Good morning and call this force to the district of Dupage County, commission meeting, agenda
to order. Today, Tuesday, May 16th, 2023, right here at district headquarters. You please rise
and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance.
I pledge allegiance to the fight of the United States of America and to the republic for
which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty, justice, and the law.
And this morning, for invocation, we welcome Deacon Ron Yerkes from St. Petronau, Parish, and Glen Allen.
Good morning. Good to be with you, as always.
There's an expression that he who sings praise twice. Let me see if I can do this.
We are called to act with justice. We are called to love tenderly.
We are called to serve one another, to walk humbly with us.
So this morning I was thinking of all the changes that are going on in our lives.
I think of Chicago yesterday with their big celebrations and stuff.
Change is part of our life.
But we just pray that God is present with us here in this morning.
We've all been called, as that song says, we've all been called to do His will, to do it, and to see His way.
We have the gift of creation how I love to go out into the forest preserves and hear the bird singing
So that's why I was thinking so a guy'd be with us today me all of our
Decisions that we make in this room. They've been made with wisdom love knowledge that we all are God's keepers
And this is a gift that has been given to us this all this property with all this wild animals
Which are not so wild we're the wild ones. I bless us all we ask for his blessings upon all of you through the father
We'll call, please.
Mr. Garrus.
Here.
President Heberard.
Here.
Commissioners Al Murphy.
Marsha Murphy.
Here.
O'Meara.
Here.
Painter.
Here.
Tyson Dunn.
Here.
Six present and one absent, Mr. President.
Thank you.
Spring has certainly sprung and right on time, so has our popular native plants.
While the presale tickets are sold out for this Thursday, both Friday and Saturday are
open to the public and they can come out in person for native flowers, grasses, shrubs,
and trees at Maze Lake Peabody Estate in Oak Brook.
There will be plant experts on site to answer your questions and make recommendations regarding
over 160 species you can choose from.
Be sure to come early if you want the best selection as plants are not restocked
And when they are gone, they are gone.
Also, in conjunction with the sale,
free woodchips will be available to the public
on Saturday, May 20th from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.
at the Forest Preserve District's native plant nursery
at 29 West 220 Mac Road in West Chicago.
More information is available on our website,
dupageforest.org.
This morning, we have an informational
on the district's clean energy, resiliency,
and sustainability plan.
plan. This initiative was identified in the district's approved 2019 master plan to study
ways to support strategic plan priorities of increasing energy efficiencies and reducing
the agency's carbon footprint. We are proud of the many steps we have taken to move forward
over the past several years, but this will help accelerate our progress and keep us moving
on the most viable options first. The entire plan can also be found on our website.
Finally, I am pulling R7, R8, and R9 from our agenda today as they are not ready.
We do have multiple public comments.
When I woke up this morning, I just wanted to remind everybody, it's a beautiful day,
so let's not make it too long.
We have three minutes for our public comments, and please be respectful of everyone's time.
Karen Rugg, do you want to come up to the microphone?
I'm
trying to get the word out about getting
in a proper retention pond or reservoir, whatever
you want to call it.
They're at Songbird Slew, and I cast it.
And I went to the County Board of Health last Thursday night
for their public comment, and I didn't
know that they were having a huge meeting for retirement
of Karen Ayala.
However, when I pulled into the parking lot in front of the public health
building on County Farm Road, all of a sudden right in front of me was this big hole,
this big vast hole in the back. Immaculately groomed deep, and I guess that's a
reservoir to keep the County Board of Health building from flooding out, and
and also to protect County from road from flooding out.
So the county absolutely cares about people in that campus.
But I haven't heard a word from you.
You keep on flooding out that building, that medical building that's right up next to your property
and anxiously waiting for a phone call to hear when you're going to start.
Just like you said about your plants.
when they run out, they run out. It's important that you act on this as a team, protect humans in your community.
Humans count too. And those are sick and dying humans.
And they have to run their wheelchairs through your water.
And I haven't heard a word of what you're doing to correct it.
You've had seven years, Jim Zay is known about this.
I put a film up just like I did with Mr. Jacobson on his back wooden porch of his office building.
He's known about it.
You've known about it for how long?
And nobody's taking any action and it saddens me.
So, I hope I get to hear from you, from somebody, when you're going to start this project.
You can't be flooding people out, because somebody made a mistake years ago.
Nobody's blaming you personally, but you're on the watch now, it's your duty to correct
it.
I'll be back next week.
Next we have Becky Simon with Naperville Preservation.
Step forward to the microphone.
Hi, I'm Becky Simon with Naperville Preservation and I am here today to ask the board to formally
convene an ad hoc committee to study alternative uses for oak cottage. Oak Cottage was recently
identified as one of the most endangered historic sites in Illinois. We have found
ourselves third parties who are willing to help fund signage for the site and people
who are willing to serve on an ad hoc committee.
So again, my request for all of you here today
is to form an ad hoc committee while we have time
to identify alternative uses for Oak Cottage.
Thank you.
Thank you for your public comment.
And with that, we will move into the regular agenda.
Mr. President, under R1, we have a motion approving
and placing on file the open planning session
meeting minutes from 4.25.23
and open commission meeting minutes from 5 to 23. Second. A motion and a second. Is
there any discussion? Go call please. O'Meara. Aye. Painter. Aye. Tyson Dunn. Aye.
Garris. Aye. Keebriard. Aye. Al Murphy. Marsha Murphy. Aye. All ayes, Mr. President. Motion passes.
Mr. President, under R2, we have a resolution number 23-095, authorizing the payment of goods
and services for payment 5, 18, 23.
Second.
A motion and a second.
Is there any discussion?
We'll call please.
O'Meara.
Aye.
Painter.
Aye.
Tyson Dunn.
Aye.
Harris.
Aye.
Fibriard.
Aye.
Elmerfe, Marsha Murphy.
Hi.
Oh, hi.
Mr. President.
Motion passes.
Mr. President, under R3, we have resolution number 23-071, authorizing the execution of
a contract for professional services between the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County
and AQUITY Research and Insights Incorporated for professional services countywide.
Second.
Motion and a second.
Is there any discussion?
We have an ordinance number 23-099, authorizing an extension to the license agreement between
the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County and the Friends of Donata Incorporated for their
operation of the Donata House and Donata Model Farm Complex.
Second.
I have a motion and a second.
Is there any discussion?
Vote call, please.
O'Meara.
Aye.
Painter.
Aye.
Tyson Dunn.
Aye.
Harris.
Aye.
Gibriard.
Aye.
Al Murphy.
Marcia Murphy.
Aye.
All ayes, Mr. President.
Motion passes.
Mr. President, under R5, we have a resolution number 23-075,
authorizing the execution of a contract for the purchase of liquid propane
auto gas fuel between the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County
and Heritage FS Incorporated.
Second.
I have a motion and a second.
Is there any discussion?
Roll call, please.
Omira.
Aye.
Painter.
Aye.
Tyson Dunn.
Aye.
Harris.
Aye.
Fibriard.
Aye.
Al Murphy.
Marsha Murphy.
Aye.
Mr. President.
Motion passes.
Mr. President, under R6, we have resolution number 23-090, authorizing the execution
of an easement agreement between the Forest Reserve District of DuPage County and the
County of DuPage for the operation and maintenance of a sanitary sewer force main
in Green Valley Forest Preserve. Second. A motion and a second. Is there any
discussion? Both call please. O'Meara. Aye. Painter. Aye. Tyson Dunn. Aye.
Harris. Aye. Hebrard. Aye. Al Murphy. Marcia Murphy. Aye. All ayes Mr. President. Motion passes. I am very
happy to make a motion on R10 resolution 23-089 authorizing the
execution of a contract for professional services between the Forest
Preserve District of DuPage County and HW Lockhear and Company and Waterfall
Glen Forest Preserve. Second. I have a motion and a second. Is there any
discussion. We're all excited for this to happen. Absolutely. Roll call please.
Painter. Aye. Tyson Dunn. Aye. Harris. Aye. Hebrard. Aye. Cal Murphy. Marsha Murphy.
Aye. O'Meara. Aye. All ayes Mr. President. Motion passes. And following up on that
R11 I'd like to make a motion on resolution 23-103 authorizing the
the execution of a contract between the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County and MYS,
Incorporated for Construction of the Sawmill Creek Pedestrian Bridge replacement in Waterfall
Glen Forest Preserve.
Second.
I have a motion and a second.
Is there any discussion?
Well, call please.
Painter?
Aye.
Tyson Dunn?
Aye.
Ferris?
Aye.
Kibriard?
Aye.
Al Murphy?
Marcia Murphy?
Aye.
O'Meara?
Hi
Motion passes
Mr.. President under our 12 we have a resolution number 23-102
authorizing the
application for Illinois Department of Natural Resources
public museum capital grants program for willowbrook phase 2 master plan improvements
Second of a motion and a second. Is there any discussion?
Go call please
O'Meara?
Aye.
Painter?
Aye.
Tyson Dunn?
Aye.
Ferris?
Aye.
TBR?
Aye.
Elmerfe?
Marcia Murphy?
Aye.
All ayes, Mr. President?
Motion passes.
We do have informational agenda items today.
I-1 is our Clean Energy Resiliency and Sustainability Plan Gaps, Barriers, and Opportunities
Report.
And welcome Jessica Cortiga.
Good morning, everyone.
I'm Jessica Ortega, Manager of Strategic Plans and Initiatives, and here to present
this item today, Clean Energy Resiliency Sustainability Plan.
So as you recall, the 2019 master plan called for completing a green energy study that
would help identify ways to increase energy efficiencies and reduce the district's carbon
footprint.
And so to that end, the Board approved a contract with Delta Institute to identify
gaps, barriers, and opportunities related to clean energy resiliency and
sustainability. Delta Institute then worked with staff to assess the ecosystem
services that the district currently provides, assess the feasibility of
options for energy efficiency, renewable energy, and alternative fuel
vehicles, explore green energy infrastructure opportunities, analyze the
district's waste streams, assess transportation related emissions, and
explore options for carbon sequestration.
I'll just note as well, in addition to this work,
the district contracted separately with SCS engineers
to do analysis of clean energy.
Thank
you, Jessica. Good morning, everybody. It's a pleasure to be here today. My name is
Patrick Murphy. I'm a senior lead at Delta Institute and in my role I've
largely been focused on the communications of this project. Much of my
colleagues who are here with me are much more knowledgeable on all the
ins and outs of this but it's my pleasure to introduce us, talk about some
of the background about what brought us here and what next steps are ahead for
us.
As Jessica introduced us, Delta Institute is a 501c3 profit
organization that has a 25-year history of collaborating with communities across
the Midwest to solve complex environmental challenges. In partnership
with ECT we responded to RFP to address the clean energy resiliency and
sustainability plan that surfaced from the 2019 master plan and it's been a
pleasure to work on this everything up until today to talk about what we saw
and what we see for opportunities going forward.
But of course this work doesn't happen in a vacuum.
This requires collaboration across board level, staff level,
and we just wanted to take a brief moment to acknowledge the many people
who have been participating with us throughout this sharing,
providing lots of feedback, reviews.
There's been a lot of help not just by the people that you see here on the screen,
but also people that make the district run on a daily basis.
So we want to make sure that we acknowledge everybody here
and everybody on the screen as well.
So dipping into the results here, again,
I won't take too much every time because we have a lot to cover.
And I'm just going to cover where we started off with.
And just a note saying that this does not cover
any of the adjacent landfill operations as well.
We did factor that into the equation,
but this is not specifically covering any of that.
So looking as far as background, where we've come from so far, the great news is that we are starting off with great footing so far.
And that's built upon the 100 years of conservation and preservation that the district has been investing in.
But not just that, also with many of the recent accomplishments that the district has spearheaded for many years,
All of which you see here, several, several, several more that are listed in the report
itself and beyond.
Things like investing in 100% renewable energy credits for the year 2023, already installing
and designing green infrastructure sites throughout many of the preserves and developing
and constructing trails throughout many of the preserves.
What we find is that to achieve the district's next targeted goals of reducing its carbon footprint,
increasing clean energy opportunities, we find that the district is in a great position and only moving forward.
If this opportunity, it's my pleasure to introduce the person who has been spearheading the entirety of this project team.
He's a senior advisor at Delta Institute.
My pleasure to introduce Kevin Dick.
You see ECT on the slide.
They were a partner project.
So one of the things we did in this project was to really look at the emissions that were
generated by the job which is and we really don't need on that.
I'm going to go into that a little bit.
But before I do, I want to give Tom an opportunity
to really talk about the other aspects of this plan,
the resiliency side, which is what the force reserve
district provides as a people service.
They're equally important.
And actually offset a lot of the issues
that the operations of the force reserve
has as an operator.
So we want to make sure that that's
But, sure, thanks Kevin.
We'll get into a little deeper dive in a little bit, but the district is the largest holder
of floodplain in the county and most of that land is pervious area that's able to absorb
runoff, sequestered carbon, as Kevin said, and so that's been working well.
The also been working with the county to help house or sort of locate some of the
flood control facilities that are helping countywide.
And that's important because we've got
some very heavy vegetation increases that are predicted
that's no surprise to you.
And as we all sort of feel it,
100 year events are just keep getting worse
and our events are getting bigger.
At the same time, we're seeing
reduction in, you know, greater drought as well.
So we're getting maybe similar amounts of total rainfall
but the amounts are all occurring as part of events
And that's a good foundation because part of the reason we're looking at emissions is
it's part of the mission obviously for this organization to, you know, be a steward of
the environment.
As things get worse, the emissions of the horse river district does, it may have become
a part of the, it's a part of the issue and we want to make sure that they're,
you know, aware of what's going on.
what those opportunities for reducing that cost.
So I'm going to give you a two sentence, hopefully,
review of what carbon accounting is.
And you can think about this in your own terms as well.
There's three scopes in carbon accounting.
And what you do when you do a carbon accounting
is you understand the boundary of the organization
you're working with, whether it's a municipality or a company
or even a household.
What is in your purview?
And so the scope one emissions are what is what is used on site so natural gas
and anything that's used on site like a forklift or something like that.
So two emissions are your electricity use. It's emissions that are because that
are due to your operations but happen elsewhere. So a coal plant emits it
somewhere else but it's because you guys are using electricity. And then scope
So three emissions, which is the largest, usually about 40% or more of the emissions of an operation,
is all of the supply chain emissions that you have.
So everything you purchase, because you purchase, becomes a force of an emission.
We didn't really look at scope three emissions.
It's a very big undertaking and really is much bigger than scope one and scope two, except for waste.
We actually looked at your waste emissions as well, because that is under scope three.
So, when we look at the emissions of an organization or a municipality, we also are taking into
account where those are coming from.
So, not all of the greenhouse gas emissions are pretty equal.
You may have heard that methane creates more emissions than a CO2, and nitrous oxides are
one of the bigger ones.
So, we did look at that as well.
If we look at your non-manfil operation, the bottom line is that boundary total
tons of CO2E is 8,000 tons a year. We included your visitors in that. As you can see, all
of their driving to your horse river district sites are part of that. We want to include
that because it is part of your operations. It's not necessary to keep it in and we'll
show you how that works out when you're looking at just your direct operations.
We also looked at your carbon sequestration as well, so we'll get into that a little bit
deeper.
When we look at just your operations emissions on the right side, you have about 2,700 tons
of operations emissions, and to put this in perspective for you guys, a typical DuPage
County household uses about 18 tons for their household and their driving.
So that'll give you about 250 or so households is what your emissions kind of comes out to if you do that.
So we'll get into that. And you can see your landfill emissions at the bottom left there absolutely dwarf your operations emissions.
And that's a separate issue.
So scope one, as I mentioned, it's what you use on site. This is all of the fleet and maintenance equipment.
You guys do a lot of great work using ethanol, which reduces your E85, reduces your emissions
because of gasoline, biodiesel reduces emissions versus regular diesel, and compressed natural
gas uses or reduces emissions versus regular motor gasoline.
This is one of the biggest portions of your emissions in one of the areas that you think
there's opportunity.
And as you can see about most of it is from vehicles, your cars and trucks.
As
Patrick mentioned, one of the things you've done recently is you started buying renewable
energy credits for your electricity generation.
When you're doing carbon accounting, you actually offset 100% of your emissions.
That's wonderful.
So you literally zero out your scope to emissions for this purpose.
What you're doing is you're purchasing 100% wind credits and you're eliminating natural
natural gas and coal, and some biomass use from the emissions of the grid. So congratulations
on that. And just so you know, this is the generation
mix for where you get your electricity. This will continue to get more green as coal plants
close by 2050. Most of them will be closed. They'll convert to natural gas. And wind
power is slated to double, triple, quadruple by 2050, as we go on as well. So you're going
to see a big greening of the grid.
So just as I said earlier, here's the numbers. You
have a huge gross carbon sequestration number. This is all of the ecosystem services provided
by your forest preserve district lands, 7,400 tons. That's enormous. And that gets your
your gross emissions, if you keep your visitor emissions in and you keep your scope to emissions
in down to about 4500. That's great. As we mentioned though, you offset your scope
to emissions and we can take the visitor emissions out when you're really considering
just your operations and you actually operate at a deficit of 891. So you actually offset
that about 50 households of emissions.
That's a wonderful bottom line, you guys.
You are less than net zero, so that is great.
You guys are doing awesome.
There are opportunities, and we'll get into those
a little bit.
We did look at how we wanted to kind of talk
about those opportunities.
We looked at gaps, we looked at opportunities,
and we looked at what you were already doing well,
and we kind of put them into boring,
if you read the plan, little icons pop up. Where are you along at Green Continuum? Are
you just exploring or are you actually performing and ready to scale? So we wanted to do that
for each area, each strategy area that we identified. And you had some wins. We were doing, as
I mentioned before, you're using alternative fuels. That's already great. You used landfill
gas to energy. We did some ASHRAE audits. There's a lot of wonderful efficiency going
There's some opportunities there as well and you're tracking all this information on a regular basis.
So there's a good amount of work already done on all the buildings that you currently manage.
There are some gaps. We think that there's opportunity around space utilization.
There's spaces that are heated when they're unoccupied, especially during the winter.
There are ways to reduce that. Building controls, remote sensing, there's opportunities there.
one of the big ones I found was in some of the ASHRAE audits is more efficient
motors for places like the Urban Stream Research Center has an opportunity to
load. It's a foot print that way as well.
And as I mentioned electrification is a
growing opportunity. We mentioned in the plan it's not a recommendation right
now. Your natural gas is very cheap at the moment. And I want
to pass it to Tom.
Great. So some of the things that already doing, again, most of your land is natural
area or pervious surfaces, we say, not impervious roofs or parking lots. And so that's great.
And you're restoring a lot of land. In fact, in the next few years, you're scheduled
to restore 470 acres of cropland to natural area, which will do us runoff by nearly
22 million gallons of water per year, and to put that in perspective, that's about the
equivalent of 50 feet of water over the area of a football field, so it's a lot of water.
And as I mentioned before, you're working a lot to do some cooperative efforts to reduce
the runoff from the county as a whole through flood control and such, but also doing some
things on your own land through green infrastructure, and just right out here in your parking
lot in this facility is a good example of a lot of the green infrastructure, green stormwater
infrastructure things that you're doing. You restore waterways, you're home to more than
5,000 species of plants and you continue to acquire and protect natural areas. And even at
some of your sort of less sustainable if you will or what some people might say is golf courses
you're doing a lot of work to reduce the impact of those as well. So, you know, you've got
some great wind so far.
In terms of some of the gaps, you know, all of these things require
maintenance and green infrastructure is one of those. And sometimes you think of if we
Thank you very much.
Just naturalized areas that means we can kind of walk away from them.
And as the district, you know that better than pretty much anybody, that there's still a stewardship
component. And that's no less with the stormwater features.
And just using a lot of nature-based solutions can just continue down that road.
Funding is always an issue, and so working on securing additional funding through grants and other sources,
and then looking at some of the agricultural lands.
How can, you know, doing some good things already,
but how can we get that better?
And then how is water used?
And looking at, you know, again,
looking at rather than using portable water,
you're not doing that.
But even as we draw it out of our local streams and such,
there's opportunities to just use it more efficiently
and only irrigate when necessary.
And then snow and ice control is definitely an issue.
Again, you're using some natural materials there, but looking at what areas actually
get snow and ice control made some areas that don't need it because they're not used heavily
and being more targeted in terms of the types of materials that you use for de-icing and
traction to the specific resources that are nearby would be affected by that.
Then just generally there's some limited data on carbon sequestration as it varies
by landscape.
Dave, that's not specific to you, but just is sort of an industry.
And some opportunities, you know, as we work into the future and design future facilities,
stormwater and other facilities, just looking at what we project rainfall is going to be
rather than just using the numbers today.
That's always a challenge and how do you actually do that?
City of Madison, for example, uses the 200-year event instead of the 100-year event for
design purposes with really sort of just a way to adjust for the fact that the 100-year
event is someday going to be that big. Looking for grants, as I mentioned before, and then
you do have some exemptions in terms of where you're required to provide storm water, and
I think that's certainly appropriate for a lot of your linear trails and other sorts
of things where it really does just run off in the landscape. In other areas where
There's concentrated impervious areas such as parking lots and things like that, roofs
that go directly into the system, even though you may be exempt, you know, consider looking
at still providing management for those areas not required.
And continuing restoration activities, looking at operations at your golf courses
and some of your agricultural areas.
And, all right, I'll introduce Claire Costello from Delta Institute to talk about the sustainability
gaps and wins and opportunities that are available for waste management.
Yeah, thank you, Kevin.
And, you know, with the sustainability, we really focused on two things, waste management
and transportation, though as we went before, this cannot include activities happening
within the landfills.
The Forest Reserve District is already doing a lot of great work in both of these materials,
which is great.
But there are multiple efforts already dedicated towards getting materials out of the plant,
all of the recycling, composting, auctions for end-of-life materials,
and also being a leader in trail development, doing a lot of work that allows visitors to access.
As far as gas, we found that some of the waste management
aren't closely tracked.
We know that these things are happening,
but we can't always readily answer questions like,
how much material is actually being respected?
And with any waste management activity or program,
people don't always behave the way that we really want to.
This can range from a visitor putting items in the incorrect bin at a preserve,
but it can also go as far as a plan.
And then in terms of opportunities, increased data tracking and collection
around the city opens a ton of possibilities, market setting,
and really having a highly accurate understanding of what's going on with the groups.
Otherwise, just continuing to be a leader in the space, which is already really happening,
whether it's, you know, exploring green purchasing, doing more sustainability outreach and education,
or continuing to be an advocate for the group.
So with that in mind, I'll...
Obviously, this plan was really focused on the baseline operations and getting the data.
We see a couple of things that pop out and there's more than just this.
My top three, the team's top three, seem to fall into these areas.
We think that there's opportunity around electrifying your transportation, so a lot of your fleet
vehicles do have existing and developing opportunities around EV, as well as maintenance equipment.
most maintenance equipment as electric projects that are readily usable.
So that's a huge opportunity to eliminate over the time period you would implement it,
probably about half, almost half of your operations emissions.
We think that there's an opportunity around continued increase in natural area restoration,
as has been mentioned in the past, just looking at the numbers.
it doesn't look enormous when you look at just tonnage on a hundred acre per year area,
but that is permanent.
So there's no emissions associated with that, that's net.
As well as the, as Tom mentioned, there's an enormous amount of stormwater opportunity
around converting conventional agriculture, converting things, areas back to natural.
So, there are opportunities there as well.
And then SCS covers this pretty well in their report around landfill opportunity with solar.
There's also solar, some solar opportunity in existing land.
And there's of course EV infrastructure.
We mentioned your emissions from your visitors.
They are going to be electrifying their vehicles and currently there isn't a lot
of infrastructure available for them to charge as they get here.
So that's an opportunity as well.
And you can see that there's a decent amount of reductions.
So even though the district is currently net zero
because of its resiliency, its ecosystem services,
there is an opportunity to continue to build on that
and serve your population of visitors
to help them reduce their footprints as well.
And I did want to thank the team.
We did a lot of work on this.
And it was very heavily done by the team you see here as well as some other individuals
at the ECTN at Delta Institute.
And with that, get to questions.
I'd like to thank everybody for the presentation and the work on this project.
Obviously, it is one of the identified master plan initiatives.
So we were excited to see this come forward.
And obviously I'm excited to hear that we're doing well and have opportunities to do even better.
I just wanted to talk quickly about a couple next steps that staff's been thinking about.
So with all this information, I heard a lot of information today.
Staff's going to start thinking about different goals and objectives around these different areas.
What are these different things that are right for our organization?
We're going to also look at outlining potential policies that the board might want to consider around these three areas.
And while we're working on that,
staffs can also look at some of these larger opportunities
about reducing greenhouse gas emissions through solar installations,
reducing greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles
by making it easier to use electric vehicles in our preserves
and generating renewable energy through renewable natural gas or gas to energy at the landfills.
And we'll talk more about that when SCS comes back
or when we bring back that report.
generating renewable energy through targeted deployment of solar panels and increasing energy efficiency or reducing energy consumption.
So we'll be working on some of those things and bring those back to you.
And I'm happy to answer any questions about what you've heard today.
Well, anyway, this is particularly exciting for me.
This is kind of a dream to be working with an organization that's actually attempting this.
And I could see how we could establish a goal, say, in 20 years, who would be in that zero.
And I think the one chart really intrigued me that there was a massive emission reduction
caused by restoration work.
And then there was a remark, and I noticed that also in the literature that's published.
There's not a whole lot of information out there, so I'm wondering how you came up
with that number.
Was that just a scientific guess?
Yeah, that's right.
There is information, there's research that does back those up.
I think there's a table 17 that lists the utilization types.
What is complicated about, especially carbon sequestration, is it's not linear, it's very
weather dependent, it's very site dependent.
So we've done a lot of work Delta has around conservation tillage and regenerative agriculture
and you see the numbers go up and down.
So you're looking at averages over many years.
What is true is that certain types of restoration initiatives
will have a larger carbon sequestration opportunity.
I think wetland.
And forestry has, depending on the mix and prairie,
have different sequestration numbers.
So what is clear, though, is the more you do it,
The the more positive the the carbon sequestration is because the natural natural processes for
When plants grow they especially with nitrogen, which is the greenhouse gas is one of the more potent greenhouse gases for
landscapes
It's it stays in the soil. It doesn't off gas. It's used by those plants. So that's that's what usually is happening
Yeah, because I was thinking
and sort of remark from staff that we get a lot of bang for our buck out of the prairies
as opposed to people think of trees all the time, but that may not be the best way, just
planting trees, but you recommend even thinning trees, so we're often re-moving trees.
Yeah.
That would be offset by other growth that occurs as nature responds to that.
Right.
Because what is happening is new growth is taking up a lot of that nitrogen and
Exceed it in the soil as opposed to it being off-gassed.
And it especially has a big effect on that.
And of course we remove lots of buckthorn
and honeysuckle every day, volunteers and staff alike.
And that's an enormous amount of mass there
that we have to manage that we're removing
that has carbon in it.
We typically burn it.
I know that staff has looked at the idea of biochar
and what our freedom is looking at that.
Yes, biochar would be a good opportunity there as well.
I guess one point I'm leading up to
is we could be spending a lot of time talking about this.
I guess we need to, and if the public is involved,
I'd like the fact that you have a public education
component, or at least we can reach out to stakeholders
and say, like our neighbors, and whether it's this kind of
issue or flooding, what can the neighbors be doing?
Because they tend to want to say, well, we'll just
send the water to the Forest Preserve.
You'll have your lawns and plant native plants.
So there's a lot, I think there's a lot we can be doing with the public and others, you
know, external stakeholders.
So I'm excited about this.
Yeah.
And it's these, this, this plan gave you numbers.
I think it, and what that does is it, it gives you target, the ability to set targets
and to look at what, what your limited resources and efforts can go toward actually making
a difference.
And you guys are, again, already doing such great work.
So, at least we know that we got some ideas for how to start, because this is massive
potentially.
So, we just obviously have to prioritize.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Quick question.
So, thank you very much for doing this.
This is a fantastic study.
One thing I was kind of honed in on was the public transport side of things.
Do we have anything that tells people, can direct people on what are the best ways
to get to our preserve, each preserve using public transport? Or is that something that
staff can look at and identify? Or how did you actually grade us on that?
Yeah, I mean, I'll rely on Delta for the details here, but just in general, there
isn't really great transport access to our preserves, so maybe I'll let them elaborate
on that, but in general, that's kind of the answer that's coming.
Yeah, so we did take a look at all of these routes, both Metra and Forest Reverses, are running through to Page County and there are limited nodes for communities.
And I go to Leah's and she lives in the city, and it's been so many times, so much time
trying to figure out how to take this into a plug-in, although it's really difficult.
And the other thing we did look at was the community survey that was being,
and one thing that did stick up was not only were there other challenges that come with connectivity,
But also, I think 2% were interested even in taking public transit, so I think we wanted
to engage.
Do you have any suggestions of how to engage, like what, how much we want to invest in that?
Because I think it's something very important.
We have a lot of people that don't have cars.
They don't have bikes to get to our preserves.
And I think it's important.
Thank you.
That's that opportunity, but how much do you direct towards that, showing only that 2% interest?
Numbers wise, not to talk to my head if it's been something you've seen before.
Have you had experience with other counties that have been in this situation?
Do they work with PACE and Metro, well, obviously Metro can't realign their stops,
but with PACE would that be something that we work on with them to just maybe highlight
like one or two of our larger preserves
and try to see if they can put a stop
if they're going by already, just a sample, if that.
Yeah, so I can't speak to what other kinds are doing it now,
but I think everything's working,
collaborating a little bit for where there would be opportunity.
Great, thank you.
Just to feed off of that, just sparked,
we've talked a little bit about it
with some of the master plans that we've just gone through is to make entry points to make
it more accessible to neighborhoods so that they don't have to drive to the parking lot.
They can walk to the preserve.
I'm very blessed in this part of the reason I moved where I moved is because there's
an accessible block and a half for my house.
So I can go there and walk or ride a bike, and I don't have to drive to the Forest Preserve.
If I didn't have that entrance at that point, I'd have to drive to the parking lot and go from there.
So I think entry points is something that we could look at.
And we should be with our big master plan that we're supposed to be looking at,
is that we should have easier access points to the residence.
That's one thing.
And then on page 80, I don't know which one of you, it does talk about that we have twice,
over twice as much negative emissions based on our forests than our prairies.
So I'm a big proponent that, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, that trees are
very important to our net emissions versus prairies.
When you're looking at, you know, kind of the sequestration numbers, you
have to look at both the sequestration rate and the area of that particular
cover. And so anything that's got the most cover amount, even if it's got a lower
rate, it's going to look like a really big number.
So, absolutely, your forests are essential, it's not like you want to get rid of those.
But I also think that forests get, maybe I'll put it another way, prairies and wetlands
probably get less credit than they deserve in terms of sequestration.
They actually sequester a carbon at a greater rate.
Most of that carbon in that plant material is actually below ground, gets incorporated
to the soil, makes the soil healthier.
most of the organic matter with trees is actually above ground and so eventually
tree dies and that carbon goes back in the atmosphere so it's not sort of
permanently sequestered. So not to say that forests aren't amazing and do a
great job it's just prairies and wetlands also do a really good job and
actually have a higher.
I did want to add one thing to that as well.
One of
bit more biodiversity than a forest, which has pretty, you know, natural
stand tendency more biodiversity in the edge communities on the edge of a forest
or in a prairie than you would in the middle of the forest as well, so that's something to consider.
And while you're talking about the edges of the forest for sure, I did
read through your report, very interesting, very comprehensive. The
The edges are where a lot of the, I raised them on our butterflies, so I read about your
pollinators, and my concern is that we use too much herbicides around that and that fringes
on the growth of-
To keep a, you know, where there's grass meeting edge barrier or something like that?
Well, yeah.
and reg around the baths and things like that,
that maybe we shouldn't be using as many herbicides there
because that's where the milkweed for one
and other pollinators want need that area to grow
so that the pollinators have something to pollinate on.
Yeah, I agree with that, it's site dependent.
And my concern about the monarch caterpillars
is that they're eating the milkweed.
And in the past, I mean, where I have my home,
I don't put any herbicides, pesticides, any on them.
Because when I started raising monitor,
I had a lot of caterpillars that just shriveled up.
So I really went all natural, didn't put anything
getting on my lawns or in the way of pesticides or herbicides, and now I have a, I last, like,
65 or something called, they're all very healthy.
Nice.
So, I don't know if we're going to address that.
I think it was part of the, there's a little bit of part, it wasn't a major part of it.
I think you're out, you're spawning.
If you don't need to be using pesticides or herbicides or plant control,
certainly not in a prairie or even in the edge, but you might get wind blown off from, you know, trying to control weeds in the lawn.
So I think that's a consideration as well. Is the lawn really what you...
What's the utilization of lawn? It's really cycling.
So there are opportunities. You know, we've kind of reviewed this a little bit in the solar to be putting solar panels where you could possibly have a prairie.
And there's potential for that to happen in the future.
And that wasn't in your report.
But I'm just wondering, in my mind,
I read a study that the tires of cars
produce more emissions than the gasoline does.
Do you know anything about that?
You mean, well, possibly?
Well, no, when you're driving,
the emissions that come off the tires are really.
Yeah.
Yeah, there's particulates too.
Yeah, you're right.
And it was the particulates, I think.
Yeah.
And I mean, EVs have- I was just wondering if you had any information on how much of it.
But I agree with Tom.
It sounds- I've never heard of that.
And it sounds to me like it might be particulates that are part of the- Yeah, I think it
was.
The latent.
Not card.
But EVs have their own environmental issues as well.
So part of the things that, you know, when we look at this as kind of the whole
So, it's a good point, you know, trying to try to look at these.
And Argonne, because I live by Argonne National Lab,
and they're looking at how to recycle,
if they have a big department on how to recycle electric vehicle batteries.
That's a very, very interesting department.
We're going to get that figured out, I'm sure.
I have a lot of faith in Argonne.
Further questions or discussion?
Well, again, thank you so much.
I know we have 166 miles of trail that connects with nearly 250 miles throughout the county.
So that connects.
But we can absolutely keep connecting.
And we are actually have a couple of trail openings right here at Denada One and down
to Springbrook Curry, another one to connect more neighborhoods.
So look forward to keep pushing on all of these environmental issues.
So thank you again for the presentation.
We do have a second informational agenda item.
We have I2 excellence in financial reporting, fiscal year 2021.
And we welcome Andrew Brown.
Good morning, President Hebrard, Board of Commissioners,
Director Freiland.
I'm here to report that we have been recognized
by the Government Finance Officers Association
for the 35th time for excellence in financial reporting
for our comprehensive financial report, which also
doubles as our audit.
It is a more transparent version of the statutorily
required audit that we provide on an annual basis.
and again something that speaks to the transparency that the Forest Preserve
provides in those financial documents as well as our commitment to excellence
and providing those records and data to the public. I'm also pleased to
announce that the district is one for the first time this award for the
popular annual financial report from the Government Finance Office Association.
This is a summary version of the comprehensive report that is provided
in a manner that someone without a financial acumen
can understand what our financial performance was
for the year.
I need to thank my staff, specifically,
Brian Koszewski and Kiri Murtis,
for helping me put this together, and our CR team.
Jane Bonner did a wonderful job helping me
bring finance down to a level that folks can understand.
Both of these documents are available on our website
and have been since June of last year,
and I'm happy to take any questions if there are.
Congratulations. Very exciting. And I do like the new one. It is very, very friendly on the eyes.
Congratulations. And I think finance, more understandable on a basic level, is great for everybody. Not all of them. Not everybody wants finances.
Yeah, I want to echo previous comments, I think finance is looking good for us and is
well-managed and I appreciate the efforts to communicate.
In the presentation by Delta Institute they mentioned we're buying green credits, I was
a little confused on that because I know we're talking about how we want to acquire electricity
and where it comes from and that's probably part of the financial aspect.
I mean we do environmental stuff that appreciate efforts to
Communicate what we're doing with our money and how we're spending it, but thank you
I'll entertain a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn. I have a motion a second to adjourn roll call, please
Tyson done. I
Gearest I
Keep your eye
I'll Murphy Marsha Murphy. Hi. Oh, Mira. Hi painter. Hi
All eyes, Mr. President. We are adjourned