F&S, the Division of Public Safety, and the Champaign Fire Department will conduct a spill containment exercise on the morning of Tuesday, Nov. 2. Event organizers will place the dye in storm drains near the university's oil storage tanks on South Oak Street to simulate a large oil spill from the fuel farm during this year's mock scenario. The exercise is required annually by the U.S. EPA.

November 2, 8 am • South Campus and the Embarras River Watershed

Bill Walsh • Facilities & Services

Urbana Campus Spill Containment Exercise on Tuesday

Meeting 10/29/2021

Present:  Anisha, Ananya, Pooja and Stacy Gloss

The project idea that the students would like to pursue is Making connections between pollution and people – focused on smart phones, tablets, computer e-waste generated by students. The student group may consider various technologies in their project: laptops, gaming consoles, wearable tech.

They will research:

• Material Sourcing  / ethical sourcing  (What are major parts/tech of smart phone and how they are produced? Conditions? Environmental Impact?)
• Manufacturing / Ethical production
• Transportation
• Sales
• Purchasing frequency/habits/thoughts: What do students think about environmental impact of technology when purchasing technology?
• End-of-product-life (what happens to products after their use?) – What do people think happens? What really happens?
• Other considerations: data centers

Project members may reach out to people in the community who are already knowledgeable about recycling to such as:

• Urbana Recycling Coordinator – Courtney https://urbanaillinois.us/residents/recycling-program-u-cycle/residential-recycling-program
• Champaign County Environmental Stewards https://www.ccenvstew.com/
• ISTC Joy  https://directory.illinois.edu/detail?userId=jscrogum@illinois.edu&widgetId=15

For the next meeting the DFA group should be prepared with the specific research questions they want to answer by conducting this research and their thoughts on research methods --- these questions should inform their approach for the project and related initiative they will want to develop. They will also review the Zero Waste  iCAP portal page for resources. https://icap.sustainability.illinois.edu/themes/zero-waste

Research Methods:

Question:  Are there any special considerations (for example IRB) for DFA students to create a survey for campus on how often students purchase / throw away / recycle smart phones? Are there any processes that need to be followed within ISEE to do this research?

Other questions:

Is there a recycling coordinator on campus that has any data about e-waste on campus?

Potential things to consider

The group will think about how they want to visualize their project for impact. Students also are open to the audience at this point – could include campus and off-campus audience. Off campus audience members could be the Champaign County Climate Coalition.  Interactive presentation could be set up in a community location like a library. The students could present their project to an iSEE committee – like Zero Waste and Resilience.

https://www.constellation.com/community/e2-energy-to-educate.html

Through the E2 Energy to EducateSM grant program, Constellation offers students in grades 6-12 and college opportunities to experience problem-solving today’s and tomorrow’s energy challenges. Grant funds support projects designed to enhance students’ understanding of science and technology, and inspire them to think differently about energy.

Meredith Moore, Sustainability Programs Manager, reached out to Associate Professor Ashlynn Stillwell to ask a question from the AASHE STARS sustainability report (Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, Sustainability Tracking and Reporting System). The question is: "Has the institution calculated a natural water balance for the campus to assess the sustainability of its water withdrawal?". Professor Stillwell replied explaining that UIUC has not calculated its natural water balance, and proposed ideas on how to it can start doing so. Specifically she said, 

"First, it seems like a question that is motivated by water scarcity, given the phrasing "sustainability of its water withdrawal". Extraction (withdrawal) of water is not the only way I personally would calculate water sustainability. In our part of the world, runoff volume and the contaminants contained in that runoff are important aspects of sustainability too. 

Next, to actually calculate the natural water balance, I would think one would write a high-level mass balance around the campus. 'Natural' to me implies 'non-engineered', so at first pass, I would only include natural water flows. However, the question then mentions waer withdrawal, which is a non-natural human interaction with water, which makes me think the engineered water system should be included also. 

For a high-level water mass balance around campus, it would be similar to any mass balance: IN - OUT = CHANGE IN STORAGE 

What goes IN? potable water, raw water (?), makeup to chilled water loop, makeup to steam loop, rainfall, runoff from upstream areas, inflowing streams, inflowing groundwater. 

What goes OUT? waste water, evaporation (from steam and chilled water loops), evapotranspiration, runoff (from rainfall and from overwatering from sprinklers), runoff to downstream areas, surface stream discharge, outflowing groundwater.

How much is CHANGE IN STORAGE? probably zero at steady state on a sufficiently large timescale."