Tag: Illinois

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Five: 10 Days of ISTC; Anniversary Presentation Videos

30thBlogThing7Videos of presentations at ISTC’s anniversary event provide a fascinating look at problems of pollution contamination in Illinois and how the Center contributed to the clean up. Links to the videos will be made available over the next two weeks as they become available.

ISTC Looks Back, and to the Future During Anniversary

VIDEO 5: Jeff Levengood, spoke about the strong collaboration between ISTC and the other four state surveys during its history. The diverse expertise of the scientists at the Prairie Research Institute’s four other surveys — spanning water, geology, natural history, and archaeology — enabled them to examining complex, place-based, legacy environmental contamination and degradation issues.

 

The work resulted in research reports published by the center, but also in refereed journal articles. He said this work helped communities around Illinois in managing their contamination problems but the collaborations also made significant contributions to the knowledge base in the field.

 

At Lake Calumet, Waukegan Harbor, Lake DePue and other post-industrial natural habitats, the surveys studied exposure and uptake of pollution by wildlife. They tracked changes in habits including nesting, foraging, reproduction in the birds, fish and the greater ecosystem. The information helped lead to innovative restoration projects at compromised sites in the state.

 

“I think we have to be proud,” Levengood said, “anybody that was involved in those early studies, because we really kind of kicked this off and helped to show what could be, what was possible.”

 

He quoted Nicole Kamins Barker, who worked on the Lake Calumet restoration as part of the Chicago Department of Environment, who said “The Surveys’ involvement took our work in the Calumet region to a new level of effectiveness by merging the latest scientific research with natural resource planning and management.”

 

NEXT UP: Timothy Lindsey, “Incorporating Innovation into Pollution Prevention and Sustainability.”

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Four: 10 Days of ISTC; Anniversary Presentation Video

30thBlogThing4Videos of presentations at ISTC’s anniversary event provide a fascinating look at problems of pollution contamination in Illinois and how the Center contributed to the clean up. Links to the videos will be made available over the next two weeks as they become available.

ISTC Looks Back, and to the Future During Anniversary

VIDEO 4: Craig Colten While working at the Center, Craig Colten, conducted pioneering longitudinal analyses of manufacturing techniques in urban manufacturing sites throughout the state.  The work accounted for changing hazardous materials produced and changing waste handling practices over more than 100 years.

 

The research was valuable for understanding not just current threats but residues from long forgotten industrial sites. Building on this data, Colten was able to construct a general historical geographic model in urban areas, as well as a series of tools and applications including a Historical Hazardous Substance Data Base and a Historical Hazards Geographic Information System. These tools helped establish the ground work for Superfund litigation and the ability to support real estate transactions.

 

Colten and others at the Center became national leaders in sustainability by addressing emerging concerns about brownfields, as well as abandoned, derelict sites, especially sites where the industrial land use changed several times. He established the long-term relationship of industry and environment — adding a time component to our the state of knowledge about what was toxic, how wastes were managed, what was the technology for managing wastes, and what was the regulatory framework then.

 

Later Colten co-authored “The Road to Love Canal: Managing Industrial Waste before EPA.” Today he is Carl O. Sauer Professor of Geography, Louisiana State University.

 

NEXT UP: Jeff Levingood, “ISTC and the Other Surveys: Working Together to Solve Illinois’ Legacy Pollution Issues.”

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Three: 10 Days of ISTC; Anniversary Presentation Videos

30thBlogThing5Videos of presentations at ISTC’s anniversary event provide a fascinating look at problems of pollution contamination in Illinois and how the Center contributed to the clean up. Links to the videos will be made available over the next two weeks as they become available.

ISTC Looks Back, and to the Future During Anniversary

VIDEO 3: Gary Miller, the center’s first assistant director, spoke about the center’s research program. Up to this day, the mandate of ISTC is to provide 1) research, 2) technical assistance, and 3) public information about hazardous materials and other contamination threats. Miller said over 30 years the center has funded well over 200 studies, all available online.

 

Large contaminated sites in Illinois, such as Waukegan Harbor, Lake Calumet and industrial sites near Rockford got a lot of attention in those first years.  At that time a lot of work was necessary to establish the toxicity of contaminants present at those sites,  including some of the earliest studies of PCBs in the environment.

 

Other important research focused on waste issues such as improved landfill design and modeling of groundwater contamination from landfills. The early years also produced a comprehensive inventory of Illinois landfills that is still in use today. He added that the center also helped pioneer remediation, stabilization, and clean-up techniques through demonstrations and analysis.

 

NEXT UP: Craig Colton, “Historical Hazards: Innovation and Application at the Center.”

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Two: 10 Days of ISTC; Anniversary Presentation Videos

30thBlogThing3

Videos of presentations at ISTC’s anniversary event provide a fascinating look at problems of pollution contamination in Illinois and how the Center contributed to the clean up. Links to the videos will be made available over the next two weeks as they become available.

ISTC Looks Back, and to the Future During Anniversary

VIDEO 2: David Thomas, the founding ISTC director, joined in May, 1985. During his presentation he looked back to the early days of Illinois’ hazardous waste center. When President Jimmy Carter declaired a federal health emergency at Love Canal, the problem of hazardous waste management had become a front burner concern nationwide. Previously working at an engineering firm, Thomas could see the concern grow as he saw more and more of the firm’s work had to do with hazardous waste.

 

As an U of I alumnus, Thomas was delighted Illinois had proposed the new hazardous waste center for Champaign. He also relished the job as a way to delve full-time into the interesting and important challenges of the hazardous waste. During his talk, Thomas discusses the legislative mandate of the center and its early efforts to organize a scientific response to the problems.

 

Thomas and original Assistant Director Gary Miller studied design of modern research labs around the nation to guide the development of the center’s research laboratory capabilities. Thomas noted with satisfaction that ISTC’s focus has effectively evolved to remain relevant in the rapidly changing field.

 

NEXT UP: Gary Miller, founding ISTC assistant director, “30 Years: Projects, Politics, and People.”

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One: 10 Days of ISTC; Anniversary Presentation Videos

Anniversary videos available
Videos of presentations at ISTC’s anniversary event provide a fascinating look at problems of pollution contamination in Illinois and how the Center contributed to the clean up. Links to the videos will be made available over the next two weeks as they become available.

 

ISTC Looks Back, and to the Future During Anniversary

Duration: 12’33”

VIDEO 1: Mike Barcelona was a primary architect of the Hazardous Research and Information Center (HWRIC) that would evolve into the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC). He and the Illinois State Water Survey (ISWS) Chief Stan Changnon negotiated the political and bureaucratic waters to establish the center. Barcelona, head of the water chemistry group at ISWS was the primary author of the position paper on the organization and goals of the center.

 

Barcelona went on to serve on the faculties of the University of Michigan and the University of Western Michigan where he served a chair of the department of chemistry.

 

For his presentation at the 30th anniversary celebration, Barcelona focused on state of things as the Center was being formed. Government and industry had only just begun to define the outlines of hazardous and toxic industrial by-products. At the beginning, the Center was most interested in determining the amounts of hazardous waste in Illinois, and particularly their impacts on groundwater, he recalled. He noted that the state produced an estimated 70 million tons of hazardous wastes between 1920-80.

 

What has changed today?  Barcelona cited a recent Illinois Environmental Protection Agency analysis that showed hazardous waste generation in the state has dropped 75 percent between 1987 and 2013. He also cited an October, 2015 study which estimated that pollution prevention efforts nationwide have avoided the environmental release of five billion to 14 billion pounds of toxins.

 

While that is a good record for meeting that threat, Barcelona added there are plenty of challenges in the future.  In particular, he noted the growing avalanche of electronics in the waste stream, and the increased concern over landfilled food waste and its massive emissions of methane (a potent greenhouse gas).

 

NEXT UP: David Thomas, founding ISTC director, “ISTC: The Early Years.”