Environmental Initiatives Summer Recap

Zero waste and water quality projects continued over the summer within the Energy and the Environment branch of the Voinovich School of  Leadership and Public Service.

Within water quality, a lot of work surrounded water sampling, testing and measurement. This work was connected to stream and wetland restoration as well as mine water sampling. This testing enabled watershed characterization; Rush Creek was a research focal point over the summer. 

“Our team has been out doing water sampling in Pennsylvania, in Raccoon Creek and Rush Creek, in South Fork Licking River,” Jen Bowman, Director of Environmental Programs, said. “We have teams going out and doing water quality sampling and biological sampling in many watersheds this summer. It was really, really heavy field work.”

Additionally, a project mapping out who does and who doesn’t have access to clean drinking water in the region has continued through the summer.  

In partnership with the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT), research surrounding the characterization of culverts also began this summer. This involves observing fish passage and obstructions that keep fish from being able to swim upstream.

In Licking County, Voinovich School researchers worked with stakeholders to put a nine element water quality management plan together to help landowners restore their riparian corridor, or land buffers, between land and rivers. This project intends to create a wider buffer of vegetation to improve water quality and protect aquatic organisms. 

Switching to education outreach, “My Backyard Stream” was released by the Voinovich School over the summer. This program is free to educators and open to public use for elementary, middle and high school students. It includes a chemistry kit, a biology kit and a physical habitat kit that focus on water quality. 

“We have the instructions on what to do with the data, so there's an online platform that goes hand in hand with these kits. So they go out, they collect their water quality data, and then they upload it to watersheddata.com,” Bowman said. “On watersheddata.com is a link called My Backyard Stream. Under the education tab, and the citizen scientist can enter their own data uploaded there, and then I will actually do a back end review … then it will post.”

STEM days were also introduced this summer at several county fairs with interactive activities about stormwater, green infrastructure and more. 

The Appalachian STEM Enrichment Academy has also been a large project at the Voinovich School this summer. Elissa Welch, project manager with the Energy and Environment Team, said the idea to disseminate information to kids across the region came before the COVID-19 pandemic.

They decided to “think about transitioning this information in a better online format, so families and teachers and students can access this regardless of where they're located,” Welch said. “We've done a lot of in class outreach in the past, and we're trying to figure out a way to make that more accessible to students.”

The academy will have a website broken down by education level and topics for students, families and educators to learn about the work being done at the Voinovich School in sustainability and resilience. 

In regard to zero waste initiatives, there have been efforts made by the Voinovich School to work with the Ohio University campus. Nicole Kirchner, a project manager with the Energy and Environment Team, said getting reusable silverware in Jefferson Market is one of their most recent projects.

“We were able to come to a consensus on reusable silverware that could be sold on campus and replace one-off single use silverware that's contributing to the waste that we produce on campus,” Kirchner said. “That's the first time the group was ever aware of having an Ohio branded knife, fork, spoon straw that go in a little pouch that you can carry around and utilize throughout the day. That was exciting.”

The initiative was able to work at making in-person athletic events more sustainable as well. Looking forward, Voinovich intends to survey Greek life to see what changes can be made to be more sustainable.

Geoff Dabelko, professor and associate dean, has been working on a project known as the Green-Gray Alliance. The project intends to inform communities how to be more sustainable and resilient in an age-friendly environment. 

Sarah Davis, associate professor, has been working on a large National Science funded project regarding food energy and waste water systems. The idea is to use the byproducts of food production for energy. Also, a diversion of waste could be potentially used for water treatment. 

Ultimately, many of these projects were not completed over the summer and will be continued into the Fall semester.

“We've hired in a new group of students and we're really excited to work with this new group of students to pick up where the other students left off, and continue progress on those things,” Welch said.