Stacey Gloss reached out to the iCAP resilience team to ask if Illinois is at lower risk for biodiversity risk due to the fact that "most prairie was wiped out for corn and soy a long time ago". 

Jennifer Fraterrigo replied with the following:

Hi all,

This topic falls within my area of interest, so I skimmed the peer-reviewed scientific article that was published in Ecological Applications upon which the NYT article is based. The authors of the paper model and map protection-weighted range-size rarity (PWRSR), a metric that partly reflects the range size of a species. More weight is given to species with smaller ranges, as these species are expected to be more imperiled. In Illinois, we have relatively few endemic species with small ranges; most species found here have relatively large ranges. Consequently, Illinois scores low on the PWRSR metric and does not appear to be a place where biodiversity is threatened.

That is not to say biodiversity is not at risk here. Rather, the approach used in the study puts less weight on the types of species that tend to inhabit (or could inhabit) the region.

If not already on your radar, an excellent resource for understanding biodiversity patterns and biodiversity threats in Illinois is the Critical Trends Assessment, a program supported by the IDNR and managed by the IL Natural History Survey (https://publish.illinois.edu/ctap-inhs/). The Urban Biotic Assessment Program may also be of interest (https://uofi.app.box.com/s/j1826i8uip6farrlxpckqzpa18b6d97e).

Thanks,

Jennifer

NYT Article: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/03/03/climate/biodiversity-map.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuomT1JKd6J17Vw1cRCfTTMQmqxCdw_PIxfs9gGPzNiGeVTdcwqNPW9LavB-WIvI4INA33jGSWNIGOr4oSP1sw_VEPlB8Dgyhut2EhJEBaW0TmL6EY1kXjdjLTKxqtnjraHW0Mu502LyhslXYbTLsCK3bhWknIQxjvZdmc1-10HZZxrPBQbQijdkq2qx2A5tqVHxXMnnxyvrtChh0MNmCbgiNqVVlHrEEBkyA2IKU-LkCcw5NCFjZTXkZ4Ws06N9UPdN_L7-oZ ld7O5K42eNNfzQueIS5BJQxRJzWkqFostPOrB-PzMmwz5YmBU_3EHhoSfk4zLjbPk6CjH0&smid=url-share

On March 3, 2022, it was recorded that 56 buildings across campus have at least one of the new 3-bins.

For Homeowners:

Citizens Utility Board (Community Solar) - https://www.citizensutilityboard.org/solar-in-the-community/

EnergySage - https://www.energysage.com/

Google Sunroof - https://sunroof.withgoogle.com/

IL Solar Energy Association (IL Solar Ambassadors and vendor lists) - https://www.illinoissolar.org/

For specialized organizations:

Midwest Renewable Energy Association - https://www.midwestrenew.org/

Clean Energy Buyers Association - https://cebuyers.org/

Elevate - https://www.elevatenp.org/

Government:

City of Chicago - https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/progs/env/solar_in_chicago.html

Cook County - https://www.cookcountyil.gov/service/solar-energy

Illinois Solar for All (Community Solar) - https://www.illinoissfa.com/

Illinois Shines - https://illinoisshines.com/

EPA (Solar Resources) - https://www.epa.gov/statelocalenergy/local-renewable-energy-solar

After discussions with the Transportation iCAP Team, the Mode Choice Survey was finalized. Please see the final draft.

The only C&D waste the WTS recycles (outside of pulling salvageable metal to send to Mervis) would be concrete and asphalt through the companies Emulsicoat and Vulcan.

And the issue there is that it is so little, we do not have any accurate weight tracking right now.

This is something we could certainly refine for our metrics in the future but that is the status we are at for now.

RailSplitter Wind Farm provided the February 2022 Buyer's Share amounts by hour, totaling 2,931.6 Megawatt hours.

The February 2022 Buyer's Share Report is attached below.

Attached is the Red Oak Rain Garden e-newsletter for January-February 2022:

Attached is the "Design for America" February newsletter.

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.

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