Getting Grief for Going Green – the promise and predicament of Cuyama Valley’s Quail Springs Permaculture Farm

In the Santa Barbara Independent, Thursday, September 10, 2009

http://www.independent.com/news/2009/sep/10/getting-grief-going-green/

There’s a grand experiment in sustainability going on right now in the Cuyama Valley, where northeastern Santa Barbara County’s carrot fields, pistachio orchards, vineyards, and dusty plains collide into Ventura, Kern, and San Luis Obispo counties. In one of the valley’s uppermost canyons, close to where the almost-always-dry Cuyama River once flowed freely out of the pine-studded mountains, is a 450-acre farm known as Quail Springs, located just within the Ventura County border. Home to 14 full-time residents, open to the public for occasional tours, and hosting students from all over the world who are interested in eco-minded living, Quail Springs is fast emerging as a leading showcase for sustainable design and a poster child for permaculture, as both residents and visitors work to create a self-sufficient settlement while repairing a landscape severely denuded over the past 100-plus years by clear-cutting and grazing. “Every year, the Cuyama Valley is basically heading out to the sea,” explained founder Warren Brush about the erosion that threatens all aspects of life there, as it does in other similarly destroyed ecosystems across the planet. “It’s a cycle we’re trying to stop in this canyon.”

But according to Brush — who started the “eco-village” about five years ago after nearly a decade running the much-acclaimed Wilderness Youth Project in Santa Barbara — the nonprofit farm is also simultaneously becoming a battleground between green building and government bureaucracy, a war erupting in various jurisdictions around the country as environmentally friendly innovation outpaces legislation. For Quail Springs, that battle amounts to threatened fines of at least $500 per day for violating various county building codes. If ever levied, these fines would quickly undermine all the positive work being done. Explained Brush during a tour of the property in late May, “Innovative thinkers are having to do things illegally just to test them.”

(continued)…Rather than repeatedly fight against the building rules, Brush understands that bringing government into the conversation will only help the green movement at large. “If we are able to partner with these state and county agencies,” said Brush, “that’s when we’re going to see a huge bump and evolution in how human settlements move toward sustainability.”