At the San Benito County Board of Supervisors meeting today,
Integrated Waste Management Director Mandy Rose gave an overview of
the department’s activities done last week in celebration of Earth
Day and Earth Week. The official said workers picked up 189 tires,
just under two tons of metal and
”
a bunch
”
of concrete.
HOLLISTER
At the San Benito County Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday morning, Integrated Waste Management Director Mandy Rose gave an overview of the department’s activities done last week in celebration of Earth Day and Earth Week.
“As we’ve done for many years now, we did a community-wide clean-up in various areas of the county,” Rose said. “The latest numbers, hot off the scale house press at the landfill, of material we brought in over weekend, there was 23.1 tons of materials picked up over the weekend.”
Rose said that workers picked up 189 tires, just under two tons of metal and “a bunch” of concrete.
Volunteers included Hollister city employees from the public works department and San Benito County public works employees.
“All the people volunteered. Yes, they were paid, but they volunteered to take their time off to do this and I really appreciate their help,” Rose said.
Not everyone involved got paid for their time. Members of the outdoor club at San Benito High School, led by science teacher Jim Ostdick, also volunteered for the clean-up.
“He has clean-ups several times during the year … with many students participating, as well,” Rose said.
Integrated Waste Management also gave away blue re-useable shopping bags at various stores in Hollister and San Juan Bautista.
“Everyone at the stores were incredibly gracious because most of them, by law, have to provide re-useable bags inside their store,” Rose said. “They allowed us to give these away outside and some of them even allowed us to bring them inside so that people who maybe needed more than one bag were able to get these at the check-out stand.”
Both city and county employees also received bags last week with their paychecks and Rose said, “I think they were a pretty big hit with folks.”
Also at the meeting:
The board of supervisors approved a contract with the California Department of Food and Agriculture for trapping services for the light brown apple moth in the amount of $11,344.
The contract is for fiscal year 2008/09 but does not cover the costs for extra work involved with the moths.
The county is in federal quarantine because two moths have been found in traps, on Santa Ana Valley Road and El Toro Drive. County Agricultural Commissioner Paul Matulich said the moths mainly affect nurseries eating leaves, stems, buds and other green growth on plants.
The moths are found mostly in nursery stock, plants near river beds, backyard gardens and any place where plants are not treated for the moth. Those are the types of places where moths multiply on host plants, Matulich said.
The traps that have been used to catch the moths are handled by the United State Department of Agriculture. It is also the entity that called for the county’s quarantine.
