After a brief meeting pause after the Spring semester ended, Stacy Gloss, Meredith Moore, and Morgan White are back to meeting weekly about building resilience in our local community. We met July 21, 2022.

We discussed:

-Resilience iCAP Team changes for 2022-23. Stacy Gloss is chair, Scott Tess is Vice Chair

-Student work & intern opportunities.  We will work with EGN100 first-year students in the fall semester and brainstorm about how to design an internship opportunity for a student to engage in community / campus resilience work.

-Stacy has begun meeting with Village of Savoy Staff and community partners on a project that addresses equitable youth recovery and economic mobility. The project includes a focus on wellbeing of residents across the seven dimensions of wellnss - mental, phyical, social, financial, spiritual, environmental, and vocational. Savoy has partnered with National League of Cities for the project.

Please see attached.

The following message was sent to individuals who attended the "Geothermal Illinois: Community - & District-Level Systems" presentation led by Brian Urlaub, Associate Vice President & Director of Geothermal Operations, Salas O'Brien:

Dear Participants,

Many thanks for attending Geothermal Illinois: Community- & district-level systems, presented by Brian Urlaub, Associate Vice President & Director of Geothermal Operations, SALAS O’BRIEN. Many thanks to the University of Illinois Extension Natural Resource, Energy, and Environment educator Jay Solomon, University of Illinois Civil and Environmental Engineering professor Dr. Tugce Baser, and Illinois Geological Survey’s Andrew Stumpf for presenting additional information on efforts, research, technology, and funding opportunities. We also recognize our network of partnering organizations, whose titles with websites are listed below, along with a link to today’s webinar recording, slide decks, and resource links.

Recording: https://youtu.be/A5x-RVKuIqQ

Slide Decks: https://uofi.box.com/s/rexji3kosgc4poifqxh21a1x9d2ftjqb 

Resource Links:

• Certification : https://www.aeecenter.org/aee-certifications/certified-geoexchange-designer-program/
• Geotechnical Engineering at University of Illinois: https://cee.illinois.edu/academics/areas/geotechnical-engineering

Funding opportunities:

• DE-FOA-0002661: Notice of Intent (NOI) for Community Geothermal Heating and Cooling Design and Deployment https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/FileContent.aspx?FileID=085bafe0-6e37-4145-b03c-029e329de9fe
• DE-FOA-0002811: Request for Information (RFI): Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Clean Energy Demonstration Program on Current and Former Mine Land

https://oced-exchange.energy.gov/FileContent.aspx?FileID=ee3f71ec-49e4-40d3-9d27-04d10be90be5

Partner organizations:

Illinois Geothermal Coalition

Midwest Building Decarbonization Coalition (MBDC)

Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE)

Illinois Water Resources Center

Geothermal Alliance of Illinois

International Ground Source Heat Pump Association (IGSHPA)

The Geothermal Exchange Organization (GEOEXCHANGE)

Prairie Rivers Network

Citizens Utility Board

Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition

Many thanks for your interest in today’s topic. Our presenters and experts are copied on this email, and you are welcome to reach out to any of us for further conversation and support as you work towards energy independence, resiliency, and sustainability!

Best wishes,

NANCY OUEDRAOGO

EXT CED STATE SPEC

A study was conducted to analyze the impact of incorporating post-consumer pizza boxes in the recovered fiber stream. More specifically, factors such as grease and cheese were primarily observed. The summary of the findings includes the following:

• The number of pizza boxes placed on the market in the U.S. annually is estimated to be 3 billion boxes equating to 600,000 tons of corrugated board. Pizza boxes represent 1.7% of the 35.9 million tons of corrugated containerboard produced in the U.S. annually.
• If all pizza boxes were recovered for recycling, they would represent approximately 2.6% of the OCC stream or 2.2% of the OCC and mixed paper stream combined.
• Pizza boxes currently found in the recycling stream have an average grease content of approximately 1-2% by weight level.
• Grease is hydrophobic and when pizza boxes approach a 20 wt% concentration of the furnish, grease interference with inter-fiber bonding begins to result in significant paper strength loss (~5%). At pizza box concentrations under 10%, paper strength loss is low.
• The strength loss as a function of “greasy” fiber and pre-consumer board was almost linear in the 0-20 wt% blend level.
• Cheese, comprised of fats and proteins, is hydrophilic and does not hinder hydrogen inter-fiber bonding of fibers. Cheese tends to solidify and get screened out during the pulping process.

To read the study in its entirety, see the attached file.

Please see the attached newsletter for updates from the EPA's SmartWay program for the month of July. 

Bike at Illinois confirmed an allocation of $5,100 for Bike to Work Day and Light the Night events. Following is the breakdown:

1. $2,000 towards t-shirts
2. $1,500 towards the purchase of bike lights
3. $1,250 towards logistics – Tables, chairs, trash, recycling, and hand sanitizing stations for all 9 campus welcoming stations for BTWD and 3 campus locations for LTN
4. $350 towards the promotion and advertisement of these events (on campus digital advertising)

University Housing also agreed to donate food and refreshment at all eight or night campus BTWD welcoming stations, in the amount of $1,500.

Michael showed updates to the iCAP Portal:

• Added instructions below each map on live site
• Added image gallery for each theme, e.g. Dev site Energy Theme page (currently on dev2, not yet moved to live site)
• Metrics: removed "(Tracked by ...)" from titles
• New Project nodes default to "Sticky at top of lists" so they show up at top of search results
• Collections: changed Project Updates to look like other 3 sections; show only 1 update
• Collections: migrated Collections page updates to live site
• Image Gallery: made bg behind images white instead of blue, so transparent images don't have blue background

TODOs:

• Confirm it's safe to delete Collections on a dev site before deleting Collections on live site
• Project Collection page bug: project hierarchy shows all Collections for each project rather than only current Collection
• Create project page bug: input fields are overflowing their containers in Firefox
• Show listing of public/private projects

See attached

The University YMCA is hosting their annual Dump and Run event in August 2022 at the Stock Pavilion. SSC funding will support this important reuse event, 

Any bicycle that still had the orange tag, were confirmed to be abandoned and marked in the ArcGIS Field Maps application. This phase was completed by end of June. Parking was asked to remove all the abandoned bicycles after the July 4th weekend. Parking started removing bicycles after July 9th.

Below is an email exchange involving the NRES 285 Uni High reports:

Dear Director Elizabeth Majerus and Karl Radnitzer,

You both are the first recipients of the final sustainability written report and class presentation! For Karl, our team worked in conjunction with Don Marrow, and with you fulfilling his position, we wanted you to have a copy of this report. We hope that you both enjoy the report, and that it helps Uni!

Sincerely,

John Michelotti

-----------------------------------

Hi John,

Thanks for the report. I have printed it out and plan to read after school ends (May 27th). Thank you for your work.

Karl

 -------------------------------

Thank you for planning to read it, and you’re absolutely welcome for our work. Have a good last stretch up until the end of school.

Sincerely,

John Michelotti

 -------------------------------

Hi John,

Fist of all I noticed you were in Koinonia House. I have two of my friends that were in that house- Tim and Paul Manning. Do you know them? They would have graduated in the late 70s or early 80s but are very active alumni.

I have included Don Marrow (our Business manager) and Elizabeth Majerus ( our Director of the School). The part in red is where is where we need money to complete the projects Don and Elizabeth.

I have read the report. I want to do the following:

1. I will have 8 paper recycle containers on each floor- clearing marked. Should I spray paint them green or blue?
2. Make sure all black containers are for garbage/trash only so we don't find contamination in all recycling bins.
3. The issue with the steel door our previous business manager wanted the wooden doors.  Didn't have much say
4. I would like all lights motions to switched to sensor LED. Don how do we make that happen?
5. We realize our windows are not very effective. We need a complete overhaul of our windows.
6. We did have a group talk to us about food recycling, but they wanted to do the composting inside the building. That was not going to work.

1. On the land section, I have a boy scout do his eagle project on the area right outside the door on Springfield so that it now looks much better. We also have a club taking care of the small garden.
2. Don, how can we get more sensor water bottle filters on each floor.. We have one on third, we need on second near 206 and one near 106 N.

John,

I will be back in town July 6th. Maybe we can touch base.

Karl

---------------------------------------

Dear Eric and Meredith,

I hope each of your summers are restful and going well! I received this email today, along with one other that I will also forward, from Karl Radnitzer at Uni High. They are responses sent to me, Elizabeth Majerus, and Don Marrow—for some reason you both and the students were not included, but I think it’s because I sent out the files to him. I wanted you both to be aware so that you can appropriately respond whenever you can. I will tell him I’m forwarding this all to you both and thank him for his outlook on making changes. Thank you so much!

Sincerely,

John Michelotti

--------------------------------------------

Hi Morgan, Paul, Andy, and Karl,

Last semester, the NRES285 students worked on a sustainability assessment of Uni High. Karl Radnitzer (Associate Director for Student Life at Uni High) expressed interest in moving forward with a few initiatives, as follows:

1. I would like all lights motions to switched to sensor LED. Don how do we make that happen?
2. We realize our windows are not very effective. We need a complete overhaul of our windows.

1. Don, how can we get more sensor water bottle filters on each floor.. We have one on third, we need on second near 206 and one near 106 N.

I am wondering if any of you have information on how we can move forward with any of these items. If there is someone else I should reach out to, please let me know. Thanks so much!

Meredith

Encourage your students to engage with the community through We CU

Whether your students are active in community service or seeking a service opportunity, We CU enriches their university experience with workshops, service opportunities, mini grants to offset the cost of service, and opportunities to connect with like-minded folks on campus and in the community. Encourage your grads and undergrads to learn more at the Spring 2022 Info Session. 

January 25, 6–6:45 pm • Register for Zoom details

Emily Stone and Katie Shumway • We CU Community Engaged Scholars program

 This opportunity is available online.

The attached files include a 2017 SEDAC report and some of Karl Helmink's notes for Memorial Stadium's retrocommissioning.