The Village of Winnetka, IL is in the midst of developing plans to construct a conveyance tunnel for excess stormwater to Lake Michigan. Yesterday, the LWVLMR joined the Leagues of Women Voters of Evanston, Glencoe, Glenview, Wilmette, and Winnetka-Northfield-Kenilworth to cosponsor a program, "Managing Stormwater/Protecting Lake Michigan: Determining the Future Now," to provide information and context to the public. A distinguished panel of speakers provided background on Lake Michigan; Green Infrastructure; stormwater planning in Glenview, IL; the specific plans in Winnetka; and the stormwater discharge permitting process in Illinois. Beth Coulson, a member of the LWV Glenview, moderated. The speakers have kindly given us permission to share their powerpoint presentations. For more information on the tunnel, please see the Village of Winnetka's dedicated stormwater management planning website. For media coverage of this program, see articles in the Chicago Tribune, and the Glenview Announcements (also appeared in other Pioneer Press publications). UPDATED 10/30/14 to add newspaper article. SECOND UPDATE on 11/9/14 to link to speaker presentations.
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The delegation also adopted a resolution honoring Vice President Janet Greenwald, absent due to illness, and the longest serving board member. Indiana delegate Jeanette Neagu shared a gift that will be presented to Janet along with a signed copy of the resolution.
Finally, several advocacy opportunities were offered to local Leagues and individuals, then the meeting adjourned to a reception at the "Top of the Park." Krista Grimm was awarded the 2014 Art Palleon Lake Michigan Advocacy Award at the LWVLMR annual meeting in Traverse City, Michigan, on October 4. The award was inaugurated in 2013 in honor of longtime member and Lake Michigan advocate Art Palleon.
President Henrietta Saunders presented Grimm with a lovely photograph of a winter scene from Lake Michigan's eastern shore for her work on the Stormwater from the Ground Up education project. The picture was taken by Mary Lee Orr, who won the Palleon award in 2013. In accepting the award, Grimm said, "This is especially meaningful because it has Art's name on it." In case you were wondering if the 2014 annual meeting is worthy of your October 3-5 weekend, heed Traverse City Record-Eagle reporter Marta Hepler Drahos. She wrote in a September 19 story, that "The speakers list reads like a 'Who’s Who in Michigan Conservation' directory."
You can't do much better than that! Well done, Annual Meeting co-chairs Ruth Caputo and Mary Lee Orr. So if you haven't already, register now, because Thursday (9/25) is the deadline! Tim Glover of Zion, IL, was the lucky winner of a new rain barrel, when he attended the "Stormwater from the Ground Up" presentation on Saturday, September 21, 2014. The program at the Zion-Benton Public Library was sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Lake County. Thanks to a generous donation from a League member, we have been able to add seven to the number of rain barrels out there. In regard to providing the raffle prizes, the member said, "How powerful is it to actually offer a rain barrel to an audience that you have been suggesting use them?" The 7th and final drawing will take place on Monday, September 29, 7 pm, at the LWV Wilmette-sponsored program at the Wilmette Community Recreation Center. Thanks for coming and congratulations, Tim! LWVLMR President Henrietta Saunders and member Suzanne Dixon of LWV Holland, MI took some time out from the Great Lakes Restoration Conference in Grand Rapids for a fun display of their love of Lake Michigan.
The Conference was organized by the Healing Our Waters - Great Lakes Coalition. This year was a special celebration of a decade of the coalition's Great Lakes advocacy and of founder Peter Wege. LWVLMR member Jeanette Neagu continues the important work of researching, educating the public about, and advocating for inspections of above-ground chemical storage tanks located near water sources. The reach of her efforts benefited from recent media coverage. Indianapolis indie weekly Nuvo featured Neagu and her work in its recent story, "Uninspected Tanks of Toxins." The author called her "...a kind of Paul Revere." The New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission recognized the impact of Neagu's endeavors as well. In its latest Lustline (that's LUST for Leaking Underground Storage Tank), an article, "It Takes a Village" (on pp. 13-14), described the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA) of 1986 and included a list of questions Neagu developed for citizens to ask about storage tanks. As the NEIWPCC recognized, "Jeanette saw a serious problem and is working tirelessly to educate a network of people to take up the cause. When all is said and done, it is the community that must be in the frontline of protecting its citizens and its environment." We couldn't agree more! As we've been on the road, promoting the use of green infrastructure for all of its virtues, including its ability to naturally clean stormwater, we've heard plenty of stories. This one comes from Jean & Doug Cheever, of the League of Women Voters of Dubuque, IA. They shared, Our street is a major arterial that is salted and plowed frequently in winter. The strip between the sidewalk and street faces southwest. This "hell strip" gets hot during summer afternoons and, in winter, is regularly exposed to salt and repeated freezing and thawing. The sod installed after construction quickly became weedy and patchy and required more work than the rest of our lawn. We finally gave up and replaced grass with suggested salt-, drought-, and ice-resistant plants. It turned out that the City only allowed grass in parkway plantings. After some research, the Cheevers found a St. Paul, Minnesota ordinance that encouraged other street plantings as long as they were less than 3 feet tall and did not include noxious weeds or marijuana. Armed with their case and the ordinance, they appealed to their government officials. Success! The City changed the policy! Thanks, Cheevers, for helping to beautify America and working towards cleaner water! Residents from Midlothian, Illinois attended the June 16 presentation of the Stormwater from the Ground Up program at the Dolton Public Library. They shared their neighborhood's flooding problems and their attempts to get help. At nearly every place we bring the program, League members meet people whose homes suffer from chronic flooding. While we appreciate their thanks for some new ideas about how to address their problems, it is clear that people are overwhelmed. Additional governmental efforts to assist individuals is needed. |
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