Join Piatt County Master Gardener Kent McFarland as he explains the importance of having a Mason Bee House in your garden, and walks you through the steps of building one using recycled and natural materials. Registration is required; $15/person, includes all materials.
March 26, 10–11 am • Registration Deadline: 3/18/22 • Greenhouse Auditorium at Allerton Park & Retreat Center
Olivia Warren • Allerton Park & Retreat Center
From: Robert O'Daniell <rodaniell@att.net>
Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2022 5:05 PM
To: White, Morgan; Slezak, Paul
Cc: DeLorenzo, Stacey; Prasad, Sarthak
Subject: I guess I spoke too soon Re: I’m happy to report
The ChargePoint locations at B4, D22 and E14 are all down. Disappeared from the ChargePoint app and will not charge. (Discovered Sunday noonish at E14 when I failed to begin charge. Standing beside the charger the App said no chargers nearby) Checked the other locations. All three locations have same message on the screen.
Robert K. O'Daniell
Photographer Emeritus-News-Gazette
PO Box 2085
Champaign, IL 61825
217-352-1493
For the first time since 2014, we are participating in a national race for campuses across the country to show their commitment to recycling and reducing landfill waste. The Campus Race to Zero Waste, formerly known as Recyclemania, runs from January 31, 2021 to March 27, 2021. Each week, F&S will gather and report the waste data from campus, and iSEE will promote recycling and waste reduction across campus. Together, we can strengthen and show our Illini commitment to protecting the environment and implementing the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) objective to reduce landfill waste.
The Transportation iCAP team met on Thursday, 2/25/2022 at 4:00 P.M. and discussed the following topics:
Further details are in attached documents.
The Energy iCAP team met on Wednesday, 2./24/2022 at 9:00 A.M. on Zoom to discuss the following topics:
More details in the attached file.
A document containing the notes from this interview is attached below.
Summary of the Clean Energy Transition Plan Interview:
Bill Rose - iCAP Energy Team Co-Chair
Andrew Stumpf - iCAP Energy Team Co-Chair
On 2/25/22, the team met with Bill Rose and Andrew Stumpf. As we are still in the stage of initial research and this was the first interview of this project, we were hoping to learn about their experience as Energy iCAP leaders as well as their recommendations. From this interview, we gained a lot of important information about their beliefs surrounding a clean energy transition as well as what they believe to be the biggest challenges. Overall, Bill Rose places a lot of emphasis on conservation and demand side improvements. Andrew also sees the importance of conservation but focuses on generation and supply side improvements. He places importance on a diverse portfolio of energy generation, including the use of geothermal for steam generation. They also provided us with peer institutions to investigate including Stanford and Ball State. Additionally, they provided us with potential people to interview including Meredith Moore, John Zhao (geothermal), a couple committees on campus and another senior design group that Andrew is working with. This was a very beneficial meeting to see the bigger picture and everything that must go into this plan. A recommendation from Bill was to potentially narrow the scope of our project as there are a lot of components that go into a clean energy transition plan. He is worried it may be difficult for us to cover everything.
From: Robert O'Daniell <rodaniell@att.net>
Sent: Friday, February 25, 2022 1:43 PM
To: White, Morgan; Slezak, Paul
Cc: DeLorenzo, Stacey; Prasad, Sarthak
Subject: I’m happy to report
The chargers at B4 are back - showing up on the Where to Charge apps again. (Began Feb 24th)
The damaged screen still not replaced at D22 ( supply chain issue ? )
On an odd note in the last week or so – I failed in an attempt to charge at E14. Possibly a weather issue and there are indications that others have indeed charged. I have not yet tried again. Possibly a one time issue.
During that attempt I became aware of some kind of issue with 3G on all three of those charging stations. ATT shut down Feb 22 and Verizon and T-mobile will both shut down 3G by the end of the year. All 3 ChargePoint locations indicate “Illini charging / Off network 1” and a warning message. I did drive by and cars are indeed charging at B4 and at D22 in spite of that message.
( images below )
——————
As a retired person I’ve taken on the project of making it easier for people buy and transition to EVs. And to do what I can to improve the infrastructure needed for the EVs.
Robert K. O'Daniell
PO Box 2085
Champaign, IL 61825
217-493-8129
Congratulations to the newest recipient of our Green Event Certification Program!
IHSA Wheelchair Basketball/Unified Sports State Tournament, Certified February 2022
The event will be held at a location that is convenient for public transportation. They will also use natural lighting whenever possible to minimize lighting needs, along with communicating that the event is sustainable via Green Event promotion.
Keep up the great work!
The following files were presented at a webinar on sustainable labs programs from Big Ten and Friends on February 24th, 2022.
On Feb 17 and 24, Sarthak and Sutapa met to discuss the scoring system of the General Walkability audit.
We prepared a comparative list of 2 scoring systems (0-5 scale scores and negative to 5 scale scores). The Transportation dept. group meeting on 24th February has an agenda to finalise our scoring system after discussion.
We have also prepared a spreadsheet with all the results of the survey and formatted it in a way that has questions on each row and one survey per column of the audit. Instead of prioritizing our larger categories of parameters, we decided to assign priorities to each question as High, Medium and Low with weights of x3, x2 and x1 respectively.
Map blocks 9, 10, 14, 22, 23 and 27 have no records yet. Part 2 of Data collection for the same will start in the last week of March when the weather gets pleasant to walk around. A call for volunteers has been made in the SPO meeting on February 23rd, 2022.
Results of Transportation group meeting on 24th February:
1. Scoring system was discussed and finalized
2. Mass email to be sent out again to MUP students as a 'Call for Volunteers' next week.
3. Chad and Justin to colour code the categories of the Deficiency reporting surveys in the coming weeks.
The Energy iCAP Team made the following recommendation on 2/8/21. The Energy009 MMR Safety and Security is attached, and a summary of the recommendation is as follows.
=========
We recommend that the campus commission a report on safety and security surrounding the micro-modular reactor (MMR).
The Energy iCAP Team made the following recommendation on 2/8/21. The Energy008 Charging Responsibility for Meeting iCAP Energy Goals is attached, and a summary of the recommendation is as follows.
===========
We recommend the following actions:
Note: Deadline was extended to March 1
"Hey guys! The SSC needs your help! We are currently circulating a time-sensitive petition to raise SSC fees by $3.94. We need over 2,000 signatures by February 22! https://forms.illinois.edu/sec/529864641?referrer=https://shibboleth.illinois.edu/
Right now, the SSC collects $14 from each student via the Cleaner Energy Technologies Fee and the Sustainable Campus Environment Fee, which together is called the Illinois Green Fund. This money goes into a pot, and the SSC allocates that pot of money toward student- and faculty-led sustainability projects. This fee hasn't increased in years, despite increases in tuition and national inflation. To continue to adequately support sustainability projects, we need more funding!
If we don't hit our mark, the SSC won't be considered for more funding :( Please please please sign this, promote it on your social media, and send it to your general members." Maria Maring (2-16-2022)
This project was previously named "Campus Race to Zero Waste 2021."
Below is an excel spreadsheet containing a Waste Data Template for FY21.
F&S compiled this list of meters that track irrigation usage (which is attached below).
Note this is not a complete record of irrigation watering on campus.
On Friday, February 4th, the Resilience iCAP Team had their first meeting of the semester. The team discussed updates on projects such as the Biodiversity Plan, Local Carbon Offsets and a potential Environmental Justice Reading group. Meeting minutes are attached.
The University of Illinois (UIUC) is interested in achieving its Climate Action Plan’s transportation sustainability goals by “reducing single-occupancy vehicle usage” and “promoting the use of electric vehicles” on campus. This survey is designed to evaluate the commuting needs of UIUC faculty and staff, so as to inform future actions on two fronts: (i) feasibility of developing a faculty/staff carpool service, and (ii) expanding electrified vehicle charging infrastructure on campus.
Survey link: https://survey123.arcgis.com/share/d7c2b2bf267245808ab12570323b5402
Join iSEE's February TED Talk: Eco-Edition event on 2/22 from 7-8 PM! Mona Fang (Co-Founder of Karma Trade/Aerospace Engineering student) and Josh Jay James (Chief Marketing Officer/Marketing student) will host the discussion on sustainability in the fashion industry. We will view a prerecorded TED Talk followed by a group discussion. All are welcome to this fun event; no preparation is necessary!
February 22, 7–8 pm • Zoom
Meredith Moore • Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment
This opportunity is available online.
All, Last week we held our Uni High Agora Days classes from Tues – Fri. It went very well with all the students engaged in learning and tinkering on the bikes. One student even said they’d return to volunteer, which was great. All 3 of the bikes were mostly done by week’s end. We also received some quality donations from a local bike shop and started overhauling those bikes for sale. I’ve also hired a new Program Assistant to help me out off-hours.
This week I’ll be meeting with the Urbana Parks District to discuss our Maintenance class we’re collaborating on next month and getting more bikes ready for the sales floor. We’ll see how busy we are today with the very warm weather.
The numbers:
Visitors: 11
Sales: $91
Memberships: 2 for $60
Thanks!
Jacob Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Coordinator
