Building Green With Hay

"Two-foot-thick rice straw bales were piled Monday like toy blocks on steel rebar as a 20,000-square-foot office building at the city of Santa Clarita's new bus maintenance yard takes shape. Part of the city's $15.9 million Transit Maintenance Facility slated to be completed early next year, the building with straw walls is a bid by city leaders to promote energy efficient 'green building,' said Heather Merenda, the city's sustainability planner."