CONGRATULATIONS TO THE FINALISTS
AND WINNERS OF THE 2009 ENVironMENTAL INITIATIVE AWARDS
Congratulations to the winners
of the 2009 Environmental Initiative Awards. MEI’s
annual Environmental Initiative Awards program honors
projects that have achieved extraordinary outcomes for
Minnesota's environment by harnessing the power of partnership.
Thank you to our judges and congratulations to all of
the finalists!
Energy
and Climate Protection
Environmental Education
Green Building and Development
Green Business and Environmental
Management
Natural Resource Protection
and Restoration
Partnership
of the Year
ENERGY AND CLIMATE PROTECTION
In 2007, Minneapolis became the first city in the nation
to award grants encouraging residents and businesses to
take immediate, meaningful, and measurable steps toward
reducing their carbon footprints. These Climate Change
Grants are part of the City’s Sustainability Initiative
and address its commitment to the US Conference of Mayors
Climate Protection Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions in the community. To date, the City has awarded
50 grants in amounts from $1000 to $10,000 and the grants
are expected to continue in 2009. Examples of projects
funded by the grants (in 2008) can be found at http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/sustainability/ClimateChangeGrants2008_Results.asp.
The effort has been very successful, resulting in actions
estimated to save 10,900,000 pounds of carbon dioxide
emissions annually, while at the same time building community
via collaborative projects.
MCES operates the Minneapolis-St. Paul regional wastewater
treatment system in the Twin Cities and is among the top
five customers of Xcel Energy in the Midwest. Rising energy
costs and a desire to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions
caused MCES to become an early adopter of Xcel’s
Industrial Process Efficiency Program. This partnership
has put MCES on track to achieve a 15% energy reduction
goal by 2010, and its reduced energy use from 2006 to
2008 alone has prevented the release of an estimated 14,450
tons of carbon dioxide into the environment. The partnership
is also helping Xcel Energy meet its regulatory annual
energy reduction goal of 1.5%. This is a long term relationship
that is delivering an integrated approach promising sustainable
energy savings into the future.
This solar thermal pilot project was developed to demonstrate
that retrofitting existing households is not as difficult
as perceived and can be accomplished affordably by recruiting
enough households to buy in bulk. An apartment building
owner and 16 homeowners participated, and numerous partners
including Innovative Power Systems, the City of Minneapolis,
Center for Energy & Environment, and others made this
a project that succeeded with limited resources, providing
a template for other communities to follow.
ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
A community garden located on an organic farm near Moorhead,
Minnesota, is providing environmental education at no
cost for 250 to 650 children (preschool to teens) who
take part in hands-on learning every summer and fall.
The children learn soil science, organic gardening, basic
nutrition, and much more, including how to become environmental
stewards. Teen leaders, including high risk youth, help
with the programs and develop a greater sense of self
and self esteem. The garden has collaborated with many
partners such as University of Minnesota Extension, the
YMCA, Lee Thomas Farm (that has provided the land), Moorhead
Community Education, and others. The garden also produces
at least 1,000 pounds of vegetables that are donated every
year to low income families, seniors in assisted living,
and to homeless shelters.
MNSEP is a coalition of students from Mayo, Century, John
Marshall, and Dover-Eyote High Schools in Olmsted County
who are working closely with local business and the community
at large to install photovoltaic systems at each of their
schools. Student fundraising has collected $136,988 and
has a goal of $1 million. At Mayo High School, the students
have already installed 27 solar panels for a total system
size of 5.832 kW, and plan to next install a data acquisition
system in a science room to provide opportunities for
learning about renewable technologies. MNSEP is unique
in that it is student initiated, organized and operated
(it was not started by a school district or other authority),
and it has turned into an entire community movement that
has attracted the attention of other schools within the
state.
YEA! MN is a network of high school environmental clubs
working together across the Twin Cities metro area that
connects, engages, and empowers youth to create environmentally
clean, just and sustainable communities. There are 30
high schools in the YEA! MN network from a cross-section
of urban and suburban districts. YEA! MN provides resources
for student environmental clubs, and contacts for potential
speakers and trainers. During the 2008-09 school year,
YEA! MN will run the Clean Communities Campaign, focusing
on supporting clean energy initiatives in Minnesota high
school communities. The organization also provides environmental
service-learning projects, forums with policy makers,
and other opportunities to take part in climate action.
The Alliance for Sustainability and the Will Steger Foundation
are partners sharing equal responsibilities for supporting
YEA! MN.
GREEN BUILDING AND DEVELOPMENT
Building Operator Certification (BOC) is a competency-based
training and certification program for operations and
maintenance staff working in commercial, institutional,
or industrial buildings. The BOC training curriculum consists
of seven courses with a special focus on energy-efficient
building operations and maintenance. The Midwest Energy
Efficiency Alliance administers a Midwest regional BOC
in six states, and in Minnesota partners with the Minnesota
Department of Commerce, Minnesota Power, Southern Minnesota
Municipal Power Agency’s member utilities, among
others. BOC is unique because it achieves measurable energy
savings by training individuals who are directly responsible
for day-to-day operations. Building operators using the
procedures learned in BOC training can cut electricity
use by 15% or more.
Minnesota GreenStar is the premier Green building standards
and certification engine for Minnesota-based residential
remodeling and new home projects. Many residential building
practices consume massive amounts of energy, raw materials
and water, and create landfill waste and carbon emissions.
Minnesota GreenStar provides a holistic, understandable
and accessible platform to assess residential design,
construction practices, product selection, and homeowner
involvement across five green principles. Trained building
science professionals provide consultation and inspections
before, during, and after a project. Since its launch
in mid-2008, Minnesota GreenStar has trained nearly 400
design professionals, builders, remodelers, realtors and
more on the principles of green building. More than 100
projects are registered and under construction. Partners
include the Green Remodeling Group, the Minnesota Pollution
Control Agency, The Builder’s Association of the
Twin Cities, the National Association of the Remodeling
Industry, and The Green Institute.
The Sherburne County Legacy Grant awards up to $1 million
each year to cities and townships whose building or construction
projects use at least 25% post consumer recycled materials.
Sherburne County is home to a large landfill, the Elk
River Landfill, and is experiencing increasing amounts
of waste being disposed of on a daily basis. By encouraging
cities and townships to use post consumer recycled materials
in their building projects, the county is trying to improve
markets for recycled materials and reduce the amount of
waste being brought to area landfills. To date, three
Legacy Grants have been awarded: to Santiago Township
for the construction of a multi-purpose facility, to Big
Lake Township for the construction of an addition to their
town hall, and to the City of Elk River for the construction
of a new YMCA.
GREEN BUSINESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
National Wind, LLC, is a Minneapolis-based community wind
energy developer that has partnered with seven rural communities
in Minnesota to build clean, renewable wind energy developments
across the state. These partnerships will provide more
than 1300 megawatts of wind energy and involve over 1,000
landowners and more than 450 local owners. By creating
broad opportunities for community ownership and involvement,
each partnership encourages widespread support of wind
energy development. This is unlike efforts by large, corporate
wind farm developers that concentrate on projects they
own entirely and avoid community involvement. National
Wind’s approach has demonstrated that large-scale
community projects can effectively compete with corporate
wind farms, and it is a model for wind energy development
that encourages fast project completion of clean energy
resources that benefit entire communities.
Metro Metals needed to manage storm water containing dirty
sediments on its site where it conducts scrap recycling
of automobiles. A collaboration with Wenck Associates,
First State Tire Recycling, the State of Minnesota, and
the City of St. Paul resulted in an innovative solution
using shredded tires (Recycled-Tire Engineered Aggregate)
to retain storm water in an underground water safe. This
design required minimal excavation, was inexpensive to
construct and maintain (compared to traditional systems
of buried culverts and vaults), and provided a beneficial
reuse of discarded tires that otherwise would have been
burned as a fuel supplement. This is a cost-effective,
proactive approach that other scrap businesses can adopt
to mitigate the storm water impacts of their operations.
In April 2008, Waste Management of Minnesota partnered
with Best Buy, KARE 11 TV, and Sony Electronics to provide
a free, two day, five location electronics recycling event
for Twin Cities residents. The event was created to provide
a way for households to responsibly recycle their waste
electronics, keep that material out of area landfills,
and raise awareness of proper e-waste management. Over
42,000 Minnesotans participated, providing more than 6
million pounds of e-waste that filled over 400 semi trailers.
The e-waste was processed at Waste Management’s
Minneapolis processing facility, generating Minnesota
jobs and tax revenue. This was a first in the nation event,
and demonstrated that large e-waste recycling events are
a workable and viable method of addressing e-waste.
NATurAL RESOURCE PROTECTION AND RESTORATION
Rapid growth of the Twin Cities southwestern metropolitan
area has placed heavy demands upon the Prairie du Chien-Jordan
Aquifer, an economically feasible groundwater source used
by the cities of Burnsville and Savage. Drawing down the
aquifer puts at risk two very rare calcareous fens as
well as a spring fed trout stream. The Burnsville Surface
Water Treatment Plant Project is an innovative solution
to this problem, as it recovers and treats groundwater
discharging into the Kraemer Mining and Materials Inc.
quarry for potable use by both Burnsville and Savage.
The newly constructed Treatment Plant building also satisfies
the Minnesota Sustainability Building Guidelines. The
Treatment Plant will conserve at least 4 million gallons
of groundwater per day that would otherwise be pumped
from wells, replacing it with potable water from the quarry.
The recovered water also has spared the two cities the
cost of drilling added wells to meet demand, and has reduced
the use of wells closest to the threatened fens.
Bridal Veil Falls in Minneapolis contained pentachlorophenol
(PCP), a wood preservative collected upstream from groundwater
flowing from a Superfund site and from runoff in industrialized
areas of the city. In addition, soils in the Bridal Veil
Open Space were contaminated with metals, polyaromatic
hydrocarbons, and dioxins/furans. These conditions created
an unacceptable human health risk in a popular park. A
collaborative effort by the Minnesota Pollution Control
Agency, the City of Minneapolis, local residents (the
Southeast Como Improvement Association), and the design
firm AECOM Environment corrected this situation. Contaminated
soil was removed, a wetland was created that provides
bioremediation of PHP and storm water retention, and improvements
upstream reduced exposure to heavily contaminated areas.
Concentrations of PCP in surface water have been substantially
reduced and a natural area has been enhanced.
The partnering of the Reinvest in Minnesota (RIM) and
the USDA’s Wetland Reserve Program (WRP) has enabled
state funds to leverage Federal Farm Bill conservation
dollars to offer competitive payment rates to landowners
willing to enroll in easement programs. In addition, the
partnership provides for State/Federal sharing of restoration
costs. The result is the premier private lands wetlands
restoration easement program in the nation. RIM was able
to leverage $19.1 million of WRP funds – almost
20% of the total WRP funds distributed nationally. In
2008, the partnership funds launched the restoration of
9,775 acres of wetlands and adjacent grasslands. These
lands will provide enhanced fish and wildlife habitat,
protect and improve water quality, reduce soil erosion
(by being placed in easement), sequester carbon and have
the potential for future biofuel production. Other partners
who have helped in this effort include Ducks Unlimited
(through grants from the Environment & Natural Resources
Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission
on Minnesota Resources), the Minnesota Waterfowl Association,
and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
Partnership of the Year Winner:
The partnering of the Reinvest in Minnesota (RIM) and
the USDA’s Wetland Reserve Program (WRP) has enabled
state funds to leverage Federal Farm Bill conservation
dollars to offer competitive payment rates to landowners
willing to enroll in easement programs. In addition,
the partnership provides for State/Federal sharing of
restoration costs. The result is the premier private
lands wetlands restoration easement program in the nation.
RIM was able to leverage $19.1 million of WRP funds
– almost 20% of the total WRP funds distributed
nationally. In 2008, the partnership funds launched
the restoration of 9,775 acres of wetlands and adjacent
grasslands. These lands will provide enhanced fish and
wildlife habitat, protect and improve water quality,
reduce soil erosion (by being placed in easement), sequester
carbon and have the potential for future biofuel production.
Other partners who have helped in this effort include
Ducks Unlimited (through grants from the Environment
& Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the
Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources),
the Minnesota Waterfowl Association, and the U.S. Fish
& Wildlife Service.
|
|
|
