Red Oak Rain Garden Nears Completion with Award of Grants
Associated Project(s):
Please see the attached file for a recent press release regarding the Red Oak Rain Garden and their awarded grants from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation.
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Projects Updates for Green Infrastructure
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Status update from WEF Design Team Co-Captain
Associated Project(s):Justin Chen, from the University of Illinois joint student chapter of the Water Enviroment Federation-American Water Works, and the rest of his design team have been hard at work this school year!
Some project updates via the co-captian:
Pollinator Friendly at Illinois
Associated Project(s):University Landscape Architect, Brent Lewis, provided an overview of recent efforts to make the U of I campus more pollinator friendly at the CCNet brown bag lunch this month. Topics included:
Water007 discussion and plans to integrate with Rokwire
Associated Project(s):F&S met with the Land and Water SWATeam to discuss the Water007 SeeClickFix recommendation and develop a plan for moving forward. The agreement is to work with the Rokwire team to integrate the service office portal to the Illinois App.
Meeting Minutes for iWG June 7, 2019 (Informal)
Associated Project(s):These are notes from 6/7/2019 iWG meeting. They have been submitted in an informal style. Several SWATeam recommendations were assessed.
CEE student works with Dr. Schmidt and F&S
Associated Project(s):Junren Wang, an undergraduate student in Civil and Environmental Engineering, working under the guidance of Dr. Art Schmidt, researched the impacts of existing green infrastructure on campus property and the relationship to potential cost reductions from City Stormwater Utility Fees. She provided the following update and attached files.
Dear All:
Water004 GSI Standards Parking Lots recommendation - Successful
Associated Project(s):Executive Director of Facilities & Services, Mohammed Atalla, responded over email to Ximing Cai (iSEE Associate Director for Campus Sustainability) in support of the recommendation:
"Facilities & Services will proceed with incorporating Green Stormwater Infrastructure in to the Facility Standards. Brent Lewis is the point person for this effort, and he will add GSI information to each of the relevant standards. This includes but is not limited to the sections on parking lots, transportation, sustainability, and stormwater.
Training program at Parkland
Associated Project(s):Water and Stormwater SWATeam Meeting 2/6/2018
Associated Project(s):Meeting topics included potential for the team to move forward with a water audit of campus buildings, ways that nitrogen runoff could be monitored, and incentives the Parking Department would have in following through with adding green infrastructure to parking projects.
Water & ALUFS SWATeam Joint Meeting
Associated Project(s):Each team shared ideas of the semester and came together to propose a few joint recommendations. Suggested logistics for a water audit were mentioned, as well as nitrate runoff data from the 1990s that would be used as benchmark levels for runoff reduction. Different possible measuring techniques regarding future progress in nitrate reduction were mentioned. Ideas for greener parking lots were introduced, including replanting of trees on Lot E14.
Presentation to LA class
Associated Project(s):Eliana Brown with the Water Resources Center presented the attached file to a Landscape Architecture class, called "Natural Precedent in Planting" taught by Dept of Landscape Architecture's Designer in Residence Katy Kraszewska.
Educational materials about Green Stormwater Infrastructure
Associated Project(s):Here’s a link to Penn State Extension’s Rain to Drain Slow the Flow Youth Curriculum for stormwater: https://extension.psu.edu/downloadable/download/sample/sample_id/149/.
For general information about their youth water education programs, see: https://extension.psu.edu/youth-water-education.
RainWorks Challenge - call for participants
Associated Project(s):We are currently looking for more members for the EPA's Campus RainWorks Challenge. We will be looking into green infrastructure projects that could be implemented on campus.
"The Campus RainWorks Challenge seeks to engage with undergraduate and graduate students to foster a dialogue about responsible stormwater management and showcase the environmental, economic, and social benefits of green infrastructure practices."
High School students go on tour of Green Infrastructure at UIUC
Associated Project(s):Eliana Brown with the Water Resources Center and Morgan Johnston with F&S Sustainability provided a two hour tour on July 13, 2017 to six Illinois high school students through the NRES Research Apprenticeship program. Sites visited include the BIF green roof, the Ikenberry Commons permeable pavement, the First Street underground stormwater detention basin, the "square pond" (six-story deep hole near Locust and Springfield), the Boneyard Creek, and the stormwater murals in the College of Engineering.
Parkland College training program being considered
Associated Project(s):While Thor Peterson was working at Parkland College as a part-time grant-funded sustainability coordinator, he shared that "Parkland is in the scoping stage of developing a green infrastrucuture and sustainable landscape operations and maintenance certificate." He further noted, "There are a lot of questions percolating regarding a Green Infrastructure Operations and Maintenance—whether it would start as a certificate, or as a series of business training opportunities, or what."
Parking Lot F-4 potential site
Associated Project(s):Parking Department facility manager, Mike Wise, shared the following information. "I will be submitting the resurfacing project for lot F4 as a FY19 Project in June/July of 2018. Then an Architect will be selected and design begins. Bidding and Construction will follow. Ideas can start now though so that we can vet them and include a finalized Program with the project request."
Stormwater Utility Fee overview
Associated Project(s):The University pays a stormwater utility fee to both the City of Urbana and the City of Champaign. The fee is based on total impervious area that drains into city-owned storm sewers. If stormwater drains into university-owned sewers then directly discharges to a receiving stream, there is no fee assessed.
Research on Stormwater
Associated Project(s):Rain gardens and barrels needed for study
We will be conducting a study regarding the ability of residential rain gardens and rain barrels to harbor mosquitoes. We are looking for households with rain gardens or rain barrels to participate in the study. The study will involve a brief survey regarding use and approximately one visit per month throughout the summer. Please email stormwater@life.illinois.edu to participate.
RainWorks Challenge
Associated Project(s):Tawab Hlimi is serving as faculty advisor for the 2014 EPA Campus Rainworks Challenge. The team is composed of graduate students from Landscape Architecture, Architecture, Civil Engineering, Environmental Economics, and Ecology. They have begun a green stormwater infrastructure study for the UIUC campus and have selected the channelized extent of Boneyard Creek as site for a demonstration project.
EPA RainWorks Challenge info
Associated Project(s):http://water.epa.gov/infrastructure/greeninfrastructure/crw_challenge.cfm is a potential student competition program we could consider.