Earth Day Event Focuses on Land and Water Conservation

Our Land and Water: Conservation for a Sustainable Future, sponsored by UW-L’s Joint Committee on Environmental Sustainability, will feature three area land and water conservation experts — Gretchen Benjamin, Tim Jacobson and David Vetrano —who will each give an individual presentation then participate in a panel discussion with questions and answers.

Gretchen Benjamin has spent her career on the Mississippi River working for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for almost 25 years and recently moving into the non-profit world of The Nature Conservancy as assistant director of its Upper Mississippi River (UMR) Program. She will discuss the work of the The Nature Conservancy with respect to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico.

Tim Jacobson is the Executive Director of Mississippi Valley Conservancy, a nonprofit land trust headquartered in La Crosse. He will discuss threats to Wisconsin’s natural landscape and agricultural lands and non-regulatory approaches to protecting and enhancing the best parts of our landscape for future generations.

David Vetrano is a fisheries supervisor for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. He is directly responsible for the fisheries on over 1500 miles of rivers and streams and several small lakes in the La Crosse area. Vetrano will provide a short history of how past agricultural land use practices have completely altered the Driftless Area landscape. He will also show how those past practices still affect us and why there is tremendous potential for a much more sustainable future for agriculture and tourism.

La Crosse Area Earth Week Events

There are a number of Earth Week events (April 19-26) planned in the La Crosse area this year. Events include film showings, presentations and panel discussions, dumpster dives, book discussions, hikes, clean-ups, bike rides and much more. You can find a complete schedule of events at http://www.greenlacrosse.com

Trowbridge Hall Wins Chancellor's Energy Challenge

UW-L's Trowbridge Hall is the winner of the 2009 Chancellor's Energy Challenge. The only other residence hall, out of the eleven participating, that was able to conserve electricity over the four week challenge period was Angell Hall. This was the first year of the Energy Challenge. Hopefully it was a valuable learning experience for all of us. The Joint Committee on Environmental Sustainability congratulates Trowbridge Hall on its victory and thanks all of the hall residents who participated in the challenge by taking steps to reduce energy consumption.

While the competition is over, the challenge is not. We must all do whatever we can to reduce energy consumption. Consider doing the following to make a difference:

1. Turn off lights when you leave a room.
2. Use energy efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs.
3. Turn off computers and other electrical devices when not in use.
4. Set up computers to take advantage of power conservation settings during the day.
   
5. Walk, bike or use public transportation whenever possible.
6. Take a shorter shower to conserve hot water.

Only with everyone working together can we help conserve energy and reduce the production of greenhouse gases. Change begins with each of us.

Chancellor's Energy Challenge Results Weeks 1&2

The results for weeks one and two of the Chancellor's Energy Challenge are in. Some residence halls are cutting back on their electrical use, while others have a ways to go to make a significant difference. This goes for everyone as well as those living in the residence halls. Remember:

1. Turn off lights you are not using and when you leave your room.
2. Use compact fluorescent light bulbs wherever possible. Learn more on this Energy Star web page.
3. Turn off your computer at night when you go to bed at night. Use the energy conservation settings on your computer to put it into sleep mode when you are not using it during the day. Learn how to make your computer more energy efficient by following the instructions at the Energy Star website.
4. And, although it does not directly save electricity in the residence halls, remember to walk or ride you bike whenever weather and road conditions permit, or use public transportation. Every little bit helps conserve energy.

La Crosse Green Initiatives Featured in Press

Articles in the La Crosse Tribune and the online component of Converge magazine both feature sustainability initiatives at the three La Crosse higher education institutions; UW-La Crosse, Viterbo University and Western Technical College. Both Matt Groshek, UW-L student and environmental sustainability director for the UW-L Student Association, and Dan Sweetman, UW-L environmental and sustainability program manager, were quoted in the article.

UW-L Transportation Committee Meeting

The next meeting of the UW-L Transportation Committee is:
Wednesday, February 25, at 1:00 p.m. in Cartwright Center room 263.

This will be a longer meeting, going until 3:00 p.m., but you can come and go as you need to. Remember that we do not have official committee members so everyone is welcome to attend at all times, and we are not an officially recognized UW-L committee.

On the agenda for Feb. 25:

1:00 p.m. – Presentation by “Community Car” founder Sonya Newenhouse, who is working with the City of La Crosse on starting a pay-by-the-hour car-sharing program with cars at various locations in central La Crosse, including UW-La Crosse. For more information visit: http://www.communitycar.com/

2:00 p.m. – Presentation by Larry Kirch from the City of La Crosse, to discuss the Transit Study underway that is partly intended to increase student ridership on the La Crosse Municipal Transit Utility (MTU) and make the system more useful to students. One item up for discussion will be the creation of a circulator bus route that targets student neighborhoods and runs frequently enough that students will not need a transit map with a timetable.


--information courtesy of Jeremy Gragert.

RecycleMania Comes to UW-La Crosse

UW-L is one of 510 colleges and universities participating in this year's RecycleMania event. The schools represent all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as institutions from outside the United States. Over a 10-week period from February 1 to April 11, 2009, participating schools will compete in various categories measuring the success of their recycling and waste prevention efforts.

Colleges and universities choose to participate in one of two divisions, the Competition or Benchmark. The Competition Division houses the traditional competitive rankings based on standard reporting criteria. The Benchmark Division allows schools to unofficially compare themselves with other schools and to promote RecycleMania on campus, without the formal reporting requirements of the competitive ranking. UW-La Crosse is in the competitive division this year.

The RecycleMania competition began in the spring of 2001 as a friendly challenge between recycling coordinators at two schools in Ohio, Miami University and Ohio University. From the outset, the competition was meant as a way to get students and staff more excited about participating in recycling efforts.