Congratulations to the winners of the 2005 Environmental Initiative Awards

Environmental Education
Energy
Private Sector Innovation
Public Sector Innovation
Land Use
Partnership of the Year

Environmental EducatioN
Minnesota: A History of the Land

Nominated by Lansing Shepard, University of Minnesota College of Natural Resources
“Minnesota: A History of the Land” is a four-part, four-hour television series depicting the history of the natural landscapes of Minnesota, from pre-settlement times to the present. Weaving together human and natural history, vintage still photos and film footage, historic reenactments, the words of historical and contemporary figures, and state-of-the-art animation depicting changing land use, the series looks at the forces that have driven those changes and their natural consequences today. This is an epic story that shows how people have changed the state’s landscapes even as those landscapes changed the people. Unique in its vision and the way it blends science, history and philosophy, the series seeks to revolutionize the way the state’s history is taught.

FINALISTS:
Big Back Yard

Nominated by Patrick Hamilton, Science Museum of Minnesota The Big Back Yard is the Science Museum of Minnesota’s (SMM) new 1.75-acre outdoor science park. Part of a comprehensive riverfront redevelopment effort, SMM and its broad array of public and private partners invested $3 million to transform a site burdened with 150 years of casual waste disposal practices into an environmental education landscape populated with exhibits and demonstrations about renewable energy, energy efficiency, hydrological processes/river dynamics, urban and rural nonpoint sources pollution, ecosystem biodiversity and productivity, permacultrure, and traditional Native American herbal medicine and horticulture.

Wine, Women and Water

Nominated by Mary Homan, Lac qui Parle - Yellow Bank Clean Water Partnership
The Lac qui Parle Soil and Water Conservation District, Lac qui Parle - Yellow Bank Clean Water Partnership and National Resources Conservation Service joined forces to provide Women, Wine and Water, a truly unique educational event that helped 100 women in southwest Minnesota make the connection between their everyday decisions and the water quality in their community. The partners organized a Minnesota-grown and -produced dinner that offered local women the chance to learn about conservation practices and water quality . The attendees received resources, such as a booklet called Backyard Conservation, that taught them how their daily actions have an impact on water quality . A representative of the Entrepreneur's Assistance Network spoke about how that organization helps budding entrepreneurs reach their goals. In addition, a local farmer spoke about her family's decision to grow 5 acres of grapes on her land. The evening concluded with wine-tasting tips and techniques, and a tasting of Minnesota wines.

Energy
St. Paul Cogeneration
Nominated by Anders Rydaker, Market Street Energy Company
In 2003, a new era in energy production began in downtown Saint Paul. For the first time, District Energy St. Paul customers heated their buildings with water produced primarily from "green energy." The green energy fuel source is wood waste collected from the Twin Cities metropolitan area. Formerly considered a waste disposal problem, this renewable fuel is now simultaneously producing electricity for Xcel Energy and heat for District Energy. The green energy is produced at St. Paul Cogeneration, located adjacent to District Energy's heating and cooling facility. The plant's location demonstrates the viability of siting a renewable-energy combined heat and power (CHP) facility in an urban environment. Managed by Market Street Energy Company, St. Paul Cogeneration is the largest wood-fired CHP plant serving a district energy system in the U.S.

FINALISTS:
Cool Change Turn In Event
Nominated by Bobbi Fey, Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corp.
Minnesota Power, Western Lake Superior Sanitary District, City of Duluth, Cities for Climate Protection and Daugherty Hardware are committed to raising awareness of the energy, environmental and money-saving benefits of properly recycling and replacing existing dehumidifiers and room air conditioners with ENERGY STAR® qualified dehumidifiers and room air conditioners. To demonstrate this, a two-day dehumidifier/room air conditioner turn-in event was held at Daugherty Hardware in Duluth. Minnesota residents turned in old, working dehumidifiers and room air conditioners to receive an instant rebate on the purchase a new ENERGY STAR qualified room air conditioners or dehumidifiers. First-year electrical savings equaled 90,504 kilowatt hours. The savings equal sufficient electricity to power nine homes for one year; the avoided electricity would remove 217,210 pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

One-Stop Lighting Rebate Program
Nominated by Kristen Funk, Center for Energy and Environment
The One-Stop program is an innovative approach to utility-sponsored energy efficiency (or demand-side management) activities. Demand-side management is a workhorse for reducing emissions, and it provides the cheapest opportunity for meeting our energy needs, now and in the future. The One-Stop program targets hard-to-serve small busineeses and provides a truly “one-stop” service to replace old, inefficient lighting with high-quality and highly efficient lighting. The program includes a free, no-obligation audit, rebates and below-market financing. One-Stop offers customers an easy-to-use service which includes education, financial resources and minimal time commitment. Customers who have already participated in One-Stop will save 841,625 megawatt hours of electricity over the lifetime of their equipment, ultimately preventing 1,300 tons of nitrogen oxides, 1,400 tons of sulfur dioxide, 90 tons of particulate matter, 0.024 pounds of mercury, and 611,000 tons of carbon dioxide from entering our environment.

Private Sector innovation
MCEA - FHR Partnership: Emission Reductions and Reporting
Nominated by Carol Wiessner, Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy
In 1999, Flint Hills Resources, LP (FHR) announced a commitment to reduce refinery emissions by 50 percent in five years. The Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA) challenged FHR to develop a means to present progress on this commitment in a way that was simple, reliable and accessible. Through this challenge, a partnership was formed to track and communicate progress on the emission reduction initiative. FHR and MCEA worked together, with the help of external advisors, to develop and maintain the emissions reporting web site, www.fhrpinebend.com. To ensure the accuracy of the information on the web site, the University of Minnesota was contracted to provide an independent calculation of selected emissions data. The openness and collaboration on a comprehensive emissions reporting web site appears to be the first of its kind between industry and an environmental group, and sets a new standard for refineries. Through the public reporting of emissions, attention to the reduction goal was maintained and FHR achieved its voluntary emission-reduction goal of over 9,000 tons by the end of 2004.

FINALISTS:
Donaldson Diesel Engine Emission Reduction/Retrofit System
Nominated by John Garrett, Donaldson Company Inc.
Impending U.S. regulations reduce allowable particulate matter and nitrogen oxide emissions by 90 percent for new and in-use diesel engines. Older engines will require retrofits to meet the new regulations. Donaldson offers an innovative retrofit approach that controls tailpipe and crankcase vent emissions, providing a total engine emissions reduction for on-road and off-road applications. The Donaldson retrofit system combines a diesel oxidation catalytic muffler (DOC) with a closed crankcase ventilation (CCV) filtration system called Spiracle(TM). Ten to 25 percent of engine emissions come from the crankcase ventilation. Applying the patented Donaldson Spiracle CCV filtration system will eliminate 100 percent of these emissions. In addition to eliminating crankcase emissions, retrofitting with Spiracle system reduces engine oil consumption, eliminates oil leakage and damage to roadways, and provides a cleaner engine compartment. Retrofitting an engine with a Donaldson DOC Muffler and a Donaldson Spiracle Crankcase Vent Filtration System will also reduce particulate matter emissions by more than 25 percent.

Fibrominn Biomass Power Plant
Nominated by Gregory Langmo, Fibrominn LLC
The Fibrominn Biomass Power Plant is a 50-megawatt renewable energy project that has been financed and is currently under construction in Benson, Minnesota. The Fibrominn facility will be the first plant of its kind in the U.S., utilizing poultry litter as a primary fuel. While the Fibrominn plant will be an important advancement in the area of renewable energy, benefits of this project extend well beyond energy generation. The facility will provide a needed alternative to land application for the poultry industry, increasing the industry’s environmental stewardship efforts and allowing Minnesota poultry to remain competitive in the global arena. By improving the viability of the Minnesota poultry industry, the facility will help sustain the agricultural fabric of towns like Benson. Likewise, the diversion of litter from land application will ultimately benefit all Minnesotans by reducing the pollution impacts to Minnesota waterways from excess nitrogen and phosphorous. By utilizing poultry litter to generate electricity, the Fibrominn project will also help Minnesota meet its ambitious biomass energy goals and will have a beneficial impact on air quality.

Public Sector innovation
Burnsville Rainwater-Garden Retrofit Project
Nominated by Kurt Leuthold, Barr Engineering Company
As part of an ongoing effort to protect Crystal Lake from phosphorus and large volumes of stormwater draining into it from surrounding hard surfaces, the Metropolitan Council and the city of Burnsville funded a project to create a prototypic rainwater garden system to filter street runoff. To measure the gardens’ performance, one neighborhood was “retrofitted” with 17 rainwater gardens, while an identical neighborhood just one street away served as a control site. On the street chosen to receive the rainwater gardens, 85 percent of eligible residents agreed to participate by planting the gardens and performing minor maintenance on them—far exceeding the anticipated 30 percent buy-in. Preliminary data analysis indicates that, compared to its sister street with no gardens, the study street contributes about 82 percent less stormwater to Crystal Lake.

FINALISTS:
Empire Wastewater Treatment Plant Ecological Restoration
Nominated by William Moore, Metropolitan Council
Metropolitan Council’s Empire Wastewater Treatment Plant is located on 400 acres on the Vermillion River, in an area of Dakota County experiencing rapid growth and ongoing stormwater management problems. The Vermillion River is a environmentally significant tributary to the Mississippi River and forms the crux of two wildlife corridors. Friends of the Mississippi River (FMR) approached the council in 1999 to determine its interest in evaluating the Empire property for ecological restoration. The resulting partnership, with the assistance of several state and local agencies and over 80 volunteers, designed and implemented a Natural Resource Management Plan for the property that stabilized 1,200 feet of severely eroded streambank, restored a 50-acre wet meadow, removed all buckthorn from the floodplain forest and enhanced plant species diversity in a 34-acre grassland. These achievements provide a working model of state-of-the-art stormwater management that will achieve zero-percent runoff during rainfalls up to two inches.

Stillwater Trout Stream Mitigation Project
Nominated by Klayton Eckles, City of Stillwater
Brown's Creek, a trout stream, was threatened by warm water discharges from new urban developments. The city of Stillwater partnered with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and private land owners to create a unique solution that involved creating a new 1/2 mile of stream channel, and a diversion system that rerouted water from the urbanizing areas into a different, less sensitive watershed. The $4 million project created new trout habitat where none existed, provided flood protection on a neighboring lake, and also created a completely new creek along with new habitat to carry the diverted water. The partnerships created avoided the typical reactionary regulatory process, made the project possible and brought a successful outcome that exceeded everyone's expectations.

Land Use
The Phalen Corridor
Nominated by Curt Milburn, The Phalen Corridor
The mission of The Phalen Corridor is to restore the economic, social and physical prosperity of Saint Paul’s East Side through an inclusive community partnership. The collaboration began in 1994, to gain access to some of Saint Paul’s most distressed neighborhoods. This led to years of coordinating community support to build Phalen Boulevard, the only road in Minnesota’s history built entirely on formerly polluted land. Innovative jobs programs were initiated along the corridor to facilitate the hiring of East Side workers as the corridor developed. Soon, a variety of housing developments were proposed for the corridor, attracting people from a variety of income groups and ages. A collaboration facilitated by the Wilder Foundation created the John A. Johnson Achievement Plus Elementary School located directly on the corridor, complete with an attached YMCA. Parks, trails and green spaces have also been strong focuses of the initiative. The middle section of the corridor will bring soccer fields, tennis courts and a wetland to a formerly polluted industrial site. On the east end of the corridor is Ames Lake, the first project in the country where a wetland has been reclaimed from an abandoned shopping mall. With eight reclaimed or newly created wetlands on the corridor, runoff is naturally cleansed from the Lake Phalen Watershed to the Mississippi River.

FINALISTS:
Comprehensive Wetland Management Plan
Nominated by Daniel Huff, Friends of the Mississippi River
The Comprehensive Wetland Management Plan (CWMP), approximately 1200 acres in Blaine, consolidates and preserves large tracts of high-quality wetlands while still allowing for limited development. The plan, implemented on April 28, 2004, was initiated to solve the legal and environmental issues associated with a ditch system. The CWMP reaches a balance between two opposing water laws, promotes smart growth and natural resource-based planning, improves wetland and ecological integrity, meets storm water needs, satisfies land-owner issues and solves a 15-year legal impasse in Minnesota's most rapdily developing city.

Corridors Partnerships: Habitat Corridors Partnership and Metro Conservation Corridors
Nominated by Peggy Booth, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
The corridors partnerships - two collaborative land conservation projects called Habitat Corridors Partnership (HCP) and Metro Conservation Corridors (MCC) – coordinate statewide and in the greater metro region to protect, enhance and restore habitat corridors for the purposes of sustaining fish, wildlife and native plant communities for all generations. The partnerships provide statewide and regional coordination of existing federal, state, and private land and water conservation programs and have leveraged substantial federal, state, and local public and private funding to achieve shared conservation objectives. Since 2001, HCP has protected over 9,200 acres in fee title, over 33,500 acres with conservation easements, and restored or managed over 31,000 acres, with 58 lakes and 51 miles of shoreline benefiting. Since 2003, MCC has protected over 1,000 acres with public acquisition or conservation easements, and restored over 1,300 acres.

Partnership of the Year:
The Phalen Corridor