Environmental Data Science — as well as its Eco-Entrepreneurship track, where students develop a business model for a new, commercially viable product or service. All of them tackle real-world issues for actual clients and produce concrete deliverables.

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COURTESY OF THE BREN SCHOOL

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dapting to our rapidly changing climate can’t happen without robust buy-in on a local level. But the obstacles to meaningful engagement are daunting, especially among underserved neighborhoods, where residents may be skeptical, uninterested, or simply unaware of resources and tools available to them.

The Climate Adaptation Solutions Accelerator (CASA) through SchoolCommunity Hubs project — spearheaded

by Liane Chen, Charlie Curtin, Kristina Glass, and Hazel Vaquero — is targeting California’s 10,000-plus K-12 public schools as promising sites to build that necessary dialogue and participation.

To do that, the team is creating a platform to geospatially visualize climate hazards in and around individual districts and campuses.

Risks like wildfires, floods, and extreme heat will be mapped out in detail, with the information made available to school administrators, teachers, and students, as well as planners, researchers, and the scientific community at large. The group’s clients are the Bren School itself, UCSB’s Gevirtz School of Education, and the UCSB Environmental Studies department.

The idea isn’t to alarm kids and families, Kristina says, but rather, just the opposite.

Educating local communities about the regional climate dangers they face — and more important, the resources they can use to withstand those risks — will imbue them with agency and self-sufficiency. “We hope this becomes a tool of empowerment,” she says.

In many ways, schools are already on the front lines of the climate crisis, Kristina adds.

A number of students arrive to class every day carrying climate-related trauma, perhaps from a recent evacuation from a flood or exacerbated asthma due to a nearby wildfire. According to the group’s proposal, children’s hospitalizations for respiratory complaints are expected to increase 40 to 50% by mid-century.

Moreover, schools can use the regional data to change the focus of their climaterelated curriculum so that it emphasizes local concerns, rather than national ones. California students, for example, would spend more time learning about extreme heat and debris flows than about tornadoes and hurricanes.

FEATURE • PROBLEM-SOLVERS IN TRAINING

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COURTESY OF SUNSTONE ENERGY

ost of us take our connection fledgling company offers tribes assistance to the power grid for with the complex pre-development granted. Many members of process of microgrids.

U.S. tribes do not. In 2022, Their proposed service begins with site 16,000 tribal homes concentrated in the surveys, data collection, and application southwest and Alaska lacked electricity. of spatial energy models. It then Even those that do have power experienced 6.5 times more outages than the average American household, with their blackouts lasting three times as long. Backup energy typically comes from expensive and noxious diesel generators.

The federal government recently allocated $720 million to support the development CLOSING THE TRIBAL of renewable energy on tribal ENERGY GAP land over the next decade, with the most viable infrastructure option being solar and battery-storage transitions to clarifying tribal roles and microgrids. But high technical hurdles organizational structures, understanding remain for tribes to actually get such permit needs and processes, and projects off the ground and shovel-ready. identifying net-metering options. It Enter Sunstone Energy, a new concludes with calculating development business model created by Austin costs, discovering financing opportunities, Sonnier, Marissa Sisk, Ignacio Requena, and helping with grant writing. The Casey Walker, and Sage Davis. Their whole process takes about three months.

PHOTO BY LARS NELSON

PROTECTING SALMON TO SAVE WHALES

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or the past 60 years, the population of Southern Resident Killer Whales off the coast of Washington State has been in steady freefall. Today, only 74 remain in Puget Sound, their decline attributed to losses in their primary prey base: the similarly endangered Chinook salmon.

While multi-agency efforts have directed billions of dollars over the decades to protect Chinook habitat and prop up their numbers, the recovery projects have been frustratingly unsuccessful.

Bren students Ray Hunter, Lars C. Nelson, Meghan Roberts, and Logan

Ruggles came at the problem from a new angle. With NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service as their client, the group set out to determine the cost-effectiveness of three common intervention methods in the Stillaguamish River basin: floodplain restoration, riparian planting, and engineered log jams.

They landed on floodplain restoration as the most efficient option with the highest potential increase in Chinook spawners, especially in the long-term.

They factored in land acquisition costs, local demographics, and project monitoring, among other expenses. The

The model, and the needs it addresses, was developed through long-term research that tapped into Indigenous peoples’ expertise. The team interviewed 115 people, attended six conferences, and combed through more than 100 studies. On the technical side, they created a proprietary Environmental Studies Research Institute (ESRI) dashboard that’s not only rich in data, but also incredibly user-friendly.

Sunstone Energy, the group says, stands to capture 5% of the estimated $75 billion tribal renewable energy market. They forecast 500 potential projects valued at $20,000 each over the coming decade, translating to $10 million in revenue.

And they already have a proof-ofconcept feather in their cap. Sunstone partnered with the San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians for a pilot project that assessed the tribe’s elder and public works buildings for solar potential, reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and electrical savings.

group was even able to attach a dollar figure to every new salmon hatched within a year of the hypothetical recovery work.

Such granular data will be a major asset to project managers, who are always looking to prioritize and justify their efforts from an economic standpoint. The framework could also be applied to other watersheds and species, thereby supporting conservation consults and grant applications.

In the few short weeks since their results were published, Lars says he’s already heard from a manager with The Nature Conservancy who was interested to learn more about their conclusions. A one-time naturalist based in the Pacific Northwest, Lars says he still feels pulled toward the region and its beloved band of orcas: “Getting to do a project that is in some small way supporting their recovery and the overall ecology of the Puget Sound, it’s very exciting.”

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THE SUSTAINABLE CHUMASH • FEATURE

THE Sustainable CHUMASH

Diego Cordero, right, and a helper plant a tree.

Story by Tyler Hayden Photos courtesy of Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians

As original stewards of the land, the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians continues to carry the mantle of environmental sustainability.

Their native plant nursery is the envy of other sovereign nations, and their casino is a model for zero-waste programs big and small.

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CULTIVATING CULTURE AT THE CHUMASH TRIBAL NURSERY

he native plants grown at the Chumash Tribal Nursery are deep-rooted. They need to be.

“They have to send their roots deep into the Earth to survive year-round,” says Diego Cordero, nursery manager and lead environmental technician for the Santa Ynez Chumash Environmental Office. “It’s really a metaphor for how native people have persevered through hard times.”

The nursery, set among the vineyards

and corrals of the Santa Ynez Valley, holds nearly 4,000 plants of more than 50 different species that possess deep cultural meaning for the Chumash people — juncus for basket-weaving, ceremonial sage, dogbane used to make rope and string, medicinal matilija poppies, traditional food crops including chia and gooseberries, and much more.

A few can only be found right here on the reservation. “We’re the only ones growing some of these plants,” Diego says.

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“But we want to get them into the hands of as many tribe members as possible” so they can propagate them at home, he explains. Diego and his team have also created individual accessible gardens for Chumash elders whose days of tromping through the Los Padres Foresta are behind them.

Regular volunteer days — which are open to the public — bring people by, and Diego is always happy to lead tours, like the one he just gave to a UCSB horticulture

FEATURE • THE SUSTAINABLE CHUMASH

“We’re the only ones growing some of these plants. But we want to get them into the hands of as many tribe members as possible.”

– Diego Cordero, manager, Chumash Tribal Nursery class. It’s rare for tribes to run their own native plant nurseries, he says, and even less common to find one so large and diverse.

They make all their compost in-house and will soon offer their own soil mix.

Years of seed-gathering preceded the nursery’s original modest opening, and in 2017, Diego helped build out its more permanent infrastructure, including water lines and a shade tunnel.

“Summers are punishingly hot out here,” he says, with winter nights dipping well below freezing. They’re always mindful of waste, he explains, and upcycle when

possible. Recently, they Shelby Colbert and Jessica McCool handle started using leftover seeds at the nursery. culinary racks from the nearby Chumash Casino Resort to hold microclimates created by earthwork, sensitive sprouts and cuttings that fare natural slopes, and tree shade to support better off the ground. mini food forests that would otherwise In the fall, around the time the wilt out in the open. “It’s a fascinating pumpkins they just planted will be project,” Diego says. The swales they picked, Diego and the Chumash built for their pilot garden “worked Environmental Office will be teaming perfectly” during this winter’s storms and up with Santa Barbara’s White Buffalo recharged the soil there with muchLand Trust to develop a “resilience needed moisture, he says. “It captured all garden” program. The low-input, highthe runoff that would otherwise have just yield cultivation technique relies on gone down a dirt road.”

BETTING ON GREEN AT THE CHUMASH CASINO RESORT

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he Chumash Casino Resort stands out for a few reasons.

It’s big — the tallest building in rural Santa Ynez Valley. It’s busy — attracting over 3.5 million visitors per year and employing nearly 2,000 staff, making it the largest private employer in Santa Barbara County. And, from a recycling standpoint, it’s incredibly, inspiringly, undeniably green — one of the greenest anywhere in California.

Over the last two decades, since the casino set the lofty goal of becoming a true zero-waste facility, it has managed to cut its waste stream in half, from 7.2 million pounds per year down to 3.2 million pounds. In that same time, it dramatically improved its recycling rate from a ho-hum 6% to a remarkable 93%.

“Every year, we try to make a dent in the waste stream by taking one item out,” says Mark Funkhauser, director of sustainability for the facilities

department. They do that through literal dumpster-diving — or what’s called a “waste audit” — to identify the next thing to remove, whether it’s cigarette butts, bars of soap, single-use cups, or old textiles. “It’s very systematic,” Mark says.

The casino’s “close-the-loop”

agreements with local and national vendors then usher the items to the next phase of their lives: TerraCycle’s Cigarette Waste Brigade turns butts into ashtrays and benches. Dart Container Corporation reprocesses polystyrene cups into picture Continued on page 62

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Rufous hummingbirds are seen in spring at Devereux Slough, often feeding on bottlebrush and eucalyptus blossoms.

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FEATURE • SANTA BARBARA BIRDING

The Best Santa Barbara At these six locales, you can delight in the region’s diversity.

Story and Photos by Hugh Ranson

Birding

Santa Barbara County is a world-renowned destination for birders because of its great diversity of birds. More than 600 species have been recorded here, from the tiny calliope hummingbird to the majestic California condor. Here are six top birding areas across the region.

Lake Los Carneros

This Goleta lake and its immediate environs contain a variety of habitats in a small area that attract birds and help make it a top birding destination. The open water of the lake is important for several species of wintering duck, including the North American ruddy duck, which can often be seen in large numbers. The lake’s tule-lined edges provide habitat for nesting red-winged blackbirds and common yellowthroats, and in the

winter, provide cover for shy birds such as American bittern, sora, and Virginia rail.

The woodland around the lake holds a great variety of species. Exotic plantings around the historic Stow House provide year-round habitat for warblers, tanagers, grosbeaks, hawks, and woodpeckers. Acorn woodpeckers are a common sight; they even drill holes in the eves of the house to store

Common yellowthroats nest in marshy areas.

Eared grebes often stop off on migration.

The bouncing-ball song of the wrentit, a common bird of the chaparral, can be heard in scrub alongside Lake Los Carneros.

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SANTA BARBARA BIRDING • FEATURE

From left: Great blue herons, black skimmers, and snowy egrets are some of the birds you can spot in and around water in our area.

their acorns! The nesting boxes in the grassland are used by both western bluebirds and tree swallows.

Ample parking can be found in the Stow House lot off Los Carneros Road.

The Santa Barbara Waterfront

This area close to hotels is a popular destination for beachgoers and also an excellent birding location. Mission Creek meets the ocean just to the east of Stearns Wharf, and the meeting of fresh and salt water attracts birds that come to rest, feed, and bathe.

From spring through fall, you’ll see large numbers of elegant terns, while in winter, royal terns grace the beach along with a few black skimmers. This is the only regular local wintering site of these charismatic black

and white birds that feed by skimming over the water and snapping up small fish.

Shorebirds can be abundant, including flocks of the larger ones such as long-billed curlew, whimbrel, and marbled godwit. Close by are the Santa Barbara Harbor and the Andrée Clark Bird Refuge, two more good places to look.

Public parking is available on the waterfront at the Palm Park lot at the end of Garden Street.

Devereux Slough and North Campus Open Space (NCOS)

These two areas just to the west of Isla Vista can be thought of as a single entity.

Devereux has long been a beloved birding spot for ducks, herons, and shorebirds.

This NCOS, formerly a golf course, has been swallow-tailed restored to its original wetland, thus gull, usually found extending the reach of the slough. in the Galapagos, Both locations often have large was a stunning numbers of egrets and herons. Great find on the beach blue herons nest in the eucalyptus trees at Devereux that border the slough. The beach at the Slough. mouth of Devereux Slough is excellent for shorebirds. Snowy plovers nest on the beach here, and their numbers are greatly augmented in the winter. Rarities often turn up here; the most spectacular recent sighting was the swallow-tailed gull (normally found on the Galapagos Islands) that graced the beach in July 2023.

Free parking is in a lot at 6969 Whittier Dr., Goleta.

Santa Cruz Island The island scrub-jay is found nowhere else on Earth other than Santa Cruz Island.

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Island Packers runs a daily ferry service from Ventura to both Prisoner’s Harbor and Scorpion Anchorage on Santa Cruz Island, called the Galapagos of North America by scientists because of its rich ecosystems and great biodiversity. You can visit for the day, or, if you’re more

FEATURE • SANTA BARBARA BIRDING

adventurous, you can camp overnight.

The island is part of the Channel Islands National Park, and on the crossing you can often see dolphins and whales, as well as pelagic seabirds such as shearwaters, murres, murrelets, and phalaropes.

On the island, the star attraction is the island scrub-jay, a species found nowhere else on Earth. It is larger and bluer than the California scrub-jay of the mainland and is often easy to find in both of the campgrounds in Scorpion Valley. Island foxes are abundant, and common ravens are unusually approachable.

In the fall, the island is a great place to spot vagrants, rare birds that have lost their way.

See “Day Tripping to Channel Islands National Park” on page 52.

than the fishermen. Oak savannah borders the lake, and western bluebirds and acorn woodpeckers are two of the many birds likely to be encountered from the water.

Cachuma Lake The elegant Clark's grebe Recreation Area, 1 nests at Lake Cachuma.

Lakeview Dr., is accessed from Highway 154, 20 miles northwest of Santa Barbara.

Lake cruises aboard a pontoon led by park naturalists are available on weekends and are a great way to get close to wildlife. sbparks.org

Santa Ynez River Mouth

The 92-mile-long Santa Ynez River, Lake Cachuma which feeds Lake Cachuma, is one of This reservoir in the Santa the largest rivers on the Central Coast of The American wigeon Ynez Valley provides water to California. It ends its journey at the Pacific winters around the the City of Santa Barbara and is Ocean, just west of the City of Lompoc and Santa Ynez River Mouth. the largest body of freshwater in the next to the Vandenberg Air Force Base. The county. It is an important wintering area river mouth is an important wetland area, and the for ducks and is one of the only places in the endangered “Belding’s” savannah sparrow nests here. county where bald eagles nest. Other breeding birds include The open water of the estuary often holds large numbers of Caption both the western and Clark’s grebe, whose strange creaking calls wintering ducks, and the muddy margins provide good habitat echo across the lake in the spring. for a variety of shorebirds and herons. Bald eagles and ospreys Ospreys don’t nest here, but outside of summer, they are a are frequent visitors. common sight as they fish the lake, usually with more success You can park at Ocean Park, 6851 Ocean Park Rd, Lompoc.

From left: Long-billed curlews can be found on the beach, bald eagles are year-round residents at Lake Cachuma, and the yellow-billed magpie can be seen at Lake Cachuma and in oak savannah throughout the Santa Ynez Valley.

J b p th th h

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ECO-WARRIOR • HOME AND GARDEN

An Eco-Warrior Renowned landscape designer Trace Robinson walks us through a bounty of Earth-savvy approaches to home gardening.

Sun Hat

in a

Story by Victoria Woodard Harvey Photos by Holly Lepere, Lepere Studio

A

ward-winning landscape designer Trace Robinson is a creative strategist when it comes to organic, sustainable gardens. She’s an eco-warrior in a sun hat with a long list of clients, including a few in the household-name category. Her arsenal of wisdom informs the design, planting, and maintenance of some of the most beautiful sustainable gardens in Santa Barbara County. A quick look at her approach offers up easy, useful tips.

For projects of any size, water consumption is the first thing Trace checks. “What are the major water guzzlers here, and how can we reduce?” she says. Ripping out (or reducing) lush lawns is always step one. In a recent redo, she used a pair of mature olive trees to anchor a stone gravel bed with native grasses, perennials, and flowering succulents that attract hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies. “Trace has created an environment that welcomes natural inhabitants, bunnies, and a family of quail,” says Montecito homeowner and client Christine Lyon. “She transformed a traditional lawn garden into a natural, drought-resistant heaven.”

The next step for Trace is assessing trees, the storage units of planet-warming carbon. “Most people don’t see trees as the assets they are … and how much they increase the value of a property by providing food, privacy screens, natural borders, and habitats,” she says. The size and cost of introduced trees depend on budget and patience. “In planting new trees, I tend to go big, especially if they’re fruit-bearing, and if the goal is to reduce energy use by providing shade on a home,” she says. “Place your trees with intention,

Trace Robinson arranges wisteria, iceberg roses, and salvia. Drought tolerant plants don’t have a long vase life but are profuse in blooms and often highly fragrant.

then patios, stonework and hardscape can come later.”

When it comes to plant selection, Trace prefers native perennials and low-water Mediterranean types to suit California’s climate zone. She chooses plants that contribute in four categories:

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fragrance (salvia, lavender, and scented geranium are among her go-to’s); color (based on the client’s personal preference; hot pink and reds attract hummingbirds); texture for visual interest and to add depth of field; and utility in producing food, attracting pollinators, creating

HOME AND GARDEN • ECO-WARRIOR

shade and habitat, and controlling soil erosion with naturalizing natives like ceanothus and toyon, iris and yarrow.

Working in zones, Trace places plants needing more care and water closest to the house, with low-water and droughttolerant plants toward the farther reaches of a yard or property. She installs cut flower gardens where water use in a smaller area produces maximum yield.

The ability to bring outdoor beauty into a home through floral bouquets cut from one’s own garden is one of her trademarks and the focus of an upcoming book Colorful kangaroo paw and salvia pop next to documenting her work. a drought-resistant boxwood border.

For vegetable gardens, she sometimes goes rogue. “I like to add edibles — lettuce, chard, kale, and culinary herbs — into flower beds or tucked between pavers, wherever it’s easy to snip while cooking,” When it comes to irrigation, a little she says. She’s also excited for “BBQ foresight goes a long way. Drip lines are rosemary,” a fast-growing variety called more efficient than popups and effusive Mature olive trees anchor this former lawn that’s mostly surface Rosmarinus officinalis ‘Barbeque’ with sprayers, an important factor in light gravel with drift plantings of super sturdy, highly scented stems that can of the water price increases forecast for lavender, flowering succulents, be used as skewers and swizzle sticks for Santa Barbara in 2025. Trace suggests and bunch grasses. summer entertaining. subterranean drip lines in densely planted

“In planting new trees, I tend to go big, especially if they’re fruit-bearing, and if the goal is to reduce energy use by providing shade on a home. … Place your trees with intention, then patios, stonework and hardscape can come later.” – Trace Robinson

SantaBarbara GreenGuide.com 35

ECO-WARRIOR • HOME AND GARDEN A wisteria-laden pergola replaced a water-consuming lawn to provide shade, a place for peace and relaxation, and an outdoor entertaining area to increase a home’s usable square footage.

“Trace has created an environment that welcomes natural inhabitants, bunnies, and a family of quail,” says Montecito homeowner and client Christine Lyon.

“She transformed a traditional lawn garden into a natural, drought-resistant heaven.” areas, hedges, and hillsides to provide extra protection against thirsty varmints or stray soccer balls. “We’ve seen climatic changes in recent years affect California’s typically dry and wet seasons,” she says, so she suggests shutting off irrigation

to established plants from October to April of wet years and scaling up again as warmer months approach. “Remember to reprogram irrigation timers at the start of each season and expand drip line perimeters to match the canopies of trees

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as they grow larger each year,” she says.

Like most organic gardeners, Trace is mad for mulch. It’s her number one solution to minimize weeds, contain moisture, and regulate soil temperatures.

She opts for organic, nutrient-rich compost blends (many are now available commercially) with a depth of three to six inches for primary beds. She also suggests that homeowners ask professional tree trimmers to chip and keep mulch material for home garden use, or find a friendly arborist who will supply wood chips from known trees.

Free city mulch is an option for nonfoodproducing beds, but beware of lumber or palm frond content, which is hard to break down, and non-beneficial oils from eucalyptus, nicotiana (native tobacco), and castor bean.

Natural solutions to garden pests can be as simple as mixing a bit of liquid soap with water and spraying it on affected plants. Trace also relies on companion planting — adding rosemary, salvia, onion and garlic varieties, lavender, and tagetes (marigold family) to gardens to deter ants, moles, and gophers. Gopherridden regions may require raised beds with wire netting or DIY root baskets.

For these, Trace uses aviary wire, with smaller mesh and thicker gauge, instead of chicken wire.

Seed collecting can be another satisfying DIY project for home gardeners. “Let a few existing plants — carrots, larkspur, cilantro, lettuce, celery, basil, dill, poppies — go to seed and bank those, or allow volunteers to flourish in a new cycle,” Trace says. The fact that they’ve bloomed and gone to seed means they’re proven winners and ideal for trading or sharing with friends.

Any gardener knows that creating a successful ecosystem takes time, but there are plenty of places to get started.

Ditch lawns. Plant natives. Invest in trees. Encourage healthy soil. Irrigate responsibly. Provide water sources for bees, butterflies, and birds. Allow habitat. As Trace says, “Small, healthy ecosystems from sustainable gardening add up to improve our environment, our communities, our lives, and our planet.”

HOME AND GARDEN • ECO REMODEL

Eco Inspo Story by Nancy Ransohoff Photos by Nancy S. Barasch

in a

Remodel

This transformation of a 1940s ranch-style house into a climateconscious home took an environmental focus both inside and outdoors.

A

s you step in the front door of Nancy Barasch’s three-bedroom home, the feel is light and airy, thanks to now-lofty ceilings and well-placed windows. “We didn’t originally plan to raise the ceiling,” she says. “But when we opened it up, there was so much space there.” In addition to giving the living and dining area a more spacious feel, there was another surprise. “I was very excited to see the beautiful original wood rafters, and wanted to reuse as much as possible,” Nancy says. The front door, as well as two outdoor garden gates, are crafted from the reclaimed wood.

When Nancy set out to remodel her newly purchased 1940s-era Santa Barbara home, she was determined to incorporate as many eco-friendly elements as she could, both inside and outdoors. A former telecommunications executive who now works as a teacher, freelance photographer, and photography instructor, Nancy has long been environmentally aware. “I wanted to do as much as I could afford to be eco-minded and do my part,” she says.

“I feel like every little bit helps.”

She teamed up with Hanne Burdick of Santa Barbara–based Studio 1030

Rooftop solar panels make the home energy efficient and were more affordable with federal and state incentives. (See page 15 for how to save.)

Architects and general building contractor Richard G. Heimberg to take the house down to the studs and rebuild it. With additional design help from her friend Joanie Saint Denis, the entire project, completed in 2022, took just under a year from start to move-in.

Let the Sunshine In

What started as a minimal traditional ranch is now a custom contemporary with many current-day advances.

Harnessing the power of the sun for electricity was important to Nancy, so rooftop solar panels and a storage battery

The builders added skylights and opened up the ceiling to make the home feel more light and airy.

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ECO REMODEL • HOME AND GARDEN

This minimal traditional ranch (left) was a custom contemporary when Nancy bought it (middle), and now she's turned it into an eco-friendly one (right).

were key components in the rebuild. As prices have come down from the early days of solar, it has become an attractive option for many homeowners, especially in our sun-soaked area. A bonus: Federal and state Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) for solar and other qualified energy-efficient strategies can make solar a smart long-term investment that’s also good for the environment.

with afternoon sunlight and heat gain.

In general, skylights on north-facing roofs provide fairly constant but gentle sunlight, while those on east-facing roofs bring maximum morning light and solar heat gain. On the flip side, installing skylights in the shade of deciduous trees or adding an inside or outside movable shade helps keep the home cool and comfortable in the warmer months.

“I wanted to do as much as I could afford to be eco-minded and do my part,” says homeowner Nancy Barasch. “I feel like every little bit helps.”

Peace of mind is an additional perk.

“When the power goes out, I usually don’t know about it,” Nancy says, “because the battery automatically kicks in to start powering the house.”

Bringing in the sun are two strategically placed skylights, reducing energy for heating, cooling, and yes, lighting. The old adage of “location, location, location” could easily be applied to the placement and orientation of skylights for passive solar heating potential. Nancy’s skylight in a closet is south-facing, and thus delivers the greatest potential for winter warming, while one in a bathroom is west-facing An outdoor kitchen and dining area expands the footprint of living and entertaining space.

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Additional environmentally minded elements in Nancy’s home include energy-efficient windows and doors, an attic fan to help regulate temperature and improve air circulation, an on-demand water heater, and spray foam insulation, which creates a tight thermal envelope by conforming to fill areas where it’s applied.

See “Keeping Your Cool (or Heat),” page 18.

Outdoor Living

In true California style, the home’s indoor space flows seamlessly to the outdoors, with a backyard patio and an outdoor kitchen, including a sink, refrigerator, and built-in barbecue that make entertaining a breeze.

HOME AND GARDEN • ECO REMODEL

“I love being outside, seeing hummingbirds and butterflies and hearing the bees buzzing around.” – Homeowner Nancy Barasch

The surrounding garden is a beehive of activity, though Nancy doesn’t actually keep hives. Her goals included the creation of a pollinator-friendly habitat, a concept that has been blossoming in recent years as homeowners are increasingly aware of factors such as

habitat loss and pesticide use, which have a detrimental effect on bee populations. “I love being outside, seeing hummingbirds and butterflies, and hearing the bees buzzing around,” she says.

Among the plants that fit the bill here are achillea “moonshine” yarrow; salvia varieties including waverly, hotlips, mystic spires, and chiapensis; and Walker’s low nepeta. The ground cover between the stepping stones is dense, lush dymondia margaretae (silver carpet), which softens the look and provides daisy-like yellow spring flowers beloved by bees.

Nancy also looked for droughttolerant, low-maintenance plants when planning her garden. Even though the Santa Barbara area has benefitted from a couple of robust rainy seasons in a row, homeowners like Nancy are still aware that long periods without rain are common. “We really gave a lot of thought to what we put in the ground,” she says.

Many of the plants she chose are on the Garden gates were crafted from the house's original wood rafters to reuse on-site resources.

city’s list of water-wise lawn alternatives.

Throughout the landscaping process, Nancy tried to repurpose as much as possible. Case in point: Carefully placed boulders were salvaged from a neighbor’s landscape project and add to the natural look. She kept some of the home’s original trees and plants, such as roses, which are moderate drinkers. A mix of old and new fruit trees include apple, fig, lemon, tangerine, orange, and pomegranate. The newly planted trees take about six months to get established and well rooted, after which they can adapt to occasional irrigation. In addition to the bounty from her fruit trees, Nancy harvests veggies and herbs from her raised garden beds.

Nancy considered a wide range of eco-conscious options as she updated both the garden and inside her home.

And she notes that journey isn't finished, describing her home and garden as an ever-evolving work in progress. “I’m thinking of converting to an electric stovetop,” she says. “There’s always more I want to do.”

It’s a Tankless Job

Nancy is a huge fan of her tankless water heater, which delivers piping hot water on the spot. Also known as a demand-type or instantaneous water heater, it provides hot water only as needed, thereby eliminating the standby energy losses associated with storage water heaters.

Depending on your water usage, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates that a tankless water heater can use up to 34% less energy. The less water you use, the more an on-demand water heater makes sense.

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PAINTING TO PRESERVE NATURE • FEATURE

PAINTING

TO PRESERVE NATURE See Santa Barbara’s iconic natural spaces through the eyes of the artists who have played an integral role in saving them.

Story by Lily Olsen

Paintings Courtesy of the Artists

Photos by Randi Baird

Artists have long been outspoken advocates in the fight to preserve Santa Barbara’s natural spaces. The Oak Group, a collective of artists, uses their paintings to raise awareness and funds for conservation efforts. Some of these paintings were created years ago, but because of their persistent advocacy, the scenes that inspired their artwork remain largely unchanged today.

Carpinteria Bluffs

Along with a coalition of organizations including the Citizens for Carpinteria Bluffs and the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County, the Oak Group has been advocating for the bluffs for decades.

When Oak Group co-founder Arturo Tello first began attending planning meetings for the Carpinteria Bluffs, he noticed that prospective developers would present their plans on posters in the back of the room. He started bringing paintings of the beautiful bluffs and placed them next to the development plans to show what would be lost if developers were allowed to build.

In 1998, the coalition raised over $4 million, and the Land Trust purchased Top, Arturo Tello, Artist’s Passage, 1990, oil about 50 acres. In 2016, the Land Trust purchased an additional 21 acres. There over acrylic: “There was a certain poignancy are still about 30 acres of unprotected land that remain open to development, to painting a place that was in danger of and Carpinteria residents continue their fight to preserve it.

See for yourself: You can reach the Carpinteria Bluffs trails through the parking lot at the end of Bailard Avenue or the parking lot at Viola Fields.

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being lost,” Arturo says. “And now, there's a different kind of poignancy when I paint a place that has been preserved in perpetuity.”

FEATURE • PAINTING TO PRESERVE NATURE

Gaviota Coast

One of the last unprotected and undeveloped pieces of coastline in Southern California, the 76-mile and 200-acre Gaviota Coast is a priority for a number of conservation groups. The Oak Group held three shows to benefit the Gaviota Creek restoration project in 2019 and 2020.

See for yourself: At the El Capitan, Refugio, and Gaviota State Parks, you can enjoy the area’s pristine beaches. From Gaviota State Park, you can hike to Gaviota Peak.

Ann Sanders, Gaviota Coast, 2019, pastel: “The location is Molino Canyon.

The place represents unspoiled coast to me, a treasure in our neighborhood.”

San Marcos Foothills

This 300-acre open space located between the Los Padres National Forest and both Santa Barbara and Goleta provides panoramic views of the coastline and the mountains. The County of Santa Barbara preserved 200 acres in 2005, and in 2021, community members and conservation groups including the Oak Group raised $18 million in three months to save the remaining 100 acres from development.

See for yourself: The primary public access point is located at the end of Via Gaitero Road.

Rick Garcia, Mustard Glow at the San Marcos Foothills, 2022, oil on board: “San Marcos Foothills was one of those places I just happened upon when I first moved to Santa Barbara back in ’82, so I’ve seen it through many variations of seasons. Seeing it as green as it was in ’22 was a nice change after many years of drought. I was very glad we were able to help preserve it from development. Painting a location really helps create an emotional bond between myself and the land, and I hope it shows in the finished work.”

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PAINTING TO PRESERVE NATURE • FEATURE

More Mesa

A 300-acre open space comprising coastal bluffs and oak woodlands, More Mesa is near and dear to the many community members who hike, cycle, ride horses, and go birding here. Most of More Mesa is owned by a private investor and remains vulnerable to development, but the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County was able to purchase and preserve 36 acres in 1991. The community is still working to purchase the remaining 264 acres to prevent future development.

See for yourself: The east entrance to More Mesa is at 1095 Mockingbird Lane, and the west entrance at 5200 Shoreline Drive.

Linda Mutti, More Mesa Treasure, 2021, pastel: “More Mesa is a gorgeous open space that I love to explore. My daughter and I were walking and bird watching there a few years ago. In one direction you can see and smell the ocean, while in the other direction you are faced with the stunning mountains. When my daughter stopped to talk to fellow walkers, I turned and saw the most beautiful scene. I knew I had to paint it.”

Upcycle Trash Into Sustainable Art If you’re interested in bringing an easel out to one of Santa Barbara’s nature preserves, you can find secondhand and recycled supplies at Art From Scrap. You can also donate materials you want to get rid of. 302 E. Cota St., exploreecology.org/art-from-scrapa Plein air artist Keylin Davenport paints in a shady spot at Douglas Family Preserve.

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FEATURE • PAINTING TO PRESERVE NATURE

Douglas Family Preserve

These 70 acres of undeveloped meadows and cliffs overlooking the beach were once known as the Wilcox Property, because this was the site of the Wilcox Nursery from 1949 to 1972. It almost became a resort and residential community. But in 1996, after Santa Barbara residents rallied to raise $2 million, the Trust for Public Land purchased the land and named it Douglas Family Preserve in honor of actor, producer, and UCSB graduate Michael Douglas, who gave a substantial donation to the effort.

See for yourself: Enter from Arroyo Burro Beach or Borton Drive.

Skip Smith, Path of Freedom, 2004, oil: “This specific location describes the entrance to the park — the initial impact you have as you enter. I viewed this place with amazement because the community of Santa Barbara had rallied, fought, and won a many-year battle to raise awareness and funding and votes for its protection.”

Arroyo Hondo

The 782-acre canyon, which lies between Refugio State Beach and Gaviota State Park, is rich in biodiversity. The Land Trust for Santa Barbara County purchased the land from the Hollister and Chamberlain families in 2001 and

still manages it, carrying out restoration work to preserve native plants and ecosystems. Oak Group artists and spouses John Iwerks and Chris Chapman were preserve managers at Arroyo Hondo shortly after its purchase.

See for yourself: Open on the first and third weekends of each month; reservations are free but required at sblandtrust.org.

John Iwerks, Last Light, Arroyo Hondo, 2004, oil: “Arroyo Hondo is a deep canyon bounded by coastal hills on both sides. Shadows linger long both morning and evening due to the topography. Chris and I were the first preserve managers at Arroyo Hondo Preserve, so we lived there from 2002 to 2005. My studio was within the barn, which was just a few feet away from this view. Each evening I would see this cast shadow rising on the east slope as the sun went down over the west slope, so my motivation was an everyday experience, our home environment.”

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PAINTING TO PRESERVE NATURE • FEATURE

Chris Chapman, Figueroa Canyon, 2022, oil on canvas: “I have painted different views along that road in every season over many years. Revisiting heightens one's awareness of all the changes, in color, clouds, heat, frost, winds, rain, and snowy mountains. It makes me feel grateful and alive. The process is an homage, a discipline, and a sport — racing light, keeping upright, and not dropping the gear you have carried.”

Sedgwick Reserve

The namesake of this former ranch, Duke Sedgwick, purchased the land in 1952. The Oak Group and other conservationists launched the “Save the Sedgwick” campaign in the early 1990s to buy the land from heirs and donate it to UCSB. The 6,000-acre ranch is now a conserved space, as well as a research and educational facility, managed by UCSB.

See for yourself: Open to the public through scheduled events; you can find the calendar of events at sedgwick.nrs.ucsb.edu/events. Researchers and educators can make reservations to visit at sedgwick.nrs.ucsb.edu/visiting.

Goleta Slough

The Goleta Slough Ecological Reserve is 440 acres of estuary and wetlands that leads into Goleta Beach. It is a designated State Marine Conservation Area and Environmentally Sensitive Habitat and is home to numerous endangered and threatened species.

See for yourself: There are a number of trails from which you can catch a view of the slough. From Goleta Beach County Park, take the Obern Bike Path or Fairview Bike Path going north.

Marcia Burtt, Sunrise, Goleta Slough, 1998, acrylic: “Stunning or subtle, looking in any direction, on days of sunshine, fog, storm, or calm, at any season or any time of day, and during any phase of the moon or tide, there is something at Goleta Slough calling out to be captured. … Like affection for anything we love, the more we observe and attend to it, the more our love grows. I’ve been fortunate enough to have spent many hundreds of days standing and looking, watching migrating birds, seasonal changes of plants on the bluffs, the effects of king tides and storms, the moonrise move surprisingly from behind eucalyptus trees to the northeast one month and way out over the water to the southeast another time.”

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TRIBUTE • THE CREATION OF POTTER'S POINT

THE CREATION of

Potter's Point

Goleta recently named a bluff in honor of the celebrated landscape artist Chris Potter.

Story by Matt Kettmann

W

COURTESY OF TYLER TOMBLIN

hether standing in front of his easel outside of the county courthouse, painting an urban scene on the corner of State Street, or portraying the coast in all its glory while perched above Butterfly Beach, Chris Potter was the most recognizable artist of his generation in Santa Barbara.

When he died suddenly at just 49 years old on Feb. 3, 2024 — after having beat back a ravaging cancer just a year earlier — Potter, as he was known to friends and fans, left a legacy of vividly colored, lovingly rendered landscapes.

He brought his palette all CHRISPOTTERART.COM around the globe and deep into the backcountry, but his works are his lifelong friend Chris Jones during dominated by scenes from the Ellwood an earlier hearing on the matter. “He is Bluffs, the open space on the western one of the more iconic people to come end of Goleta where he spent much of through our area, and he gave back to the his youth. And there was one prominent community every chance he had.” overlook where you could find Chris most often, sheltered from the breeze by eucalyptus trees and staring right down the coast toward the shifting sands of Coal Oil Point.

That’s why, on May 7, 2024, the Goleta City Council decreed that this spot shall forever be known as Potter’s Point. Spearheaded by the office of County Supervisor Laura Capps, the vast public support for the idea, which tallied nearly 2,000 signatures, led to a unanimous vote on the matter. It was only the third time that the 20-year-old City of Goleta City council members agreed, named something after a person. including James Kyriaco, who said from “You don’t get a whole lot more local the dais, “This is a fitting way to honor to Ellwood than Chris Potter,” explained a Goleta legend and someone who just

helped us appreciate this wonderful place a little bit more.”

At the final hearing, a family friend read one of the social media posts that Potter posted during his fight with cancer a couple of years ago.

“I’d close my eyes on the radiation table and attempt to let joy in,” Potter wrote. “It came in the form of me standing and painting on the bluffs at Ellwood at ‘my spot.’ Then I was a redtail hawk taking off from that spot and gliding along the cliffs. Then flying out over the ocean in a big loop, drifting up to hover, and then looking down at myself painting. Joy came to me, and I accepted that no matter what happens, I was here and I made my mark.”

Potter’s Point is at Ellwood Mesa Open Space with parking at 7729 Hollister Ave., Goleta.

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SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD • FOOD

Our Sustainable

Seafood

Story by Matt Kettmann

DIVERSE, DELICIOUS, AND DOING WELL PHOTO BY RANDI BAIRD

B

THE SEASON

FISH

ack in the early 2000s, when I was a young reporter covering ocean conservation, the outlook for seafood in the Santa Barbara Channel was rather grim. Rockfish and other telltale species were struggling,

causing the government to create a network of no-fishing zones from Gaviota to the Channel Islands. That made already ornery fishermen angrier than usual and gave an especially salty war-zone vibe to the waterfront.

SPRING

It’s a brand-new world today. Though plenty still like to grumble — and there’s no shortage of challenges that make commercial fishing a tough career — the general sense is that these no-fishing zones are working. Fish species of all types are

SUMMER

AHI TUNA YELLOWTAIL

KING SALMON PETRALE SOLE MUSSELS DUNGENESS CRAB RIDGEBACK SHRIMP SQUID SWORDFISH

ONLY SPRING SEA URCHIN

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SPINY LOBSTER

CHART SPECIES INFO FROM GET HOOKED; ALBACORE, KING SALMON, PETRALE SOLE, SPINY LOBSTER, SWORDFISH IMAGES COURTESY OF NOAA FISHERIES

FOOD • SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD

abundant throughout the Santa Barbara Channel, where a stunning array of edible seafoods can be responsibly harvested and enjoyed throughout the seasons.

“That’s one of the fantastic things about the Santa Barbara Channel,” says Kim Selkoe, a marine scientist and cofounder of the community-supported fishery program Get Hooked. “Over 100 culinary species are landed at our port, so you can eat with the seasons and sample this great variety. That’s compared to other places in the country that just bring in one or two things.”

And it’s even true for the oncedoomed rockfish. “They thought it would take 50 years to rebuild the rockfish stocks,” but it’s happening much quicker, Kim says. “It was an amazing good news story. Now the rockfish is underexploited. There are lots out there and not enough boats targeting it to make the most of the fishery.”

Though Kim was headed toward a life in academia after earning her

FALL

doctorate in ecology, evolution, and marine biology, she’d started consulting with Santa Barbara chefs to help them make their seafood menus more sustainable, as understanding what’s properly harvested can be hard even for experts. That consulting work led to a job as the executive director of the Commercial Fisherman of Santa Barbara, where she still serves in a parttime role. From that experience — and with Victoria Voss, the daughter of well-known fisherman Chris Voss — Kim launched Get Hooked in 2018.

The service delivers weekly packages of freshly caught and cleaned fish to more than 400 households from the Santa Ynez Valley and Santa Barbara to Ojai and even Los Angeles. Working with about 40 fishing boats in any given year — including the dozen who supply Get Hooked almost weekly, as well as some as far away as Moss Landing and San Diego — Kim’s team curates each order based on customer preferences. They also

share updated information on the status of each fishery and publish multiple recipes for more than 30 of the species, from common ones like halibut and shrimp to more rare options like whelk and skate.

It’s really the best one-stop shop for supporting and appreciating the Santa Barbara Channel’s seafood scene.

And despite the changing climate — which is negatively affecting some species, like urchin, though expanding the range of others, like bluefin — the future looks strong.

That’s the beauty of it: We should all be eating as much of it as we can, because it’s all really well managed,” Kim says.

“There are a lot of abundant fisheries that are doing really well, either already very stable or on an upswing. All of the ecological indicators in the Santa Barbara Channel are that the coastal ecosystem is very healthy.”

For more information, visit gethookedseafood.com.

WINTER

SPOT PRAWN

YEAR-ROUND

BOUNTY Abalone, Black Cod,

AHI TUNA

Grenadier, Halibut, Ocean Whitefish, Ogo

WHITE SEA BASS

Seaweed, Opah, Oysters, Pink Shrimp, Rock Crab,

PETRALE SOLE MUSSELS

ALBACORE

ONLY FALL

Rockfish, Shark

OCCASIONAL

DUNGENESS CRAB

Anchovies, Black Sea RIDGEBACK SHRIMP

Bass, Bonito, Dover Sole, Kellet's Whelk, Mackerel, Sanddabs, Sheephead

SARDINES

SPINY LOBSTER

SantaBarbara GreenGuide.com

47

SPRING

SEASONAL RECIPES • FOOD

Eating in

Season

Chef, teacher, and cookbook author Pascale Beale offers a recipe for each season to help us enjoy what’s fresh and local.

ASPARAGUS AND ENGLISH PEA SOUP Recipe from Pascale Beale's Les Légumes: Vegetable Recipes From the Market Table

M27 EDITIONS

INGREDIENTS Olive oil 3-4 shallots, finely diced 1 1/2 lbs asparagus, stalks thinly sliced 1 1/2 lbs shelled English peas Coarse sea salt Black pepper 5 cups vegetable stock 1 Tbsp chives

DIRECTIONS 1. Pour a little olive oil into a large saucepan over medium-high heat.

Cook the shallots, stirring frequently until lightly golden and fragrant, about 3 to 4 minutes.

2. Add the asparagus and cook for 2 minutes.

3. Stir in the peas, a good pinch of sea salt, 6 to 7 grinds black pepper, and cook for 1 to 2 minutes.

48 SANTA BARBARA Green Guide 2 0 2 4 – 2 0 2 5

Sweet, tender, bright green asparagus and crisp, fresh, popin-your-mouth English peas at the farmers market are tell-tale signs that spring has arrived in full force. When I find both at the market on the same day, I make this soup. Its color is vibrant, and the flavor is herbaceous and fresh. A bowl of this with a chunky slice of hearty bread is all I need for dinner.

Serves 8

4. Add the vegetable stock and cook for 5 to 6 minutes over medium-high heat.

5. Using a traditional or immersion blender, purée the soup until completely smooth.

6. Serve hot, topped with chives, and some crusty bread alongside.

FOOD • SEASONAL RECIPES

SUMMER

PARCHMENT-WRAPPED WHITE FISH WITH OLIVE TAPENADE Recipe from Pascale Beale's A Menu for All Seasons: Summer

The flavors of the French and Italian Riviera are captured in the preparation of this fish and perfect for all the beautiful tomatoes that are available at this time of year.

The dish is succulent and bursting with flavor.

Serves 6-8

INGREDIENTS 1 1/2 cups pitted black niçoise or kalamata olives (divided) Juice and zest of 1 lemon (divided) 1/3 cup olive oil for tapenade Coarse sea salt Black pepper 1 1/2 Tbsps olive oil 2 large red onions, diced 2 large yellow onions, diced 1 lb mixed tomatoes, roughly chopped 2 lbs sea bass or other white fish (cut into 4-ounce filets) 1/2 cup white wine

DIRECTIONS 1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

M27 EDITIONS

Note: For the mixed tomatoes, use yellow, red, heirloom, pear — the choice is yours. They can all be Roma, but a little variety adds extra depth to the sauce.

2. Prepare black olive tapenade: Place 1 cup of the olives, half of the lemon juice, all the lemon zest, ⅓ cup olive oil, a pinch of salt, and 5 grinds of black pepper in a small food processor or a mortar and pestle. Process, or grind, the olives until they form a coarse paste. Set aside.

4. Cut a piece of parchment paper or foil to three times the size of the filet. Spoon a large tablespoon of the tomato mixture into the middle of the parchment paper. Place the filet on top of the tomatoes. Spread some of the tapenade all over the top of the filet. Drizzle a little white wine and lemon juice over the fish and add 2 or 3 olives to the package.

3. In a saucepan, heat 1½ tablespoons of olive oil and add the red and yellow onion. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes until the onions are completely soft and translucent. Add the tomatoes and cook for 2 to 3 minutes more. Set aside.

5. Carefully pull the sides of the parchment paper up over the fish. Fold the parchment over itself to seal the long top edge, but don’t fold them up too tightly as you are making a little tent or pouch for the fish to cook in.

Seal the parcels by tucking the ends in under the fish. Repeat with the remaining filets. Place the finished packages in a baking pan.

6. Bake the fish for 15 to 20 minutes depending on the thickness of the filets, allowing 12 minutes per inch.

7. To serve, carefully open the packages (they will be hot and steam will be released when you open them), and, using a spatula, remove the fish with the onion and tomatoes. Carefully pour the cooking juices around and over the fish.

SantaBarbara GreenGuide.com 49

FALL

SEASONAL RECIPES • FOOD

PEAR MOUSSE

Recipe from Pascale Beale's newest cookbook out November 2024, Flavour

This is a simple, ethereal, and elegant dessert. The key is to use ripe pears for this dish; if they are under-ripe, the mousse will be a little grainy.

Serves 8

INGREDIENTS 2 lbs pears, peeled, cored, and chopped 1 cup whipping cream 1 tsp vanilla paste 2 egg whites 3 Tbsps sugar (divided) 3/4 cup chopped pecans

DIRECTIONS 1. Blitz the pears in a food processor fitted with a metal blade until you have a smooth purée. Chill the purée for 10 minutes.

2. Whip the cream with the vanilla paste until it just holds firm peaks.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites with 1 tablespoon of sugar until they hold firm peaks.

4. Gently fold the whipped cream into the pear purée, then add the whisked egg whites in two parts, carefully folding them into the mixture. Spoon the purée into individual serving glasses or bowls and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

PASCALE BEALE

50 SANTA BARBARA Green Guide 2 0 2 4 – 2 0 2 5

5. Place the pecans and remaining sugar in a heavy bottomed skillet over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until all the sugar has melted and coats the pecans. The mixture will be sticky. Spoon onto a plate and let cool. Just before serving the mousse, sprinkle some caramelized pecans on top.

FOOD • SEASONAL RECIPES

WINTER

CITRUS SALAD WITH AVOCADO VINAIGRETTE Recipe from Pascale Beale's Les Fruits: Sweet and Savory Recipes From the Market Table

If you can find Cara Cara oranges, please use them in this salad. I first came across this orange at the Santa Barbara Farmers Market. They are divine. Originally grown in Venezuela, they are a type of navel orange that tastes like citrus honey, not cloying but fresh, juicy, and pleasantly sweet. They are beautiful with pink flesh similar to pink grapefruit and look marvelous next to the blood orange segments. Yes, I’ll admit that it’s a bit of an effort to section each fruit, but it’s well worth it.

Your salad will taste better and look pretty, too.

Serves 8

INGREDIENTS:

M27 EDITIONS

DIRECTIONS 1. Place the peeled grapefruit on a cutting board with a channel groove to catch any juice. Section the grapefruit using a small sharp knife.

Remove as much of the bitter membrane and pith as possible. Repeat this procedure with the oranges. Reserve any juice.

2. Place the avocado in a large salad bowl and mash it together with the lime juice and reserved juice from the oranges and grapefruit. Add the olive oil, chives, pink salt, and pepper and mix well. Place utensils over the vinaigrette.

1 pink grapefruit, peeled 1 Cara Cara orange, peeled 1 blood orange, peeled 1/2 avocado 1 Tbsp lime juice 2 Tbsps olive oil 1 Tbsp chives, finely chopped Pinch pink flake salt 4 to 5 grinds black pepper 8 oz mix of mache, baby romaine, and little gems 1/2 cup whole pecan halves, dry roasted until golden brown 1/2 cup small basil leaves

3. Place the fruit segments and all the remaining ingredients on top of the utensils. When ready to serve, toss well to combine.

SantaBarbara GreenGuide.com 51

CHANNEL ISLANDS • FEATURE

The trails above Scorpion Valley on Santa Cruz Island provide stunning views of Anacapa Island.

Day Tripping to

Channel Islands

National Park

Story by Jim Miller Photos by Hugh Ranson

This walk (and boat ride) on the wild side features endangered species and amazing vistas, just an hour offshore.

T

Twenty-or-so miles of Santa Barbara Channel separate the five islands that comprise Channel Islands National Park from the mainland. This means they are separate from any vehicular onslaught that can make other national parks seem more like roadside attractions than crown jewels of nature. It also means a day trip can become part whale-anddolphin watch.

GETTING TO SANTA CRUZ

The winter day we make our trip to Santa Cruz, the biggest of the five islands, the sea is tame and the sun bright. The first thing you realize when approaching the islands is that they are huge. The modest-looking lumps we see as we gaze out to sea are actually mountains half-buried in the ocean.

Mount Diablo on Santa Cruz rises almost 2,500 feet from sea level, and Santa Cruz itself is over 20 miles long and nearly 100 square miles in total (three times the size of Manhattan).

Stunning cliffs rise hundreds of feet out of the ocean. But before the boat makes

its first stop at Scorpion Cove, the captain takes a detour so we can watch migrating gray whales. We see spouts, tails, and even a couple breaches — likely energetic juveniles.

When we disembark at Scorpion Cove, a volunteer gives us a quick rundown of island rules, after which we join him on a leisurely hour-long hike to Cavern Point, a cliff-edge overlook whose scenery rivals any national park vista. Along the way, the volunteer, Doug Crispin, educates and entertains. Doug, who’s a 52-year(!) veteran ranger, spends his summers at the Grand Canyon, where he’s a paid ranger, and this winter volunteering at Channel Islands. He’s resolved to keep rangering until his knees or heart stop him.

ISLAND HISTORY

The story Doug tells us about Santa Cruz is the story of modern conservation in miniature. The Chumash lived on the islands for millennia. Europeans arrived in earnest in the early 1800s and established ranches on the island, raising mainly sheep, but also beef cattle and pigs by the 1850s. These ranching operations lasted until the 1980s, even after the islands had been declared a national monument (in 1938) and a national park (in 1980). The story since the 1990s has been one of cleaning up the mess.

And the mess the ranchers left behind was considerable, primarily populations of feral sheep and pigs, as well as a landscape covered with invasive plant species that thrived in the wake of the

“Islands are hotbeds for biodiversity, as the plants and animals evolve in isolation to suit the specific ecosystem of the islands. With the livestock gone, the native fauna and flora are returning.”

52 SANTA BARBARA Green Guide 2 0 2 4 – 2 0 2 5

FEATURE • CHANNEL ISLANDS

sheep and pigs. The victims of these invasives were rare and endemic plant and animal species.

Islands are hotbeds for biodiversity, as the plants and animals evolve in isolation to suit the specific ecosystem of the islands. With the livestock gone, the native fauna and flora are returning.

Many species found nowhere else call the Channel Islands home, and together the NPS and the Nature Conservancy, which owns three-quarters of the island, continue efforts to restore the delicate island ecosystem.

ENDEMIC WILDLIFE

Doug tells us islands breed giants and dwarves – either can have advantages in this habitat. Island scrub-jays (which are only on Santa Cruz, the smallest range of any North American bird) are a third bigger than their mainland counterparts. They are heartier, which means they can go longer without food, and they also don't have predators like on the mainland.

The island fox got small, and conveniently needs fewer resources.

Found only on the Channel Islands, this petite fox (about the size of a housecat, but slighter) was almost extinct 20

years ago. But after an amazingly brief and successful restoration effort, which involved shuffling some eagles around and the culling of 5,000 feral pigs (Santa Barbara writer T.C. Boyle presents a fictionalized, but largely accurate, account of the eradication efforts in his novel When the Killing’s Done), the foxes roam the campground near Scorpion Cove, all but oblivious to humans nearby.

The foxes now number around 2,900.

NPS wildlife biologist Tim Coonan calls the saving of the island fox “one of the most successful, and quickest, recovery programs in the history of endangered species.” They are also adorable, mostly gray with reddish underbellies and a white muzzle that gives them a smirking appearance. They scamper about, noses to the ground, scanning for the fruits, bugs, and assorted critters that make up their omnivorous diet. It’s amazing to observe such a rare animal in its natural habitat, especially one that was so close to extinction just 20 years ago.

THE RETURN VOYAGE

As our hike with Doug ends, we take the clifftop coastal trail back to Scorpion Cove, then wander up the Scorpion Valley trail a bit to get a taste

This island scrub-jay is using old ranch machinery for a lookout on Santa Cruz Island.

of the island’s interior before taking in the view from Smuggler’s Road.

Then it’s time to reboard for the trip back. Again we detour to view wildlife, this time a “megapod” of common dolphins frolicking around the boat. Common dolphins are plentiful in the channel, and the tours encounter them almost daily. But with a day of amazing scenery, engaging history, fascinating ecology, and inspiring conservation in our wake, these playful creatures leaping about the boat seem to join us in our celebration.

PLANNING A TRIP

COURTESY OF NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

Getting There: Island Packers is the official park concessionaire cruising out of Ventura Harbor or Oxnard to four of the five park islands. The most-popular (and shortest) trip is Ventura to Scorpion Cove on Santa Cruz. Book in advance. islandpackers.com Playing There: In addition to hiking, concessionaires offer kayak and snorkel tours from Scorpion Cove, perhaps the best way to see the sea caves and kelp forests lining the coast. sbadventureco.com

The island fox has stormed back from near-extinction thanks to an aggressive recovery program.

Staying There: There are campgrounds on all five islands, and reservations are required in advance. nps.gov/chis

SantaBarbara GreenGuide.com

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HOW TO HIKE WITH CARE • FIELD NOTE

FIELDNote

To: Bluedot Living From: Addison Jerlow, Program Manager at Los Padres Forest Association Subject: How to Hike With Care

T

he Los Padres Forest Association (LPFA) loves helping happy humans enjoy their local trails.

Practicing good trail etiquette is one of the best ways individuals can promote trail sustainability and ensure trails stay open for everyone to enjoy.

Noise: Hike quietly, speak softly, and enjoy the nature around you while letting others do the same. Being loud and disruptive, including projecting music on speakers while hiking, is not respectful of wildlife and other hikers.

What is good trail etiquette?

after rain events. If your shoes/tires/hoofs are leaving a deep, lasting mark, the trail is too wet to use! Stay on trails. Don’t cut switchbacks. Clean your boots/shoes/ hoofs before using new trails. These practices help preserve trail integrity and mitigate the spread of invasive species.

It begins with understanding that your actions have an impact on both the trail and the trail community. Respect for others and the environment is at the center of each of these principles.

Combined, they can help ensure positive, sustainable, and long-lasting recreation opportunities in our local mountains.

Pets: Pets are welcome on all trails in the Los Padres, but please keep them on leash and under control. And please, remember to pack out your pet’s waste!

No one else is picking up those little baggies left on the side of the trail.

Travel: Give trails a day or more to dry Bathroom Use: Be sure to travel

Trash: If you packed it in, pack it

out! Even “natural” trash like orange and banana peels take as long as two years to decompose. Please be considerate of wildlife and other trail users and dispose of trash properly.

There’s nothing natural about a trail littered with orange peels!

Right of Way: Bikers yield to

hikers. Hikers and bikers yield to equestrians. When hiking downhill, yield to uphill hikers. These rules keep traffic moving smoothly. When yielding to a horse, step to the downhill side of the trail. Follow the lead of the rider when in doubt.

The Los Padres Forest Association (LPFA) has been an official nonprofit partner of the Los Padres National Forest since 1979. The mission is to care for the Los Padres Forest, ensuring it thrives and remains safe and open for all people to use and enjoy. LPFA organizes dozens of trail maintenance trips each year, ranging from day trips to 10-plus-day-long “working vacations,” deep in the Los Padres backcountry. LPFA also provides outreach and education for local communities and forest users ranging from forest-focused presentations, outdoor education classes, and volunteer training programs to up-to-date forest information bulletins, visitor center management, and graffiti and litter removal projects. Visit LPForest.org to help out today.

54 SANTA BARBARA Green Guide 2 0 2 4 – 2 0 2 5

at least 200 feet from trails, camps, and water sources when disposing of solid human waste. While some forests support burying toilet paper, the Los Padres has too arid a climate for this practice. Please pack it out with the rest of your trash!

Wildlife: If you’re lucky enough to see any of the diverse wildlife that calls the Los Padres home, please respect them! Keep your distance and never feed wildlife, for your safety and theirs.

LPFA committed more than 22,000 volunteer hours to the forest with 140 projects to maintain more than 85 miles of trails in 2023. With more than 1,000 miles of trails in the Los Padres, there is always more work to be done! Donating or volunteering with LPFA is the best way to help the Los Padres. LPForest.org If you’d like to participate in Los Padres Forest Association’s trail maintenance, email volunteer@LPForest.org.

THANK YO U Bluedot Living Santa Barbara is grateful for the support of Susan and Tom Washing, Evan and Pat Aptaker, and Vivienne Leebosh and Ralph Thomas. We invited them to tell us about local nonprofits that are important to them, and the community.

VICTORIA RISKIN

Vivienne Leebosh and Ralph Thomas Cheers to MOXI, the Wolf Museum of Exploration + Innovation, sparking the creative imaginations of thousands of Santa Barbara children and visitors, big and little, from afar.

Bluedot Living Founder

SantaBarbara GreenGuide.com

Susan and Tom Washing

Evan and Pat Aptaker

We are proud to support Good Samaritan for their work — including 800 beds for the homeless in Santa Barbara County — as well as starting an amazing selfdevelopment program for their residents called “Food for Good.”

We salute the dedication of CASA, Court Appointed Special Advocates, who have protected abused and neglected children in Santa Barbara County since 1993. Thank you to all the volunteers. You do change the future of our children.

SantaBarbara GreenGuide.com

55

®® ®®

DISCOVER BLUEDOT LIVING NEWSLETTERS DISCOVER BLUEDOT LIVING NEWSLETTERS DISCOVER DISCOVERBLUEDOT BLUEDOTLIVING LIVINGNEWSLETTERS NEWSLETTERS From recipesand andtips tipson on Fromnews newsabout aboutlocal localclimate climate issues issues to to planet-friendly planet-friendly recipes From From news news about about local local climate climate issues issues to to planet-friendly planet-friendly recipes recipes and and tips tips on on sustainable enlightening and andeco-conscious eco-conscious sustainableshopping, shopping,Bluedot BluedotLiving Living delivers delivers enlightening sustainable sustainableshopping, shopping, Bluedot Bluedot Living Living delivers delivers enlightening enlightening and and eco-conscious eco-conscious ways on Earth.

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THEHUB HUB THE HUB THE THE HUB On-the-ground reporting reporting On-the-ground

On-the-ground On-the-groundreporting reporting highlighting highlighting aa universe universeof of highlighting highlightinga auniverse universeofof ideas ideas and and changemakers. changemakers. ideas ideasand andchangemakers. changemakers.

YOUR DAILY DOT YOURDAILY DAILYDOT DOT YOUR YOUR DAILY DOT Questions and answers Questions and answers Questions Questions and and answers answers for everyday foreveryday everyday for for everyday eco-friendly living. eco-friendly living. eco-friendly eco-friendly living. living.

BUYBETTER BUYBETTER BUYBETTER BUYBETTER MARKETPLACE MARKETPLACE MARKETPLACE MARKETPLACE Strive to buy less, but when

tobuy buy less, but when Strive Strivetoto buy less, less, but but when when you do buy — buy better. you youdo do buy —— buy buy better. better. dobuy buy — buy better.

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56 SANTA BARBARA Green Guide 2 0 2 4 – 2 0 2 5

FIELDNote

To: Bluedot Living From: Jaclyn DeSantis, Education Program Manager, Ojai Raptor Center Subject: Prevent Wildlife Injuries

T

he Ojai Raptor Center (ORC) is a nonprofit wildlife rehabilitation and education center specializing in birds of prey. Annually, ORC admits approximately 1,000 sick, injured, and orphaned wild patients, aiming to release each back into their natural habitat. A significant portion of these patients are admitted due to human-induced causes such as window and car strikes, shootings, entanglement injuries, domestic cat attacks, and rodenticide toxicity.

Many of these incidents are preventable.

Simple Actions You Can Take to Mitigate Everyday Risks to Wildlife: Reduce unnecessary light pollution at night to prevent

confusion and collisions among birds.

Apply decals to windows frequently

struck by birds.

Refrain from littering natural

food items from car windows to avoid attracting wildlife to roads.

Avoid using pesticides —

not only is there no poison that is 100% “safe” for wildlife and pets, but continuously poisoning the food sources of native wildlife species will ultimately reduce their populations.

Trim your trees between November and January to

Rodenticide Alternatives: Barn Owl Boxes and Hawk Perches Attracting both diurnal and nocturnal raptors with barn owl boxes and hawk perches is more effective at controlling rodent populations than using rodenticide bait boxes, according to a Pilot Study with Ventura County Public Works in 2017 that included ORC. This natural alternative is not only more costeffective but also ecologically sustainable and safer for wildlife.

Given Santa Barbara's status as an urban/wildland interface, where this natural alternative has shown higher success rates, responsible stewardship of shared natural lands becomes even more crucial.

Buy: ORC offers barn owl boxes for sale on our website for local pickup in Ojai.

DIY: Free plans for constructing owl boxes and hawk perches are provided at ojairaptorcenter.org/barn-owl-box-guide.

Attend: Virtual and in-person

programs educate about the dangers of rodenticide poison and promote alternatives (ojairaptorcenter.org/ programsall/raptors-and-rodentcontrol).

Visit ojairaptorcenter.org to read more about rodent control and raptors.

avoid disrupting or harming nesting birds. Different bird species nest from February to October. Great horned owls nest as early as January, while many songbirds start in mid to late summer, with fledging in the fall. Trimming November through January is also best for the trees.

SantaBarbara GreenGuide.com 57

GARDENING WITH NATIVE PLANTS • FIELD NOTE

FIELDNote To: Bluedot Living From: Santa Barbara Botanic Garden Subject: A Guide to Gardening With Native Plants

As the first botanic garden to focus exclusively on native plants, Santa Barbara Botanic Garden has dedicated nearly a century of work to better understand the relationship between plants and people. Growing from 13 acres in 1926 to today’s 78 acres, the grounds now include more than five miles of walking trails, a herbarium, a seed bank, research labs, a library, and a public native plant nursery. Today, the garden's team of scientists, educators, and horticulturists remain committed to its founders original vision: to conserve California’s native plants and habitats to ensure they continue to support all life on the planet for generations to come.

In the face of both climate change and biodiversity loss, the garden believes that one of the most direct solutions to these crises lies within our ability to harness the regenerative power of native plants. Having evolved in their habitats over millennia, California’s native plants are perfectly suited to our climate and provide invaluable habitat for the butterflies, birds, and other wildlife that share our home. No matter how large or small, your garden has the potential to be a restorative force for biodiversity. Growing native plants has never been easier. Are you ready to grow?

WATER SAVVY NATIVE PLANTS

BEACH ASTER WAYNE RODERICK

(Salvia ‘Allen Chickering’)

CORAL BELLS

(Erigeron glacus ‘Wayne Roderick’)

(Heuchera species)

Don’t let the cute flowers and short stature fool you — these plants are tough. This low-growing daisy is perfect for borders and small spaces. In full sun, they flower readily and, when happy, will spread via their roots.

A beloved ground cover, a mass of coral bells can provide year-round green and seasonal splashes of pink or white. Mass planting these cultivars guarantees your garden will become a haven for numerous hummingbirds.

WESTERN REDBUD

CLUSTERED FIELD SEDGE

HOWARD MCMINN MANZANITA

This shrub or tree provides sculptural beauty year-round and a reliable display of seasonal color. In late winter, before the leaves have fully developed, magenta flowers cover the bare limbs, creating an eye-catching blaze.

This is a great substitute for a lawn and requires significantly less water than more traditional grasses. In the home garden, this plant produces soft foliage that tolerates mowing.

This attractive, colorful shrub produces flowers and berries that attract bees, butterflies, and birds. An easy plant that thrives in full sun or partial shade, this manzanita isn’t fussy about soils or watering frequency.

HANNAH BARTON

CAROL BORNSTEIN

This hybrid sage is an excellent choice for the home gardener interested in low maintenance and seasonal beauty. It blooms in late spring/summer, and provides fragrant aromas year-round through its leaves.

(Cercis occidentalis)

(Carex praegracilis)

58 SANTA BARBARA Green Guide 2 0 2 4 – 2 0 2 5

(Arctostaphylos ‘Howard McMinn’)

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF SANTA BARBARA BOTANIC GARDEN

ALLEN CHICKERING SAGE

RANDY WRIGHT

RANDY WRIGHT

CHRISTINA VARNAVA

California’s native plants create wildlife habitats and are easy to grow, readily available at the Garden Nursery (and other locations), drought tolerant, and beautiful.

FIELD NOTE • GARDENING WITH NATIVE PLANTS

Plant This, Not That A GUIDE TO INVASIVE SPECIES

This guide will steer you away from commonly seen invasive plants that grow aggressively, spread quickly, and displace native plants in our ecosystem.

WILD STRAWBERRIES

DEERWEED

LEAFY REEDGRASS

GROUND COVERS

SHRUBS

Ground covers help prevent erosion, reduce soil moisture loss, knit plants together in design, and support habitat. Unfortunately, some nonnative options are among the most aggressive in the invasive plant world. One common example to avoid is bigleaf periwinkle (Vinca major).

This plant grows in moist conditions in both sun and shade and is particularly problematic in riparian zones.

Shrubs are woody plants that provide a vital foundation for any garden. In California, we are fortunate to have some of the most iconic, beautiful shrubs in the world.

However, among invasive shrubs, you’ll find Scotch broom (Cytisus scoparius), which forms monocultures that don’t support much wildlife, and orange cotoneaster (Cotoneaster franchetii), which is a super spreader that chokes out native plants.

PLANT THIS: Why not try some wild strawberries (Fragraria vesca and F. chiloensis) instead? Both of these native species serve as lovely ground covers for partly shady areas, and both support habitat for a wide array of moths and skippers.

PLANT THIS: A much better option is deerweed (Acmispon glaber). This perennial subshrub grows quickly and performs well in a variety of habitats and conditions, from dry hillsides to coastal sandy zones. Toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia) also makes a great hedge plant. It produces beautiful red berries that attract and feed birds in winter, in addition to providing habitat to several kinds of butterflies, moths, and skippers.

ISLAND OAK

ORNAMENTAL GRASSES Grasses can provide a wonderful textural element to your garden. Unfortunately, many commonly found in the marketplace have proven to be prolific seeders that create an invasive mess in our natural environment. Some of the biggest offenders include pampas grass (Cortaderia selloana), European beach grass (Ammophila arenaria), Mexican feathergrass (Nassella tenuissima), and fountaingrass (Pennisetum setaceum).

PLANT THIS: We suggest going with a native alternative like leafy reedgrass (Calamagrostis foliosa). This plant is compact in size, has delightful flowers, and supports habitat for moths and skippers. If you’re looking for something a little larger, consider deergrass (Muhlenbergia rigens), which looks great throughout the year, handles drought like a champ, and produces seeds that provide food for many different bird species.

RANDY WRIGHT

Nothing is better than enjoying your summer landscape in the cool shade of an established tree — preferably with a cold drink in hand! However, the Brazilian pepper tree (Schinus terebinthifolia) has become a massive nuisance.

TREES

PLANT THIS: Oaks (Quercus species), including coast live oak trees (Quercus agrifolia), provide vital structure, shade, and habitat for a variety of butterflies, moths, and skippers. One oak alone can support up to 500 species of caterpillars that, in turn, help feed songbirds and other creatures. We also recommend the island oak (Quercus tomentella) and, for spots farther south in California, the Engelmann oak (Quercus engelmannii), which has a beautiful overall form and develops gnarled, spreading branches over time.

Home gardeners can draw inspiration from the water-wise home demonstration section on the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden’s website SantaBarbara GreenGuide.com 59 (sbbotanicgarden.org/explore/sections/home-demonstration).

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To: Bluedot Living From: Kori Nielsen, Program Director, Santa Barbara County Green Business Program Subject: Certification by Santa Barbara County Green Business Program

ENERGY

Equipment Replacement/ Upgrades:

• Replacing inefficient lighting with LEDs. • Replacing gas furnaces and water heaters with efficient electric heat pump systems or obtaining replacement quotes.

• Obtaining quotes for solar panels.

• Considering on-site renewable energy sources like solar panels, geothermal, or wind turbines.

• Implementing lighting controls like occupancy sensors, timers, photocells, or time clocks.

• Upgrading to Energy Star–qualified refrigerators.

• Checking and replacing cracked or ineffective refrigerator/freezer seals and gaskets.

• Utilizing programmable/smart thermostats.

• Installing pipe insulation.

• Conducting HVAC maintenance.

Environmentally Preferable Purchasing:

• Using Energy Star office equipment and appliances that are set to hibernate after 15 minutes.

• Opting for Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) Silver/Gold printers, computers, laptops, monitors, and mobile phones.

PAPER AND CLEANING PRODUCTS

We require our businesses to use certified non-toxic laundry, cleaning, and building maintenance products in non-aerosol containers with Green Seal or U.S. EPA Safer Choice certifications.

• Use unbleached and/or processed chlorine-free (PCF) paper products with a minimum of 30% postconsumer waste recycled content.

• The 5 R’s — refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle, and rot — are essential principles for sustainable living.

• We encourage our businesses to support our other green businesses, such as Mission Refill and Sunkissed Pantry, both of which provide zerowaste cleaning options.

TRANSPORTATION

To enhance employee commuting options and reduce single-occupancy vehicle usage, several initiatives can be implemented: • A commuter benefits program to facilitate pre-tax deductions for transit, vanpool, or biking expenses and to encourage enrollment in a guaranteed ride home program.

• Telecommuting and flexible schedules to avoid heavy traffic commutes.

• Incentives for biking such as rebates, maintenance subsidies, secure storage, and designated parking.

• Shuttle services and amenities like bike kits, EV recharge ports, lockers, showers, and company bicycles.

• Subsidized shared bike memberships.

Check out our ridesharing partner at trafficsolutions.org/links.

For more information, contact knielsen@environmentalin.com or visit greenbusinessca.org/SantaBarbaraCounty.

WATER

Our businesses achieve best practices for indoor and outdoor water usage by: • Retrofitting toilets, urinals, and faucets to meet low GPM requirements.

• Leak detection and repair.

• Irrigation system management.

• Native or drought-tolerant landscaping practices.

• Drip irrigation installation.

COMMUNITY

We address the social side of sustainability: • Invite another business to enroll in our program.

• Post resource conservation signage.

• Research renewable energy options.

• Track water and energy usage.

• Commit to emission reduction.

• Educate employees on renewable energy options.

• Offset carbon emissions.

• Establish an environmental policy statement covering waste reduction, toxin elimination, and more.

COURTESY OF RRM

PHOTOS FROM TOP: COURTESY OF THE SANTA BARBARA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY; COURTESY OF THE CALIFORNIA NATURE ART MUSEUM

T

he Santa Barbara County Green Business Program helps make our communities healthier and more livable while also helping businesses by conserving resources and saving money. The Green Business certification is a great way to evaluate your business’s current practices and make improvements. Certified Green Businesses voluntarily follow best practices for energy and water conservation, pollution prevention, waste management, toxics reduction, employee commute, and education. Here are some main topics that our green businesses look at when getting certified:

61

THE SUSTAINABLE CHUMASH • FEATURE

Continued from page 29

frames, crown molding, and other products. Clean the World Foundation gives soap to impoverished people. Los Angeles Fibers produces carpet cushion from the casino’s post-consumer flooring, and Textile Waste Solutions ships used uniforms overseas to developing countries.

The casino does plenty of work on site, too. Their food waste dehydrator is finally taking a bite out of a problem that had frustrated Mark for years: buffet leftovers. “Hundreds of thousands of pounds a month,” he says.

A new glass pulverizer is now also operational.

The heart and soul of their recycling operation — four full-time employees dedicated to sorting every piece of trash — occupies the casino’s loading bay. “Three 40-yard bins, a few

recently hosting a tribe from Northern California that currently doesn’t recycle at all. “Our programs are very translatable to anybody,” he says. “We tell people, ‘Come watch us do what we do.’” And adaptability within individual programs is key, he explains. “We’re always looking at new ways to recycle stuff. Especially The casino is working its because commodities way toward zero waste. markets are so volatile.”

In 2019, the Chumash sorting tables — that’s all you need,” Casino Resort earned a TRUE Mark says. “We’ve proven to other certification — Total Resource Use companies that you don’t need a big and Efficiency — from Green Business facility to do this work.”

Certification Inc., becoming the first To that end, Mark — who oversees casino in the world to receive the honor. a total custodial staff of 165 employees “A lot of old-school thinkers think — regularly invites private entities recycling is just an activity to appease and other tribes to come see what people,” Mark says. “But it’s not. You can the Chumash have accomplished, really close the loop.”

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The Hal Conklin Community Room is a flexible space designed to host meetings, lectures, and workshops in a variety of configurations.

The Patricia & Paul Bragg Foundation Atrium, which boasts high ceilings and plenty of natural light, is an excellent choice for receptions, banquets, and gatherings. A large drop-down screen makes it the ideal location for presentations and evening film screenings.

62 SANTA BARBARA Green Guide 2 0 2 4 – 2 0 2 5

Notes From the Home Front

Forest Schools in

Santa Barbara Outdoor learning has positive effects on kids long after they head indoors.

M

Story and Photos by Lizzy Fallows

y oldest daughter’s first year of school was an interesting study in contrasts. Two days a week, she attended a small private preschool in an old officer’s home in San Francisco’s Presidio, and another two days a week, she attended a forest school under a canopy of eucalyptus trees, also in the Presidio. The schools were nearly identical apart from setting, yet the behavior of the children, and my daughter in particular, was totally different. There was simply less conflict outdoors.

After years as an early childhood educator, Lia Grippo, who founded Wild Roots Forest School in Santa Barbara in 1998, saw the same thing. “I began to notice that consistently, when I took children beyond the bounds of fenced and curated playgrounds and classrooms and into natural settings, they were less stressed, more socially competent, required far less intervention, and learned with greater ease and joy,” she says.

“My daughters all have a deep connection and tender relationship with nature. They are at ease in wild places, notice things I do not see … and legitimately care about the Earth.”

What are the benefits of preschool in the forest?

Originally started in Denmark in the 1950s, forest schools are outdoor schools for early education. They tend to be childled, play-based, experiential, and nonacademic. “Being in natural settings with adults who are curious and engaged offers children health, creativity, competence, exercise in initiative, joy, and a sense of deep belonging to a world filled with all of our relations,” Lia explains.

The impact of attending forest school reaches well beyond the (outdoor) classroom, Lia explains. “The families of children attending forest schools find these qualities and connections with the world last far beyond their child's time in early years forest school programs,” she says. Having sent three daughters to three different forest schools, including Wild Roots, I can attest to this lasting impact.

My daughters all have a deep connection and tender relationship with nature. They are at ease in wild places, notice things I do not see — this morning, a chrysalis clinging to a concrete wall at their local elementary school unseen by over a hundred other passersby — and legitimately care about the Earth. I also believe forest school helped build their resiliency; rain or shine, trails open or closed, forest schools go on. And after three consecutive years outdoors, my children smoothly transitioned to elementary school; ironically, they were wildly excited to start “indoor” school (ha!).

So what do forest school children actually do?

They learn by both observing and doing. “Our classroom is quite literally in the middle of a salad bowl!” explains Wild Roots kindergarten teacher Jenn Sepulveda of their Steven’s Park location in the springtime. “We harvested wild greens for salad, medicine making, and pesto. We were serenaded by the creeks and birdsong.

We cooked stick bread in the rain, made crowns of sycamore leaves, watched cicadas hatch from their larvae, and [learned to identify] poison oak all along our trail.” It’s experiential learning in the great outdoors.

Attending a Forest School

There are approximately 50 forest schools in California; Santa Barbara is home to three, including two programs that have been around for more than 20 years — Wild Roots (wildrootsschool.org) and Wilderness Youth Project, or WYP (wyp. org) — and a newer one, A Thousand Mornings (athousandmorningssb.com).

They offer nature immersion for the youngest learners through preschool programs, and WYP offers afterschool programming for children from elementary through high school. Tuition at Wild Roots is on a need-based sliding scale, and WYP offers scholarships and subsidized programs for families needing financial assistance.

SantaBarbara GreenGuide.com 63

Illustration by Elissa Turnbull

dot DEAR

Dear Dot,

Dear Dot,

How green is my electricity, and is that why it’s so expensive?

– Roberto Renewable energy currently generates about 20% of U.S. electricity — and that percentage is growing each year!

In the CAMX subregion, which covers most of California, solar accounts for about 20% of the fuel mix. Nice!

But while all this greening of the grid is cause for celebration (Lower carbon emissions! Cleaner air! Energy provided by the heavens instead of hell!), it’s perfectly reasonable to want to know the price tag of all this green goodness. Is this burgeoning green energy industry responsible for driving up energy prices?

Turns out, high prices are one more thing we can blame on our reliance on the fossil fuel industry — specifically, in this case, natural gas. Natural gas accounts for 40% of U.S. electricity generation, and since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and ensuing sanctions against Russia, natural gas has become much more expensive.

Another contributor to high energy prices is outdated infrastructure and the cost to energy companies to repair it. Experts are actually recommending expanding renewable energy as a solution to high energy prices, as it is far cheaper to generate.

Electrically, Dot

Dear Dot,

I always see in hotels that they’re making a “green” choice by not changing sheets and towels every day unless requested.

Has it actually made a “green” impact?

– Julia I once enviously whined to Mr. Dot that a neighbor drove a Smart car because it was cool and trendy, not because it was better for the planet. Endlessly patient and often wise, he replied, “People doing the right thing for the wrong reason are still doing the right thing.”

Julia, hotels are people, too. Though they might be motivated by something other than a virtuous urge to save the planet (encouraging guests to reuse towels and linens saves them dough), the fact remains that doing the right thing (saving water) for the wrong reason (saving money) is still the right thing (saving the planet).

But does it really make a difference?

Indeed, it does, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which notes that hotels account for 15% of the country’s water use. While much of that is swallowed by landscaping and the hotel kitchen, laundry makes up 16% of total hotel water use. Each load of laundry averted saves 13 gallons of water.

With California enduring chronic water shortages, any water saved is a good thing.

What’s more, washing sheets and towels less frequently extends their life, which saves more resources.

Much-less-enviously, Dot

64 SANTA BARBARA Green Guide 2 0 2 4 – 2 0 2 5

I can’t afford a new electric vehicle.

Is there a way to make my internal combustion engine more energyefficient? Does it matter what grade fuel I use?

– Poppy I took your query to Dan Becker at the Center for Biological Diversity. At the top of his list of how to reduce our fuel emissions is a simple one: Drive less.

“Every gallon burned emits 25 pounds of carbon dioxide, whether in a Hummer or a hybrid,” he says, which is why efficiency and electric vehicles are so important. Don’t buy premium gas unless your car requires it, he says. If premium gas is simply recommended rather than required, you can get the same performance from regular fuel. It also doesn’t matter which brand of gasoline you buy.

What else can you do?

• Keep your tires properly inflated, which lowers rolling resistance.

• Lump errands together so that it takes just one car trip to satisfy your to-do list.

• Stick to the speed limit, and ease up on the accelerator and brake for a smoother, more fuel-efficient ride.

• If your roof-top box is empty, remove it.

Gaslessly, Dot

Got a question for Dot? Write her at deardot@bluedotliving.com.

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