Good.

Call to order this meeting of the Evansville Climate Collaborative.

Today, July 21st, 3 30 p.m., Civic Center.

Introductions.

If you could call roll.

Yeah, Stacey Milheiser.

Here.

Robert Flores.

President.

Bryce Taylor.

Present.

Absent today is Shannon Begaman and Andrew Clark.

Staff president is myself, Lauren Lynch.

And Hannah Jones, our McKinney Climate Fellow.

Great.

Approval of the minutes.

I know we we skipped last month, so it was the month before.

I don't know if anybody even remembers the minutes from the last time, but if you have the chance to look at those and everything.

So we need to go ahead and move through the approval process.

Do I have a motion to approve?

I'll make that motion.

Okay.

Second.

Second.

All in favor?

All opposed.

Motion passes.

No appeals today, obviously.

So moving into the staff report, we're going to zip right through this bad boy today, aren't we?

Yeah.

All right.

So projects that I want to let you guys know are happening.

We have, so um, Hannah is one of our um McKinney Climate Fellows, and our urban forester also has a McKinney Climate Fellow for the summer.

And their project is to do, so she's conducting a um process to develop an urban forestry master plan.

So basically this is being led by our urban forester and intern B.

Burton from IU's ERI.

And um Environmental Resilience Institute, guess about my acronyms.

Um and so they've assembled a 20 20, 25 person team to go through that process.

We've met three times, and um we're trying to identify needs and resources through maximized tree canopy and looking at what are our strengths and weaknesses, what are our opportunities and challenges, and how can we how can we push the envelope on increasing tree canopy and uh diversifying our tree inventory?

And how do we manage that within the urban setting for maximum environmental gain and minimizing um you know tree damage and things like that?

So what is this going in phases or where are you guys at in the plan right now in the plan?

No, we've gone through our three uh engagement sessions with stakeholders.

Um and um B, who's the intern, is doing a lot of um research um here locally, learning all about our tree uh inventory and canopy and species, etc.

Um so I guess you know she said she's gonna put together a draft plan this fall.

So I think she's being an intern into the fall as well.

So I just wanted to let you guys in the community know that the urban forestry master plan is in the works.

And that hasn't been done in a long time.

This is great work, I'm excited.

Yes.

Pretty easy.

Yes.

We had a lot of good conversation about what we need here locally as far as just promoting tree planting, dispelling myths and fears, um, you know, private property versus public property, right-of-ways, um funding, staff capacity, you know, all the things.

Um we addressed all the things.

I did not know that there were myths and fears about trees.

Yeah.

Didn't know it.

A lot of conspiracy theories around.

Oh, yeah.

Don't even get me started on birds.

We all know they're not real.

They're not real.

They're all sent over from somewhere else.

If it was CIA.

I did get a new, I did want to let you know.

Speaking of trees, I did get a new um uh my new plates are now says tree magic.

So that just shows let you know how much I love, love, love our trees.

So if you want to share myth uh myth busting uh uh answers for me that I can share with other people if they ever bring that up to me.

I'll have something for you.

I'll have something for them.

So well, I probably shouldn't have I should have called it resistance instead of myths and fears.

People well there are fears though.

People are scared they're gonna fall in their houses.

If there's one dead limb, they think they need to take the whole thing down because it's gonna fall on their house.

And so those are you know, that's an example of a fear.

And then um people are resistant to planting them because they don't want the upkeep.

They don't want to who's gonna trim it.

You know, if it's a single um person, it didn't have the capability of managing all the trees in their yard, they don't want another one planted out by the road so that they have to take care of it too.

Are weeping willows a native species?

I don't believe so.

I don't believe so.

We do have a native willow, but it's not weeping.

Okay, because I I just um I really want to make sure that we prioritize native species with this initiative uh and like formalize that.

And oh my god, yeah.

Discourage weeping willows, a lot of upkeep.

But every other tree I've had said.

They are a lot of upkeep.

Those ding dong pairs get those out of here.

Well, they're not native.

Yes.

Yeah.

And even if they're, you know, non-native is one thing, but invasive is an entirely different.

That means they take over the landscape.

That's why we have Broadford Pears all up and down University Boulevard and other roads because they've moved in.

They're not a native species.

Yeah.

Probably.

They've naturalized and now they're reproducing like crazy.

Anytime there's a disturbance, they take over.

And they're just choking out all the others.

Right, right.

So there's just a lot of oh, and we also found out a lot of the city's trees are majority of all one species.

I think it's maple.

Um there's a lot of pin oaks in town, too.

Yeah.

And then, you know, another problem is all of the white ash are dying out because of the emerald ash borer, and they're a huge component of our canopy.

Um just in Wesselman Woods or along the Greenway, Pigeon Creek Greenway.

So yeah, a lot of um a lot of management and planning needs to be done to strengthen our um tree canopy.

And so I know that there's a much higher cost uh with replacing the trees, if that makes sense.

So you know, that would cut out a lot of those fears.

These are trees, there's already trees here.

It's not going to cause a problem with the root system.

What you know, I mean, obviously we can't you know, but when we start taking down some of those invasives.

Um can we plant in those areas, and it's not going to be most arbursts will tell you that they don't have as great of a chance.

They don't plant that's my very close to it.

So you need to have some time for the root system to die often.

Okay.

Thank you.

I just learned something new today.

Tree magic.

Any other questions?

Thank you.

I'll share that with you when it comes out.

Yeah.

Um I like I said, I think it's just a draft for this fall.

So um okay.

Something I'm really excited about is I was invited to participate on a 30-team panel advisory committee for the um Indiana Climate Change Impact Assessment Update.

This was done in 2018, and so it's about you know, they did the research um almost 10 almost 10 years ago.

And so they're doing an update because we have um well, they said it was 10 years ago, so it was probably when the research was done, not when it was published.

It was published in 2018.

But we have 10 more years of climate impact data to Indiana.

And I'm really excited to be on this panel.

Um it's for uh the 30 member panel is uh basically across the state of Indiana, and it it is a variety of um viewpoints.

Um there's people from yes, local government, because local government, believe it or not, and academics are the ones that use the report the most.

Um by the way, this report is the one that that forecasts Indiana's climate impacts for the next um until 2030 and until 2050 by to the level of county.

Um they said they can even go in further than that, and you have an accurate forecast.

So it forecasts um primarily for especially for Southwest Indiana, it our biggest threats are tornadic activity and um extreme heat and drought.

Um and then of course there's the occasional flooding nowadays.

But those are our biggest climate impacts, and so and you know, they might sound a little minor, like a little bit of flooding, but it it's not minor when it when it happens, there's a lot of consequences to it, even if it's just financial.

Um then uh so anyway, they want to update the report because the last 11 years um have been the last 11 the 11 hottest on record, and and we've seen tornado outbreaks versus just a tornado coming through anymore.

Um the weather has just definitely changed.

I've noticed it a great big uh uh a big deal.

I haven't had enough caffeine today, evidently I can't talk.

I feel like really like in the amount of time I've lived here, I've noticed a change in the weather.

Yeah.

Well, and it's uh you know, from the ACT perspective too, you could see it from uh where you you know historically could do double crop because you it was warm enough to do it.

Now that's gone you know, way up, you know, in more central Indiana compared to you know where it was 30 years ago.

Yeah, and I told you there was a variety of people on this team.

Um there's a farmer on this team that was talking about how he's never seen a drought in April, and you wonder why beef prices he's a bee, he's a bee farmer, and um he basically said it's because we can't rebuild our herds because there's always something happening to reduce um the grazing for our herds.

Um so anyway, I don't know, is that sound about right to you, Bryce?

Yeah, I mean our bird is the lowest it's been probably 50, 60 years.

So I mean there's impacts to every industry um including agriculture.

Um, but so there's a variety of team members from local government academia, but there's only a handful from those.

They really reached out and expanded to health agencies and small businesses and concerned residents and you know, education, and um so it's quite a diverse panel.

And um, so we're supposed to advise and review on the findings of the assessment and and basically more than anything, comment on how we might use the report and what we recommend it being um how to format it and distribute it for the maximum impact.

So it was a lot of conversation about um how it can be a technical scientific report, but then you've got to have another version that's public consumption worthy, you know, because no one wants to sit down and read a hundred page technical scientific report unless that's your job.

Right.

Or unless you're just you know an academic and studying in that field.

But um, so we had a lot of conversation about how to disseminate the information in a very um digestible manner.

Yeah, and and to its pertinent market as well.

Yeah.

So you know, I might be okay reading a portion of it, but not be able to really digest a whole other section of it because it doesn't really apply to what it is that I do.

So I mean, I think we ultimately want to get now.

I'm sure you have a lot of smart people thinking about this, but uh, is you know, what are those couple uh tidbits that they're gonna say on the evening news?

You know, I mean, getting that to that point that the evening news is gonna say, oh, yeah, this report said it anticipates this, this, this, and this.

Well, funny you say that because we they also included a TV newscaster on the panel and uh local meteorologist, um, and he's really excited, and he and he asks us really technical questions, of course.

But he's like, Yeah, I want to be able to explain why this is happening, you know.

Um, and there's been conversation about um having a social media kit and fact sheets and little postcards and things like that, because one of the things I brought up is we don't have time to go searching for the information, and even the old report, I would have to screenshot, do a do a screen clip to put it in a PowerPoint when I'm given a presentation.

I said, I just want those graphics ready to go.

Yeah, you know, and those little a social media kit would give us easily um postable um content for for that.

I think one of the things that might be good to do on the messaging side is to try to come up with a different uh way to approach that it has been before, because I feel like there's a lot of fatigue when people talk about climate change and stuff on the news.

There's gonna, you know, the the folks that you're wanting to reach to convince them that hey, this actually is happening, are you know they need to be kind of hit over the head in a different way because they're they're set in their ways, they're who they're voting for.

But if you can say, hey, this is where uh it really hurts.

I was just uh sharing with Sarah that I'm serving as an interim president for my for an HOA until September when they install I know down.

There's a reason.

And it was a personal reason why I said I would help until September when they install their new boards.

So I said, yes, I'll do this.

Well, one of the things that I'm having to deal with right now unexpectedly is one after another after another unit having condensate problems, condensation problems from their HVAC units, because this building is a 1965 building.

So many of them are still the old systems and their individual systems for each individual unit, and they have never had to deal with the amount of heat that that they have to deal with now, and they're running their systems, these old systems way too low, and they're failing.

And they're leaking in the units, and this is just going on and on and on.

And the reason being one big reason is because they've never had to deal with this sort of non-stop heat.

Heat and humidity.

There's no heat and humidity.

There's no there's no relief moment in it.

It's just kind of going straight time, and that's it.

So if we look at it from the point of view of who it affects and how to present it, and fatigue using certain terminology, even something certain vernacular, you know, uh what it just comes down to it's hotter longer out there.

That's all.

It's hotter and it's longer, and everyone is trying to make up for it.

Even when you tell them you need to lower these and save your systems, and if you can deal with this for a while, so there's something maybe to take back just in just a normal Joe Schmo guy living in a building, you know.

Who's having to deal with this and not even realizing that this is a this this is the cause of this issue for them.

You know.

Well, one of the reports that we're talking, so you have the full technical scientific study, right?

Um they're using um better climate models now also.

Not only do we have ten more years of climate data here locally, but we have better climate modeling.

But they're gonna take what they want to take out of that report to generate uh we're talking about generating a port a report for how it how is climate impacts affecting each person individually or each business or whatever, and showing the economic toll in a variety of ways, whether it's more cooling demand, your air conditioning is running full time all the time, mine is.

Yeah.

So yes, so we have that in mind, and I will I will definitely stand on my soapbox and say, you know, I hear it all the time.

I'm I'm sure uh my other um sustainability um staff over here will will say the same thing we hear all the time that where's all this climate change when we get a ice storm, you know, where's all this global warming?

That that is the climate change.

It is it, that's the change of the case.

Yeah, but people are still stuck in the global warming um naming system, and it's not and we changed that to climate change because of that very reason.

But people think that well, we've had a cool, wet summer here.

The beginning of the summer was cool and wet.

I mean it was amazing.

But um, and people are like, where's all this climate change?

Where's all this global warming?

So my big soapbox is let's ex let's make it a point to explain the fact that the climate change means unstability, instability, and um unpredictability.

We are getting both of those things.

So it's not that it's changing one way or the other, but it's that it's erratic.

And not only that, but people don't understand what 1.5 degrees increase means.

I mean, it really doesn't sound like much, right?

Um totally different measurement units, it's still hard to grasp.

And so we would definitely approach the report more like this is how it's affecting you, you know.

I do get a lot of the response being, well, I say a lot of the response, but they're you know, their their conclusion being, well, you know what, the earth over millions of years has this wave of things happening.

And I and I always say it absolutely does, and let's not add to it.

So you know, we're you know, it's it's gonna change with with with this with human input.

It's gonna change, you know.

I mean things will happen, of course we know that.

But they usually change over millions of years, not this fast.

Not over decades, not a hundred years or you know, a couple hundreds.

So we are yeah, we're here.

Yeah, we just don't need to add to that.

Right.

Let's let's do the best we can to not not impact it as much as we have.

So this is a very exciting opportunity.

Uh you guys keep the ideas coming and listening, and I'll take that to the uh advisory team for this update.

Okay.

Um we'll do us proud.

Very exciting.

I will do more.

We're already very proud of you, so thank you.

Um Southwest Indiana Coad.

So I applied for the agency to be an official member of the Southwest Indiana Community Organizations Active in Disaster.

Co-Ad.

So COAD, so community organizations active in disaster.

It's a collaborative network, and its purpose is to unify organizations to come together, and um includes nonprofits, faith-based local emergency officials, businesses, etc.

And it helps them streamline disaster response and recovery.

Um so um it just kind of helps to avoid duplication efforts across the five county region here in Southwest Indiana and help streamline um and unify um standardized uh responses.

So I was invited to attend one by our emergency management director, Cliff Weaver, and I um the conversation seemed really relevant to resilience.

And being that I'm you know, we're working on cooling kits for extreme heat for residents, and we're working on with partners to distribute those, and given that we're working on a resilience hub study and trying to develop resilience hubs, I thought I could really um learn a lot from this group and top into this group um for resources, knowledge, skill sets, etc.

So they have a web page if you want to check into them, but I just thought I would let you know that I'm um participating in that group just to keep a ear to the ground, so to speak, on on what's been planning and and they needed to know about our climate action plan because they're for all of Southwest Indiana, those five counties and those other counties don't have climate action plans.

Um they needed to hear what we're working on for resiliency because other counties are bringing their EMA directors into this group.

Um so anyway, I thought it was.

Is there anything you need from us to support that or you good to go?

I'm good to go.

I'm just there to listen and learn, really, and and share what we're doing in case they can help with resources.

So just wanted to let you know that existed because I didn't know it existed until a few months ago.

Um Hannah is going to give us an update about um a couple of our projects.

Okay.

So for the first one, we ended up getting approval at 128.

We'll say what say what it is.

Oh, for the API.

Is your speaker on?

Okay, I say what the project is.

There you go.

All right.

For the can you hear me now?

Yes.

Anti-idling campaign, we got approvals to put about 120 signs out, and they're across 13 public properties right now.

Um we're doing it through mid-August, so we put the signs out mid-June.

Just trying to increase public awareness about the impacts of idling, especially with ozone in the summer, um, and its impact on air quality.

Some of the properties include Mesker Zoo, Deaconess Aquatic Center, Swander, CK Newsom, some of the public parks and pools, and then some of those properties along the riverfront.

Um the signs were actually designed by high school students and a WNIN contest for Creative Media.

And then we picked those three winning designs to put out.

So those are the three that we have like across the city.

We do have a lot of extra signs left over, so we've kind of looked into maybe expanding it into the fall, but for right now, this was kind of just a pilot project to see how it would land with the public.

And then we're also doing some stuff with city recycling right now, trying to expand it to different facilities.

So we added about 34 facilities recently, and these are all outside of the Civic Center.

Um several of the city departments had kind of expressed interest in getting recycling, and we did have some extra room in the budget for next year.

So those facilities will be getting curbside recycling for right now, just getting 96 gallon bins.

Um, and then maybe we're looking into getting two um yard dumpsters in the future once those contracts expire, and we can look into different options.

Um we already outfitted the civic center in the courts building with recycling, so this was kind of just an opportunity we saw to get recycling in some additional facilities.

So there's over 34 that are getting added recycling for next year.

But that's great.

So first on the anti-idling campaign, you have any questions?

I've seen the signs around West Munster and they look good.

I was at um I did my walk a couple I well at one of my walks a couple weeks ago at Garvin over at Garden Park, and I was walking along the greenway, and it was beautiful and bright and about a million degrees out.

And I thought, you know what, I'm gonna do a little video about this today.

And I'm gonna throw it out there on social media, and I thought I better check with before I put anything out there publicly other than just what's on my private, I could do that.

And I did um just to talk about hey, if you see the signs around, this is exciting.

I'm so proud uh of of the team that's been doing all of this work and blah blah blah and everything.

And I probably did like five videos, and by the fifth video, I was so sweaty and gross.

I was like, I'm not posting any of these videos, and nothing got out.

So, but I just want to tell you how fantastic it was to see those signs out there.

And I came very close to there was a man parked when I first started my walk, is about a I don't know, about an hour that I spent doing that walk.

I'll go that way, you know, come back.

And he was parked next to it idling when I passed in next to the sign.

And I came back and he was still sitting there idling for an hour.

Oh my god.

And I if I didn't represent the city in some way, I probably would have pounded on the window and said, Hey, there's a sign right there.

But can't do that.

Can't I can't be you know a Karen.

Couldn't be a park Karen today, that day.

So and uh as I passed him and thought about it for about two seconds, he zoomed off and left anyway.

So that was good.

Well, that maybe decided I'd want to be called Garvin Park Karen.

That'd have been horrible.

I was thinking that when we were putting them out, there was multiple times.

I just went up to cars that were idling, I stuck the sign right in front of the room.

Right, right.

Oh, they did?

Yeah.

They turned it off.

That's at least like five cars that day to stop idling.

Because I just walked up right by their car and I just stuck in the ground.

Oh, that's awesome.

I guess I could have just walked by and looked up.

Most likely there was a carling.

I was like, that's fantastic.

No, it actually it was effective, especially when you're standing right there.

Yeah, sign out.

Well, and it is effective.

And it's funny because if I stop and let mob out at the grocery, I've got a wait on her.

I think about that sign, and I shut the car off, roll down the window, shut the car off.

I sweat a little bit, and I'm fine.

Not a big deal.

It's really hard to do in the summer to shut that car or that air AC off, but just don't sit in your car.

Just don't know.

Go in or don't arrive an hour early to pick up your wife from work.

Yeah.

You know, like we see that all the time here at the Civic Center with people arriving really early and sitting there idling the whole time.

We've seen those people oftentimes we do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I mean we already have terrible traffic congestion in this area.

Yeah.

We don't need to add emissions to our air quality that we're breathing.

So that's the big concern is adding to the city.

Especially with these air quality days, right?

Yes.

Yes.

So yeah, so those signs are temporary.

They're only going to be out a little while, but it's good to have temporary things out because when they draw more attention, you're not, you know, you don't get used to them.

So when is the final date when those signs are coming out?

Do we have one yet?

We were I think it's just mid-August for right now.

Yeah.

Um I don't know if we had an official date, honestly.

Yeah.

I'll probably try to do another video.

I just won't talk as much.

That was why I had took me five tries.

I just kept starting to give the give the message, and then I'll I'd start to go off over here and talk about some then I'd go pretty soon.

I was like, nobody wants to watch a three and a half minute video of me blathering on about stuff, but I just want to say great job with the signs.

So and those are done like she said by high school students, but we haven't convinced the high schools to put them out yet.

So we're hoping to do to do that.

I do have, I'll tell you what, I do have on my calendar, um, which we talked about last time, but we want we're not talking about today, nothing to talk about.

But I do have on my calendar in August after school starts that I'm going to be reaching out to the high schools about getting that nomination for the environmental science students uh getting with that with a teacher from each of the high schools at from the junior level or the senior, you know, whatever it is we're going junior seniors, I think seniors, and if they have a nomination just to receive an award, not necessarily grant or any kind of money award, but a recognition award that they could put down for their you know applications or whatever.

So if um and I and I plan on actually doing a little zip it around visiting the schools if anybody wants to come with me.

That'd be good in August.

That'd be a good end.

Because I figured that way by the end of the year we could we could find something that's really visible, some kind of event that's visible to where we could actually present it.

Um we come up with that idea later.

So high schools, high schools would be the perfect target school, and there's what, 13 of them in the city or something like that.

So maybe not that many.

I can't remember.

And then it's not that many.

Do you count public?

Are you just doing public schools or are you calling all of them?

High schools, but you they're the ones driving.

Yeah, they're the drivers.

And then we're gonna target USI and UE also to see if they will allow us to put some of them up around campus.

Um I'd go for the elementary schools too, just because they have those drop-off lines.

Yeah, I've seen the no idling before.

But I feel like people don't you mean the elementary schools where they drop off pickups.

Yeah, which is just that's always a big I know, yeah.

But there are a lot of schools, so we'll have to.

I think we're gonna start with the maybe the college campuses first and then work our way down.

I do have some like contacts that I found for college campuses for USI and UE.

So though they might be easier to start with, but yeah.

Some of them might be the people that were at the electric equipment day that we already have talked to before, which makes it easier if you've already talked to them once.

True.

Um, any questions about the other one, the city recycling?

That's great.

I'm pro.

I figured you would be, Rob.

Well, most of the city facilities weren't recycling.

Or they were recycling.

The the staff was recycling, but someone had to take it home because there was no collection service.

So we ordered we're we're going to order collection services.

We're working on it right now for 34 city facilities.

That's quite a bit.

Um Do you have bins for inside the building?

We do.

We have more of, yeah, we we ordered some a couple years ago and we still have some, so we're gonna distribute those out.

If we don't have enough, do you have more?

Yeah, we changed styles, so we um we could probably give you some if you needed.

Okay.

Are they tall?

Like a trash bin.

The ones I'm thinking about are specifically rubber made, uh Slim Jim style.

Yeah.

So they're perfectly tall and then they fit close to the wall.

Perfect.

Yeah, I'll I'll reach out if we need some more.

Um of course the zoo's been recycling since the beginning of time, so they're they're avid conservationists for obvious reasons.

Okay, Sarah is going to give us an update on the solar co-op that the city has been sponsor co-sponsoring with Sol United Neighbors.

Yeah, so for the solar co-op update, we all know that the Evansville City Council adopted a resolution to partner with Solar United Neighbors, I believe back in June.

And this solar co-op so far, it's been a pretty big success.

So far, there's 119 members, I believe, as of yesterday.

It's growing every day though, because I a few weeks ago it was like 80.

So it's like it's been very successful from what we understand, according to our son representative Chris Norwick.

But the big news is that they have officially chosen an installer and it's Morton Solar.

So that was chosen by a group of seven members last week.

And they also have been able to identify a potential funding source for helping low-income households install solar power.

So this is already going above and beyond what they originally thought it was going to, you know, the program was going to be, and it might also help install solar on some low-income houses.

So those that are interested in joining can still sign up until August 31st, so the very end of August.

So, you know, it definitely is some time if people are still considering joining.

And we'll continue to get updates from Solar United Neighbors and continue to update everybody on social media and through our newsletter.

So I think the next step from what I understand after choosing the installer would just be making sure everyone can join that wants to join, and they can then sign with the you get the whole group and see what the discount ends up being.

But yeah, so choosing the installer was one of the big milestones.

So that's exciting.

But yeah, it's definitely coming along.

Getting good press on it too.

Now I just I'm listening to you.

I was actually looking for the text that I got from Solar United Neighbors from Janine asking me to volunteer.

I have not signed up yet.

Uh but I will.

I just don't know when I'm going to squeeze in anything.

Um but that's what I'm gonna do.

So has anybody else received anything?

To volunteer for what?

I don't know.

It says I'm Janine, a volunteer with Solar United Neighbors.

I says want to support the solar movement, join me and over 5,000 other volunteers across the country sign up here.

That might be click on it now.

That's the sign up to join the volunteer to join the co-op.

Yeah.

Okay, okay, that's fine.

They had so they formed a says volunteer with us.

Well, I don't know.

But they um they formed a selection committee at when they reached a certain number of members, and they went ahead with the bid process and chose Morton Solar, who's local, established.

Yeah.

Um very credible here locally.

And um so now it's just like she said, just everyone's joining that wants to join.

It doesn't mean you're you're buying solar panels.

What it means is you want to be in the pool so that this group discount rate, um, they can quote your house based on that rate.

And if you like it, you buy it.

If you don't, you don't.

Yeah, but you also understand a little more about solar and maybe can consider it in future years.

Yeah, so now this is actually volunteer.

I'm interested in engaging with my community.

I'm interested in solar policy and advocacy.

Interested in helping people or businesses in my community go solar.

So maybe this is still that.

That sounds like the sign-up for being a volunteer with Solar United Neighbors.

And I think that the volunteers currently are the last that I heard they were working on canvassing in a sense and going door to door and flyering for the co-op in this region.

Yeah, um, according to Chris.

But that was probably about three weeks ago.

So they might be the volunteers do all sorts of um activities, but I know right now it is focused on the co-op.

So yeah, if someone wanted to join as a volunteer, that would be the focus, would still be the co-op, but you'd probably be more advertising, help to advertise a market, the co-op.

And I could do that.

I just don't know how much time up.

So I'll I'll dig into it, find out what I need to do to help further it go for it.

I think even just like resharing posts is always you know a form of advocacy.

I know that they're going maybe door to door, which requires more like physical time and effort.

Um, but you know, spreading stuff on social media always helps and talking to people that you know.

So I had a department head call me this morning and ask how to join.

I was pretty excited about that.

That's great.

Yeah, so it made me feel good.

So I sent the link out to everybody so that um everybody knows about it.

Um what else?

Any other questions about that?

Um have you guys heard about the city solar projects in the news?

Hex yeah.

They're delicious.

Uh the national news.

You did?

I did.

No way.

Yes.

Yeah.

Um so I don't know if it's still cool to go to like Yahoo, but you know, you know, I still go to the older folks do.

Yeah, yeah.

Us older folks.

Um yeah, uh one of the other websites that Yahoo features, or at least it's on my feed is the cooldown.

And uh it was on the cooldown, which was then featured on Yahoo.

Huh.

National News.

I boom.

I told City Council when I was talking about giving them an update.

I was like, I'm supposed to be in recognized for this stuff.

We're finally on par with other cities.

Nationally famous.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I'm thinking um thinking of applying for the governor's award next year.

You're thinking what?

Hell yeah.

There's a governor's award.

Indiana has a governor's award for environmental excellence.

Can you believe that?

So I think we should apply next year.

Absolutely.

AIME.

Association of Indiana Municipalities?

I think so.

Has an award too.

I know I was at the Partners for Clean Air awards luncheon.

It's an I Dem thing up in Northwest Indiana in June.

And um spoke with Mark Durf, who is their new blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Blah.

Oh.

Look at that.

Indiana Solar.

I just got shills.

Uh is 33% cut power building.

Nice.

This could end up being the model.

You know.

Well, hey, we were out to impress, right?

Yeah.

I saw that headline, I was like, oh my God, is that Evansville?

And sure now.

That's exciting.

So yeah, so I'm hearing even that northern Indiana is really excited for what is happening down here.

You know, because they're very active as well, at least Northwest Indiana.

They are very active in clean air and air quality and all of that.

So they were really excited to see what you guys are doing.

I see what we're doing, but you guys, the hard work being done.

We were behind.

Us just giving you the thumbs up off to the side.

So, you know.

No, we need all of your input and encouragement.

But Evansville was behind the times, man.

It wasn't there were there were some things happening sustainability-wise, but I think it's I see a really big momentum shift in the last few years.

I probably need to give you guys the highlights of the Solarize the City project.

But they're good highlights.

Because and I will say this.

I read all about it on thecooldown.com.

Yeah, but I was looking at the I was no, you don't know all about it.

Those stats weren't exactly right.

It's like they get pieces of data from different sources, as do we, and the data changes based on the project changes.

So where we are today is we put out a bid for 17 city facilities.

We selected them because of high energy use or essential services that they can provide.

Um we um entered an interlocal agreement with the Evansville Water and Sewer Utility.

So they are actually managing the bid process, fronting the funding, managing the tax credit uh reimbursement, managing the construction oversight, all of it.

And the city is going to pay them back over six years.

So this is not a utility project, it's a city project, but because they have such a large team with the experience of and and they have engineers and they have contracts with financial advisors at an engineering teams, etc.

So the utility is going to manage that for the city on on their behalf.

So we're working with them and the team now on the details of the solar design, system designs.

So we we started with 20 facilities, which is what you saw on that national news.

We then chose to bid out 17 of them.

Um and now we're tweaking the numbers, and there's a there's one I know of that we can't do because we don't have permission to put the solar panels on the land outside the fence.

Um it's that central dispatch tower.

It's in Scott Township.

Um it's a city-county agency.

So we can't do that, and we're probably not gonna do the other tower just because it's a it's only 7% offset, and we can use that money to increase offset of other buildings that we're doing.

So we're still working with the size of the systems because we want to maximize the amount of solar generation, but we want to minimize what we export center point.

So we're not gonna do more than like 80% offset.

So we're working on tweaking those numbers, and then whatever bids came in way above 80% will apply somewhere else to increase offset of another building.

That's what we're trying to do.

Or we'll add battery storage.

We are considering battery storage, however, it doesn't offset more energy except maybe at night.

And it's expensive, and it's a whole different tax credit.

So we might we're figuring out how to do all that.

So our average offset across those facilities will be 35%.

That'll save the city over half a million dollars annually.

And of course, every year that's going to go up as inflation and energy rates go up.

But for now.

But for now, that's the sales.

Yep.

That's pretty sweet.

And that they so they spend 1.6 million a year.

If we save a little over half a million, that's about 35%.

So the cost of the project is six and a half million, but we are paying for it with the energy that we don't have to buy from Center Point.

We save money there.

So that'll go towards the project.

And we are filing for the Clean Electricity Investment Tax Credit, and that'll reimburse us 50, maybe 60% of the total project cost.

Now tell me that's not a good deal.

Those are disadvantaged community, uh low-income area, energy community, and domestically produced materials use of like 55%.

So we think we can qualify for all those.

And we're, you know, we put it in the RFPs to make sure we did.

So our price tag will be 2.6 to 3.3 million dollars, depending on whether we get 50 to 60 percent back.

Um if you let's just look at it this way.

If we spend 1.6 million on energy for these facilities, and we're only gonna spend 2.6 million for a project that's gonna last 25-35 years, it's a no-brainer.

So we're gonna pay that back in six years, and after that, next 25 years is gravy.

That's amazing.

So yeah, if you know anyone that has a big building, it's a great investment because the return on investment will be pretty quick because it's the energy costs are so high for bigger facilities.

Fantastic.

So great news.

Hey, are they still doing the E's for everyone?

Yeah, like yeah, it's still in play.

Uh, because you know one of the things um uh a few years ago I learned that Disney World did a Mickey Mouse shaped solar field, and I always want to do something like that.

You could very easily do an 80.

A big gianty.

Is that what yeah?

That would be very easy to do with solar panels.

Yeah, it would be roof.

Well, it's funny you say that most of them will be on rooftops and out of sight, but the zoo is doing a parking array in the parking lot.

Oh my gosh, I want one of those so bad.

In front of Amazonia.

I know, right?

When I priced them, they were about double the price.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I've seen it so hot when you get in the car these years.

I know.

Just think on the back 40 here.

Yeah, this parking lot would be wonderful.

So with you represent you from Barry Plastics now Amcor.

They're very sustainability-minded.

Are they talking about using this at all?

Um I can tell you that we've looked into this and that um it's not economical for us in India.

Okay.

We prefer to do things under PPA rather than the capital.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, spread the word.

If you know, I mean, like when I get time, I'm gonna I've been reaching out to all city and and building authority and develop redevelopment commission buildings downtown.

But next on my list is the libraries and schools.

Like, do they even know this exists?

I don't know.

Doubtful.

I for some reason I thought the library was uh was doing something with solar here.

I know Willard will be able to with their roof system, but uh EVP L shouldn't have an issue.

Okay.

Well, I'm gonna be calling them.

Say, hey, did you know about this?

Because the more you know, especially when I say, hey, this is what the city's doing, people start paying attention.

Well, it must be a good deal.

Must be a good project.

Yeah.

So it's very influential in that way.

Yes.

Right.

All right.

Um Sarah has some education and events.

Yeah, so we've got three upcoming events that are on our calendar that we will be attending slash hosting.

The first one is Super Saturday themed sustainability at the Evansville Museum.

They actually have these super Saturdays, I believe, pretty frequently, and they have different themes and sustainabilities become one of them.

There'll be sustainability activities.

And it's also, I believe, a free day at the museum.

So if you just want to chance to go see some of the art there, that is another motivation to go.

Have you all set it up the calso?

It's pretty neat.

I haven't.

I enjoyed it.

It is neat.

Yeah.

And I paid full price.

Sorry to interrupt.

Yeah, there's um.

I know it's always where we're set up based on last year.

There's always like it's the revolving exhibit, and so it's always interesting to see what's going on there.

But um I believe that starts at 11 and ends at 3 30.

Um, so if you want to stop by, feel free.

It will definitely be fun.

Um August 5th, we're gonna be at Market on Maine.

We've been doing market on Maine um quite a few times this summer, and we'll continue to, I believe, into the fall.

Um that's nine to one if you've never been.

Um and we usually talk to people about you know, heat, especially in the last couple of weeks, we've been talking about heat resilience and passing out some of our um leftovers from the cooling kits.

And actually, I've gotten a lot of really positive feedback about that from people who have gotten it and people coming back and be like, actually, can I have one of those that's like really useful?

So I think it definitely is people are um starting to invest more into like you know, some of these like cooling products uh for the heat, which is good because heat's the most deadly um weather-related catastrophe.

So and then uh for the other next event, we have our round table coming up in August.

That's on August 19th.

That's from one to two thirty, as per usual.

It's gonna be at North Park, um, EVPL.

And this one's gonna be on data centers, and it's gonna be led by the Citizens Action Coalition.

So that'll be interesting, and I think we'll have a pretty good turnout.

So are they the ones distributing the um yard signs that say no data centers?

I do not know that, but it won't surprise me because I know they're like the group that's the most focused on like resisting data centers.

Uh just literally between yesterday and today, like I saw more on my drive-in to work.

But also I I mean there's a lot of resistance to data centers.

Like, I feel like sometimes even when we post on social media, like on something that's not related to it at all, they'll be like, stop data centers.

So I feel like people are it could be um what's the word like prime hot topic right now in all the surrounding counties.

I've heard news in Port County, Posey County, and Gibson County.

It's number one on our list in dot in DC, Washington DC.

That's what we're talking about there.

I believe that.

Who's we?

A C E C.

Oh, my team there.

So how we're supposed to be handling that, where they need to go.

Infrastructure upgrades have to be able to handle the power that moves with that, along with my environmental groups within the ACEC committees.

Um it's just the hot topic because the whole grid is reliant upon you know how we're gonna be able to handle the amount of power that comes with it.

And then also that thin line between we need up to support all of the AI and the technology that everybody loves and wants, versus not having that because we don't have any processing capabilities, you know.

So there's a big y it's it's really kind of about that location.

Now I will say this, and I do want to share this, um, not because I'm an advocate for or a non, you know, anybody against it.

That's not it.

I'm I'm at that place where I'm just like I gather facts, I gather facts.

Um the use of water is a big issue about the amount of water that has to be so the so right now we're working, and I say we meaning uh the and engineering industry is working on new technology to make it gel-cooled so we're not having to use so much water, and also to have it a circulating uh uh internal WhatsApp closed system.

Yes, a closed system circulatory uh cooling system.

That way we're they're not burning through what we're you know, using up the water, but rather reusing.

So it's it's uh it's a little bit better with that.

And then as far as power is concerned.

They're not already closed loop.

What's that?

No, they're not ready.

Oh my god, it's they've got to have an input and an output somewhere.

Yeah.

Just because it's like the cost of you know, the development of a of a of a closed system is just adds to that cost enormously.

Uh because it's so it it has to be like fail-safe, you know.

So um and then the other, and I and I didn't mean to go off on this, but I do want to make sure everyone's clear that there is, like I said, there is technology that's working that people that they're working on also.

It's not a more uh a mandatory thing, but over the past two years it's been working to help uh get the developers of of these data centers on board with figuring out how to produce 80% of their own energy so they would have an an internal uh infrastructure and and energy production, so it's not pulling on everything else, and they're looking at all different kinds of ways to do that.

So it might be something that's a small modular reactor, a small nuclear uh type footprint that's no more than an acre.

Uh so it's not taking up land, it's also clean energy that's being used, and it's fusion as opposed to fission, which is safer.

Um, doing a lot on fuel cells.

WhatsApp.

Yeah, a lot of things.

Yes.

So anyway, so there is a lot that's happening, and but but I think a big part of this is everybody is all all somebody has to do is say no data centers, and suddenly you're like, oh, the no data centers, you know.

It's like, oh, but what about your phone?

And what about all this, you know, there's a lot of there's a lot of new energy processing that is happening now.

We've got to figure out how to do this.

You know, we have to figure out how to do it with as little impact as possible.

I think that's that's not gonna happen.

Yeah.

I think i it's just a bit of panic right now as far as communities go because they're not ready for them.

Right.

So we know we need these because we've demanded the services they provide, but where they go needs to be better planned strategically.

And you know, there's also been a lot of fear that deals done before the community even knows about it.

Exactly.

So I think what's happening now with all the talk in the various counties is just trying to pause any approvals until we know what that infrastructure is that's needed and how it's going to impact the community and the environment that's local.

Um I don't but unfortunately what that means is that a lot of people will become no against data centers because of that panic that's happening.

And I say panic as in mobilization, quick mobilization to try to figure out how to prevent something unfortunate from happening as far as not being prepared for something like that.

Because that does bring up another thought, which is something that they have to know about.

Uh with data center comes transmission issues, which means new transmission lines or transmission upgrades, and then that means more land that has to be taken.

So there really is, there's a lot of impact that comes with these.

Um I think the most important thing that developers can do is to A, take their time, be completely completely transparent in what it is that they're wanting to accomplish, but C also understanding that the a big panic is that the rush.

Um no, we want to know as much as we possibly can about it, and can we be smart about where it goes?

And who can who can be involved in this?

And how can we, I think developers really need to uh give ownership to the communities as opposed to suddenly you know just saying we don't care what it is that you want, we're just and that's like that with anything.

That's mitigating risk.

That's a risk analysis that has to come into play, you gotta think about.

So anyway.

Um so there's that.

I think the biggest I think one of the biggest fears here locally is that it'll affect our center point utility rates again.

And what I heard when I went to a session on nuclear um fusion um what do they call those reactors?

Yeah, reactors, SMRs.

Um, which the Indiana governor is pushing as a way for Indiana to get ahead in that market.

He is um you know the it's still quite a ways off technology because it's not actually been done yet.

Well, they're they've already sounded like they committed to converting Rockport to one.

Well, Rockport is building a natural gas plant right now.

That'll be a natural gas.

Uh BWXT did receive a huge chunk uh to for research development and and uh manufacturing of SMR.

So they they did get a huge chunk, doesn't necessarily mean it's all feeding Indiana, but they got a big chunk for that uh to start feeding it out to you know.

So um but like I said, my time at the national lab and being able to tour that site helped me understand more about what uh what nuclear is now and how it uh how things have changed, you know.

And it's also kind of like the space trips too.

Like so many inventions were made for the necessity of A, you know, we got it's a order, all these different things that we need, and then they have their commercial users and cancer treatment, you know, enriched uranium and all of that, which is which can be very scary.

It can be very scary, so historically.

So anyway, that's data center.

Data center update on my end, for what I know, and what we're focusing on at the at the national level.

Uh data center update for local and how can we?

You know, like I said, I'm not advocating for or against it.

I don't personally like AI.

I don't like technology.

I would like to go back to the old days where nobody knew all my stuff, you know.

Um but I just advocate for on any topic.

Everybody get both sides learn more before they start opinions out there and and molding and shaping the public opinion because a lot of the general public isn't gonna do that.

So before you say something on Facebook, have some idea of what you're talking about.

Because it's the best practice.

That way everybody has a chance to learn more about something before they form an opinion.

I don't know if that'll help anything, but that's my opinion.

Do we have uh any uh was that it for you for the report?

Yep.

Do we have any other business we need to cover that we didn't already squeeze in?

Okay.

All right.

Uh our next meeting is what is our next meeting date?

August 18th.

Do we have one?

August 18th.

August 18th?

Mm-hmm.

Well, I hope that's on my schedule and I'll look for it.

So our next meeting's August 18th.

Um, provided everyone is here.

If we could try to make that as a group photo uh time for everyone, make sure you're dressed appropriately.

So no clown shoes and navy hat next time you're here.

None of that.

Um let's try to plan on doing that.

We can do that in front of a flag or something, you know, official.

Try to get our new board ready to go for the for the final quarter, huh?

Should we coordinate like we all wear green shirts?

That's kind of fun.

Or the colors of our pin.

There you go.

Green, blue, or yellow, because that's my colors.

Those are my colors.

So there you go.

So maybe we can try and do that.

We'll just send out an email.

So if there's nothing else, motion to adjourn this meeting.

I'll make that motion.

Second.

All right.

With that in mind, motions adjourned.

See you next month.