Keeping Urbana-Champaign Resilient Together

A Dialogue Between Community Leaders, Civil and Environmental Engineers and Scientists | This event will bring local community leaders from the Illinois Department of Public Health, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Champaign County Emergency Management and Public Health along with U. of I. faculty and students for a conversation about how we can better cooperate to prepare for, respond to and recover from natural extreme events, such as floods, tornadoes and wildfires. 

April 10, 2–5:30 pm • Civil & Environmental Engineering Building (Hydro Lab), Rm 1017

Joaquin Yus Dominguez, PhD • Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Below is an update from Eric Green: 

The Green Career Forum was hosted on February 27 this year and had 9 companies and over 100 students in attendance. There is likely to be another event hosted in the Spring of 2025 with the help of the Career Center. 

Below is an update from Betsy Richardson:

I am not on the icap resilience team committee however when the Farnsworth consultant is ready to share information with the surrounding cities MS4 leaders I will invite the consultant to the quarterly MS4 stormwater meeting (tentatively this fall or winter). I will also invite someone from the icap resilience team to the meeting, if anyone on this email knows the correct resilience team contact, please let me know. The city of Champaign, Urbana and the village of Savoy already have stormwater master plans so our hope from this collaboration is to share information and to attempt to align some of our stormwater goals.

The Resilience iCAP Team met to discuss the Master Biodiversity Plan, review 2020 iCAP Objectives, and create content for the 2025 iCAP kickoff poster.

Meeting Agenda: https://uofi.box.com/s/6qnvds4yindt7o0xjxmvx4icxt6x5suo

iCAP Kickoff Poster content: https://uofi.box.com/s/tutm186z277r7i7rqh19x4o8a5edxm03

2020 iCAP Objectives Evaluation: https://uofi.box.com/s/lxozegioep2o9drfa3v669l0ytlha7qo

The iCAP Resilience Team met on 2/22/24 to kickoff the new semester and discuss further objectives for the 2025 iCAP. Meeting minutes are attached.

Rob and Tony,

This topic was presented at the Big Ten & Friends Conference last week. This is a truncated version of the slide deck, shared with me by the presenter (Jayd Grossman - https://cpf.iu.edu/contact/people-directory/grossman-jayd.html). Not all slides were shared, due to the sensitive nature of the data analyzed. I was wondering, is the University performing similar analyses? If so, is that data available (and where can it be found)? The energy baseline and usage trends are very interesting, when considering long-term energy plans.

Thank you,

Sylvia Mcivor

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Here was the presentation that sparked the idea.

Best,

Tony

Hi Andy and Fernando,

One of our key research partners for the Illinois Geothermal Coalition is Andy Stumpf (copied here).  He has asked if there are soil borings info for the Chicago campus.  Can you connect him with the right person?

“Hi Morgan, Do you have a contact at UIC who would have access to their geotech and soil boring records.. person similar to Beth. I have been asked to help out with the Solar Decathlon project because they are interested in adding geothermal to the design. They plan to design an educational design and innovation center that is on the UIC campus and would occupy the two parking lots at 1198 W Vernon Park PI Parking, Chicago, IL 60607. Soil boring/geotech information for nearby buildings could help the design. I am also mapping Cook County, so this information would also be useful for that project. Would also be interested to know if there are any major water lines in along Harrison Street or I-290. Maybe an opportunity to include wastewater heat recovery.”

Thanks!

Morgan

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Hi Morgan,

Thanks for the introduction. Nice to meet you Fernando. I am going to find out from the students who they are working with at UIC.

Best,

Andy

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Thanks, it may be Fernando (He is out of the office).

I can pull files related to the 2009 Geothermal wells, but it might help to have a specific question to circulate. IS this accurate: Does UIC have any records of Soil boring/geotech information from past geothermal well drilling?

Regarding water lines – best to assume every where on campus has some utilities under it.  There is likely water on Harrison and Racine,

Andy Mitchell 

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Hi Andy,

Thanks for getting back to me. Actually, it would be possible to get access to or copies of the soil borings for all projects on UIC campus, not just the geothermal projects. The Illinois State Geological Survey maintains a database of geological, engineering geology, and geophysical information for the entire state. Here is snapshot for part of the UIC campus with engineering test hole delineated by the red dots and labeled by the total depth of the drilling. The data can be accessed through the ISGS’ ILWATER map service https://go.illinois.edu/ilwater. Currently, only the owner, location, and soil boring logs are available for most of the engineering borings, but we plan in the near future to provide access to the engineering geology data entered from the reports and if allowed by the owner/client a pdf of the scanned documents. The boring locations were digitized from the maps included in the reports or coordinates surveyed and provided with the logs. As Morgan knows, I am working with Facilities & Services here to digitize all the soil borings on our campus and provide them through the ILWATER map service. This effort is being funded as a student project that received a grant from the UIUC Student Sustainability Committee. If you are interested in having the UIC data served in a similar manner, let’s talk some more about how this is being done at UIUC. For much of the data the ISGS on the UIC campus came from research survey geologists or UIUC CEE faculty were involved with on the campus and from consultants involved in the project. Beyond the Illinois Solar Decathlon design project, this data is being compiled for the ISGS project to map the surface and subsurface geology of Cook and DuPage counties. This mapping is being done to update work that was done in the 1940s or early. The data is used to develop the maps and models of the geology which we make available to the public. Below is one of the cross sections we made this year for west to east cross section along Roosevelt Road. We plan by 2028 to have a 3D model of the geology available for Cook County. The mapping project is being funded by the U.S. Geological Survey.

Best.

Andy

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Andy – this is exciting stuff and I’m confident we can share the records, once we locate them.

I’m out of the office most of next week, and Fernando is just back and will playing catch up.

When do you need this info by?

Andy Mitchell 

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Hi Andy and Fernando,

Getting back to you about the geotech soil borings. I have shared with you the Box folder with the logs found so far. The logs in the files starting with “x” have been plotted and the information is available through the ISGS borings database https://go.illinois.edu/ilwater. The logs in the files starting with “g” have not been entered yet.

Best,

Andy

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Thanks for the nudge Andy.

I’ll connect with our manager Dave Taeyaerts about the best way to go about getting this.

When do you need the info by?

Andy Mitchell