cal coast news

With the 4th of July almost at hand, firefighters on the Central and South Coasts are worried about the potential for brush fires sparked by fireworks.

Steve Swindle is with the Ventura County Fire Department. Fireworks are illegal in Ventura County, and Southern Santa Barbara County, with the exception of so called safe and sane fireworks in the City of Fillmore.

Some South Coast researchers are trying to figure out something you’ve probably never thought about, and are reaching into space to find answers. How does sediment in waterways and oceans move, and come together? An experiment designed by some UC Santa Barbara researchers to look at that question was onboard a rocket launched from Florida Friday morning, carrying a payload of supplies to the International Space Station.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has finalized cleanup plans for a more than four decade old toxic waste site in Santa Barbara County. The EPA developed a five year, $60 million dollar plan to remove contaminated soil and groundwater from the Casmalia Superfund site.

The 250 acre facility southwest of Santa Maria was a commercial hazardous waste management facility in the 1970’s and 80’s. An estimated 5.6 billion pounds of wastes were sent to the site until it was shut down in 1989.

The end result was contaminated air, soil, surface water, and groundwater.

In the mountains just east of Fillmore, a little known team of firefighters is preparing some slopes for the possibility of a brush fire. When you think of firefighters, you think of the men and women with fire trucks, hoses, and shovels, and those who battle blazes from the air. But, this team of Ventura County firefighters includes three heavy equipment operators, and support crews, who use bulldozers to help stop the flames.

A historic mission on the South Coast is getting an incredible gift.

A couple is donating a million dollar reproduction of one of Michelangelo’s most famous works, the Pieta at St. Peter’s Basilica to Mission San Buenaventura.

It’s a diagnosis no parent wants to hear. Trevor Jenkins parents heard it while he was still a pre-schooler.

He is on the autism spectrum.

Jackie Jenkins says while hearing her son had autism was hard, the early diagnosis was a good thing, because children do much better when there is early intervention.

The Camarillo family is lucky in another way. Unlike many areas around the country, Ventura County has a specialized school for children on the autism spectrum.

Dozens of Vietnam veterans are busy on the front lawn of the Ventura County Government Center, assembling a tribute to their friends in uniform who paid the ultimate price for the country.

The Moving Wall is a 256 foot long, half size replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C. Like the national memorial, it contains the names of the more than 58,000 American who died in the conflict.