Illinois Board of Natural Resource Sustainability (IBNRS) - Minutes

IBNRS Meeting

Thursday, May 14, 2009
Lincoln Room, I Hotel & Conference Center

Present:
Ravishankar Iyer, Chair, William Shilts, Vice Chair, Brian Anderson, Tom Brooks, Mike Demissie, Bob Easter, John Ebinger, Gregg Good, David Gross, Charles Ingersoll, Suzanne Malec-McKenna (via phone), John Marlin, Don McKay, Gary Miller, Michael Murphy, Ada Nielsen, John Rogner, Damon Stotts, Steve Wald, Kay Whitlock       full member information

1. Welcome & Introductions

Introductions were made. Vice Chancellor Iyer welcomed everyone to the meeting. He indicated that this has been a great year and tremendous progress has been made since the transition on July 1, 2008. INRS has a vision of what they should do and where they want to take it. They are reaching out across campus. He mentioned carbon sequestration and the Illinois State Water Survey's efforts on climate change as examples.

He would like the Board to advise the Institute and the University on steps we may take to make INRS better and stronger. The Board members should become our advocates. He sees huge value from the Board. Vice Chancellor Iyer stated his interest for suggestions from the Board in a big picture sense, what we should be doing to make INRS stronger and attractive for students, faculty, and corporations.

Dr. Shilts thanked Vice Chancellor Iyer for the very nice introduction. He stated that it has been a real pleasure heading INRS. Roughly $63M will be spent by the Institute in the current fiscal year, and all but $15.8M of this is in external funding. He has been talking with legislators at both the federal and state level, with full cooperation of the University, regarding moving the INRS budget totally within the University line.

2. Budget

Dr. Shilts indicated the INRS budget, presently and for the 2010 fiscal year, is not part of the University's budget. The money comes to the University through IBHE. Dr. Shilts has met several times with Government Relations staff who will try to get the INRS' appropriation moved into the University's budget, but as a separate line. It's important to remember that the statutes defining the Surveys' roles did not change with the movement from a state agency to the University. INRS still has a primary responsibility to the citizens and agencies of the State of Illinois. Dr. Shilts is pleasantly surprised with how well budget discussions are going at the University.

3. Board Members

Dr. Shilts would like to add an additional member to the Board from the University. He would like to invite someone from one of the other Institutes on campus. There are a lot of things that impact Institute operations and having someone on the Board who has similar experiences would be helpful. Dr. Shilts would like to ask Harris Lewin, Director of Institute of Genomic Biology (IGB). Vice Chancellor Iyer believes Dr. Lewin would be a wonderful addition to the Board. He relies on his expertise often.

Ada Nielsen suggested adding one more member from an Institute on campus.

4. Major Developments Since Joining the University

The Water Survey has received funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to modernize flood Insurance Rate maps in the state. This is through a Cooperative Technological Partnership program with FEMA. The money will come directly to the University and on to the Survey. Prior to joining the University the funds would go through a state agency before coming to the Survey. This process used to take months, but now it can be done in weeks, which is advantageous because FEMA generally only has a short period of time to complete projects. Survey scientists also are working with University professors on a research project called "WATERS", led by Professor Barbara Minsker. This is a state-of-the-art technological system for monitoring watersheds. There was no way this could be done if the Water Survey was not part of the University.

INHS received funding from the Grand Victoria Foundation, $2.6M over 3 years, to see how natural areas have changed under human and climatic stress. INHS also has gone through a major reorganization, which would have been much more difficult if the Survey was still part of a state agency. In INHS, General Revenue Fund supports the staff, extramural funding supports research, and National Science Foundation (NSF) Grants are starting to be funded more frequently. It's speculative, but Brian Anderson wondered if it's because INHS is now part of the University.

Vice Chancellor Iyer interjected that he believes that people writing the proposals should also volunteer to serve on peer review committees. It is important to see how the process works.

Don McKay also provided a few observations on changes associated with becoming part of the University. The Divisions have been able to explore teaching opportunities and have been able to hire more students. There is more camaraderie among the staff throughout the Institute. Staff from the various Surveys have been working on IT issues together. The Environmental Systems Research Institute Development Center only happened because the Divisions are now part of the University. ISGS and ISWS are working together to teach classes in GIS technology.

Gary Miller indicated that Vice Chancellor Iyer's office has been instrumental in including INRS staff on committees.

Vice Chancellor Iyer would like the Institute to send him 10-15 names of people who would want to serve on committees. He feels that when people want to serve on University committees, giving them the opportunity to interact will facilitate working on proposals with faculty. He feels giving Institute scientific staff the similar status as faculty will happen eventually.

Dr. Shilts also mentioned the 2009 "Naturally Illinois Expo" that took place this spring. This year all the Divisions participated and approximately 2,000 visitors came through. It was nice seeing all of the Divisions in one place working together. The dates for the 2010 Expo are March 12-13.

5. Emerging Research Needs

INHS – Adapting to climate. Is climate change real or not? The reality is we live in an ecologically fragmented state. Climate is changing, and there may be increasing resources for research on adapting to climate change in Illinois and the Midwest in general. We need a robust system of monitoring plants and animals in extreme environments, such asi during episodes of low stream flow.

There are 50,000 exotic species on American lands, and they cause, conservatively, $160B in damage every year. Asian carp is one example among many in Illinois.

Landscape restoration. There is a high demand for botanists. INHS would like to develop a capacity to become a center of excellence for landscape restoration and training of field botanists.

The Institute as a whole should take advantage of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications' new "Blue Waters" super-computer. We should be able to model climate, natural resources, quantify how much carbon is really being sequestered, etc. The Institute can play a role in research into various aspects of the move to biofuels and natural fuels, particularly unanticipated environmental effects.

Suzanne Malec-McKenna indicated a need to look at economic and social systems as they relate to our research on natural resource systems.

ISWS – Global climate change modeling is a major capability in terms of impacts, adaptation, and mitigation. ISWS has had sophisticated regional climate modeling projects in place for some time. These projects were established as grant programs, funded by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NSF. Debate has been going on regarding what is causing climate change globally, but the ISWS is concentrating on what it means for the state and the Midwest. The Water Survey is getting a group together to look at impacts of climate change in the state and region and how to prepare for change as it happens.

Dr. Shilts indicated that the Urbana-Champaign region probably has more water professionals per capita than anywhere else in the nation or, possibly, the world (University departments, U.S. Geological Survey, ISWS, ISGS, private consultants, etc.). Thus, it should be possible to address some important modern societal issues associated with water availability and quality (energy demands, ethanol production, public consumption, etc.) more effectively here than almost anyplace else.

Brian Anderson mentioned being part of the University does allow the Divisions to be leaders, won't diminish their commitment to Illinois, and allows the Institute to bring in dollars to do more work to assess Illinois resources more effectively.

ISGS – Energy Issues: ISGS is "buried" by a series of projects coming in, many asking the Survey to evaluate power plant sites for carbon dioxide sequestration. There is a lot of opportunity and funding through Department of Energy. The Survey is looking forward to FutureGen restarting. The Archer Daniels Midland Carbon Sequestration project is well under way. Clean coal research in general is a priority.

Hazards: Geologists deal with both natural and human-created hazards. In this state, for example, the hazards range from earthquake damage potential to subsidence over areas of subsurface coal mines.

Aquifers: The Water Supply Planning Effort was a 3-year project that was going statewide, but ended due to budget shortfalls in state government last year. This is a critical need in Illinois and is going to be a long term process, which is strongly supported by county and local governments.

Expanding knowledge of climate history for the last 10,000 years in Illinois: There are critical questions over this time period that have a significant bearing on the modeling and interpretation of climate change effects.

Information management: A huge strength of the surveys is collections and data. There is still a large amount of information in paper form. Vice Chancellor Iyer mentioned creating a task force to come up with a plan for documentation and collections. Google is spending $50M to digitize a wide variety of information that is still on paper. He suggested developing a plan and submitting it to Google in an attempt to accomplish this.

Geological mapping: 15% of the state has been mapped in detail; 5% over the past 10-12 years. A considerable amount of effort has been expended by the ISGS in Washington with our and our neighboring states' congressional delegations to bring back increased funds to tackle this difficult problem in the Midwest.

ISTC – The Center deals with public research a little differently. They're not a survey, and mostly provide research and advice to help Illinois industry be more productive and environmentally responsible. They take a fresh look at the processes that make industries work more efficiently and in a more environmentally acceptable way. For example, they look for ways to prevent pollution and contamination in soil and water; find ways to use energy and water more efficiently; develop ways to get information off the shelf and out to the industries. They deal with companies from the size of Caterpillar to "mom & pop" shops, farmers and machine repair shops. The priority for the future is to continue research on finding ways to make industrial processes more efficient so they generate less waste.

Filtration systems: Research designed to remove contaminants and reuse fluids year after year.

Emerging contaminants: ISTC is helping EPA identify pharmaceuticals in wastewaters.

eWaste Initiative: ISTC worked with campus units to teach an industrial design class about eWaste. As a class project, 5 tons of waste was picked up, and the students then created innovative new products from the waste. Microsoft, Dell, and Walmart provided a $15,000 prize for a public competition among the products the students created. This course and competition was enthusiastically supported by the above companies, who sent high-level individuals to judge the entries, along with the ISTC and University leaders. This competition is expected to become a yearly event. ISTC now has $45,000 from the OVCR to sponsor an eWaste conference and expects to lead this important effort on campus.

6. Input from Board

Water Supply planning efforts are critical and must continue. There should be more monitoring and research on nutrients in the Mississippi River drainage basin. Illinois is a primary contributor to the nutrient load in the Mississippi basin, which contributes to eutrophication (Hypoxia) in the Gulf of Mexico. There is presently no program for best business practices to reduce nutrient loadings. The Surveys are in a perfect position to provide good analysis and data to address this increasingly severe problem.

Wind generation facilities and their effects on birds & bats needs to be researched.

The Institute and Division websites do not look the same. The Institute needs to think bigger and develop a consistent web look from Survey to Survey. Gary Miller indicated our websites are in the process of being redesigned and standardized.

7. AP Titles

An Institute committee has been created and is presenting a white paper to Dr. Shilts to suggest titles that will allow more effective differentiation among Survey researchers and between Survey scientists and faculty. They are finding that some teaching and research activities are restricted by the "Academic Professional" title, which does not reflect the level of research capability relative to conventional faculty classifications. Vice Chancellor Iyer acknowledged the University is working on this.

8. Future Meetings

The next meeting will take place in early November. The Board will be polled on a date that will work for most.

Updated 9/16/09 AW