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:

• Chose project topic: Green Infrastructure Solutions for Veterinary Medicine Facility Flooding
• Made team site visit to Vet Med, surveyed areas for potential green infrastructure applications
• Came up with preliminary ideas on solutions and locations for implementation
• Conducted research on past green infrastructure projects to establish a base understanding of the options available

Click here to find out more and how you can become involved with WEF!

Minutes from the Land and Water SWATeam meeting on March 9th, 2020. This meeting focused on revising a recommendation for a sustainability data respository. 

All, Truncated week for me as I was out of the shop on Wed – Fri recuperating. On Tuesday night I was hit by a car on my bike ride home. No injuries beyond some scrapes and sore muscles. I was very lucky it wasn’t much worse.
Ultimately, we  have a long way to go when someone who rides as defensively and as safely as I do can get hit by a car on a quiet residential street.
This week I’ll be meeting with my newly-hired Program Assistant to work out his schedule and responsibilities. I’ll be picking up more bikes from the warehouse, meeting with a student design group for transportation/climate issues (Design For America’s “Social Hack”), and building/scrapping bikes as needed.

The numbers:
Visitors: 63
Sales: $32

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Manager, Campus Bike Center

Attached are the meeting notes from the iWG meeting on 3/9/2020. The focus of this meeting was on the Energy section of the iCAP 2020. 

Sarthak worked with Steve Breitwieser from F&S CRC team to publish an e-update and an F&S Announcement for the "It's Your MTD Too!" event.

Here is the link: https://emails.illinois.edu/newsletter/264329.html

Here is the link for the F&S Announcement: https://www.fs.illinois.edu/resources/announcements/2020/03/06/it's-your-mtd-too!

Attached are the meeting minutes from the Transportation SWATeam meeting on 9 March 2020. 

The Agenda is as follows:

Recommendations Selection

• Support CMP by increasing pedestrian safety by reevaluating current pedestrian routes and conducting traffic studies.
• Zip-Car Continuity
• UI Ride Survey 
• Teleconferencing Assessment
• Faculty/Staff Vanpool Survey
• Identify Campus Intersections and Mid-block Crossings with high potential for crashes, and develop/implement design improvement strategies.

Future Recommendations

• Working with MTD to promote better bus service to Research Park and I Hotel
• Establish a University of Illinois Foundation fund to support campus efforts to reduce and within ~10 years eliminate use of fossil fuel.
• Sustainable Asphalt Binders

The Energy SWATeam met on 3/9/2020 to discuss the recommendation to be turned it at the end of the month. Each member interested in drafting a recommendation on behalf of the team presented their drafts. The meeting minutes and the presentation slides for the Anaerobic Digester Feasibility Study Recommendation are attached. 

Sarthak Prasad reached out to the communication teams at NCSA, Beckman, ECE, CEE, Hydrosystem lab, CSL, and Will Hall to advertize the workshop. Travis Tate at the F&S CRC team forwarded the flyer to signage@illinois.edu to use this flyer as digital advertising for the event. Sarthak also had these posted at the aforementioned departments and their digital screens.

F&S CRC team also posted the workshop details in the e-week Newsletter on the March 8th edition under events section.

Sarthak Prasad worked with the F&S CRC team to create a flyer for the "It's Your MTD Too!" event. See attached the flyers that were used. The first draft flyer was produced in the last week of February, and it was finalized in the first week of March.

Sarthak met with Evan Alvarez and Allison Haines from MTD to finalize the powerpoint presentation for the workshop, and to confirm the final destination for the demonstration.

We also discussed how to structure the workshop - Sarthak will make the introduction, get a pre-workshop survey, then invite Evan and Allison to make the presentation. Following the presentation, we will catch the 22S Illini from Main and Goodwin to Ceramics Building, make a transfer, catch the 13N Silver or 10E Gold/Goldhopper to Lincoln Square, get off the bus, and return via the same route. Following the demonstration, Sarthak will ask the attendees to fill out the post-workshop survey, thank them for joining and end the workshop.

Evan and Allison agreed with the structure of the workshop. Evan will send Sarthak the final draft of the presentation before the event on March 12.

Attached are the meeting minutes from the Zero Waste SWATeam meeting on 6 March 2020. 

The agenda for the meeting was as follows:

Updates

• Finder, Sustainability Catering (America To Go)
• M. Liberman and R. McKim Student Sustainability Ambassadors

March Recommendations Selection

• Student Sustainability Ambassadors
• America To Go Sustainability Criteria
• Aluminum Vending Machine Conversion

Future Recommendation Ideas

• Plastic Bag Recycling
• Plastic Bag Ban
• Elimination of Single-use Plastic from Food Providers
• Glass Recycling 
• Solar Panel Recycling/Reuse Program
• Sustainable Utensils and Dishes

RailSplitter Wind Farm provided the February 2020 Buyer's Share amounts by hour, totaling 2,239.6 Megawatt hours. See attached file.

Dear Stacey, Morgan, and Prasad,

​

The CEE research team (including Shelly, Weichen, Ruifeng, and I) has held two weekly meetings and discussed our ongoing project. Below is a summary of the ongoing efforts:​

• We have filled out the data-request form, and we look forward to hearing back on the data in the near future;
• We have requested the CEE Department to prepare a news article on our project; we heard that you may be contacted for quotes and comments.​
• We are in the process of developing suitable mathematical models and solution methods for our project.

As for the next step, we wonder if there is a good time to schedule a quick interview with you, and/or the stakeholders you mentioned last time? The purpose is to understand the design options and restrictions (i.e., types of barriers, guideways, and/or booth-location choices).​

Thank you.

​

Yanfeng

All, Happy March! Looks like it’s coming in like a lamb for a change.
Still slow around here as far as visitors are concerned. On Friday of last week we got 7 bikes donated, all of which will be junked or passed along to Salt & Light (3 kids’ bikes). That’ll give the student staff something easy to do this week. Elsewhere: Our grinder wheel bit the dust so we’ll be all analog on filing housing and cleaning parts until that is replaced. Less electricity use = more sustainable!
This week I’ve got an interview for a student worker, our Fix-a-Flat class on Thursday and on I’ll be setting up some of my staff to have key-access when I’m away.

The numbers:
Visitors: 45
Sales: $132
Membership: 1 for $30
Tires/tubes: 4 for $49

Thanks!

Jacob Benjamin
Manager, Campus Bike Center