The Mascaro Center has deemed that it will provide $5,000-$10,000 funding for one joint proposal from the Pitt sustainability community (ESW, EWB, Free the Planet) for a local, visible project. The Oakland Green Team will serve as the arm of ESW in charge of brainstorming for this proposal and working to make it happen.

Feel free to post any ideas relating to sustainability in the Oakland community.

At our meeting last night (Thurs, Feb 17), we came up with two ideas:

1) Green roofs on the Pitt bus stops on Bigelow

2) Green energy at the Cathedral to power the Victory Lights
--- We've had some discussion about the green roofs on the stops, so I'm gonna make a case for the alternative Victory Lights idea here.
--- What better way to announce to the city and the region that Pitt is committed to sustainability than to power Victory itself with green energy? I envision a small solar array on one of the Cathedral's many balconies, which would be active year 'round, in order to offset the energy costs of signaling Victory to the Pittsburgh community. By contributing power back to the grid, the Cathedral can achieve a net-zero energy impact for the Victory Lights. If it so happens that the array is converting enough surplus power, we may just be able to earn an energy contribution that is great enough to offset the energy cost of increasing the display to include Panthers basketball wins in addition to football wins.

Let the debate begin.

Oh wow the victory lights thing is a great idea! My biggest concern is that it won't be very noticeable... So I guess the question is: Is our main goal to be sustainable or promote sustainability?

I've mentioned the green bus stops to a few people and they seemed very interested. I do think the victory lights would be really sweet, but almost everyone in Oakland passes the bus stop by the Cathedral in some way or another a few times a week.

So at the meeting yesterday, I actually sent off a quick form to get an installation quote on a PV system on one of those balconies - so we should have a sense of price (hopefully).

I know it involves pavement, but I wonder how easy a rain garden system here or there around campus would be - still targeting that area on Forbes by the Cathedral somehow.

If we're going to dig up pavement to make a rain garden, I vote we dig up sidewalk instead of parking spaces and we do it right next to the bus stops. That's just me.

Hopefully if we go with the shuttle stop idea we can throw some PV on there, at least enough to power the LED signs that say when the next shuttle is coming. We also briefly discussed heating the bus stops -- I think if we use a button that just heats the stop for 10 minutes or so, we have a better chance of powering it with some renewable energy and we won't encourage the homeless to start sleeping in the shelters. We also discussed adding a trellis or green wall to the sides of the stops and putting some sort of educational plaque on them -- the idea is to make them a green paradise in the middle of bigelow.

I'm a big fan of any project that involves stormwater control, which would basically mean creating rain gardens or grassy culverts. We've already mentioned some of the problems with permissions and timescale, but I'd thought I'd write it down anyway just in case someone has a thought about that.

On other notes, Alex, I'm very sad my avatar disappeared when we updated this site My peregrine is missing, and I'm too lazy to get him back again. Not like I don't carry him with me always, anyway ...

Here's the official text from the MCSI announcement:

"Students are challenged to work collectively on service-oriented projects designed to implement visible solutions to environmental problems that will serve as a teaching tool for the university and/ or greater community. Projects will be judged on their ability to create public awareness of sustainability issues, improve quality of life in our region and feature a strong public outreach or education element."

service-oriented projects designed to implement visible solutions to environmental problems

Based on that description, I would add my endorsement to the raingarden/biofilter idea (or a bioswale, etc,). I worked with the Parks Conservancy last year to build one next to the Schenley visitor center and both the event and the resulting raingarden seemed quite succesful. We were able to divert two of the downspouts from the building directly into the raingarden itself.
Perhaps there are places on campus where this could be done to some extent w/o removing concrete/asphalt (although I'm all for removing if it's feasible)?This would also be a good project to potentially engage other campus and community groups to learn/educate through assisting in the build process.
At completion, the site could be documented as such for any who tread past to learn about the issue and solution.

The methods there are a really good idea - if we engage local groups (whether it's schools, community orgs, etc.), we get a lot of public outreach as well as saving on labor costs depending on the project. I wonder whether we'll run into union contract restrictions for projects on Pitt's campus.

Input from Jamie (that I received via e-mail):

"The first is one that I mentioned before, and that I think will be a really neat project. It's the idea of re-labeling certain trashcans that are in high traffic areas, and that are not next to recycling bins. The idea is to make the actor, the person throwing an object away, think actively about their decision. So I want to replace the "trash" label with one that says "LANDFILL," showing the actor the direct consequence of their action. Additionally, under the "LANDFILL" word, in small letters, we would have the actual location of the landfill, such as "Monroeville, PA," to give the actor a higher sense of connectivity to their action. I've attached my proposal for this project, in case you're interested in seeing the details.

The other thing that I'm toying with is being able to aggregate electricity and water usage data on campus, and to put this data on my.pitt.edu. And we would be able to see percentage increases/decreases on the site. Additionally, the data could be broken down into a building by building basis. The display of this information on a frequently visited site, such as my.pitt.edu, could influence people to save more. "

He also attached a proposal he's been working on for the Landfill project.

For anyone who is interested in finding out more about rain gardens, I was directed to these really nice resources:

http://www.ninemilerun.org/assets/Uploa ... _final.pdf

http://raingardenalliance.org/

I'm working on finding a contact who can help us think about construction/ design. If you guys find anything useful, please let me know.

You might reach out to Erin @ Pgh Parks Conservancy (412-682-7275). Don't recall her last name but she is who managed the construction of the rain garden by the Schenley Visitor's Ctr and would be a good resource to connect with other contacts to help with guidance.
-Mitch

Erin Copeland, methinks?

That's it! Also just remembered, John Schombert, ED of 3 Rivers Wet Weather is another contact, at the county level (perhaps you've already reached out). They are tasked with facilitating regional solutions to the EPA dictate on stormwater / CSO issues.