Something Old, Something New
An essay by William Shilts, Executive Director of INRS
On July 1, 2008 a momentous merger of two venerable institutions took place, a merger that will impact both of their futures in significant ways. The State Scientific Surveys, internationally recognized institutions with roots back to the establishment of the first State Geological Survey in 1851, were transferred by the State Legislature to the administration of the University of Illinois, which was established in 1867. The Illinois Natural History Survey (INHS) has been located on the campus of the University since 1885, and the other two Surveys and Center were created on campus in 1895 (Illinois State Water Survey [ISWS]), 1905 (Illinois State Geological Survey [ISGS], reestablished), and 1984 (Illinois Sustainable Technology Center [ISTC]). With an annual budget of approximately $50 million and 600 employees, they now form, collectively, the Institute of Natural Resource Sustainability (INRS), joining the National Center for Super Computing Applications (NCSA), Beckman Institute, and the Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB) as the newest of the four larger Institutes on the Urbana campus. In conjunction with formal approval of the transfer by the State Legislature, the University of Illinois Board of Trustees, the Illinois Board of Higher Education, and the University Senate, I was asked to leave my post as the director of the State Geological Survey and to serve as the first Executive Director of the INRS.
The new Institute represents a scientific partnership between the University and the Surveys that is unique in the nation, and well-suited to meet the challenges of natural resource research and management in the 21st century. The Surveys have long been national leaders in bringing cutting-edge science and technology to bear on clean coal technology; urban redevelopment; ecosystem preservation and restoration; fish, wildlife, and invasive species management; groundwater and watershed management; fossil energy development; carbon capture and sequestration; climate modeling; and a host of other issues that require sound, unbiased scientific and technical input. The intellectual and physical resources of the University will enhance the Surveys' capacity to address environmental, economic, and social issues that are important to Illinois, the nation, and the world. The Surveys' close working relationship with counties, municipalities, industries, and organizations across the state ensures that cutting edge science doesn't stay isolated in textbooks and journals, but rather informs real decisions affecting resource management.
Something Old
The Surveys historically have impacted science and society beyond Illinois and the nation in a number of areas. The Geological Survey, recreated in 1905 through the efforts of the University of Chicago's professor T.C. Chamberlin, arguably one of the most famous geologists of all time, has led the world in developing many concepts in glacial geology, clay mineralogy, applied geophysics, and engineering geology. The concept and discipline of Environmental Geology originated within the halls of the Geological Survey in the 1950's and is now one of the major geological research fields, world wide. The Geological Society of America's prestigious Frye Award for the best paper in Environmental Geology is named for the ISGS Chief who popularized and developed the field. The principles of coal deposition and the stratigraphy of coal deposits were systematized by ISGS geologist Gilbert H. Cady and serve as a model for coal deposition across the coal-bearing regions of the world.
Most recently, the Geological Survey provided the geological research that supported Illinois' successful bid to site FutureGen, an internationally renowned, integrated coal gasification-carbon sequestration project, in Mattoon, Illinois. As this essay is written, we are confident that this first-of-its-kind project will go forward.
Stephen Forbes, a "founding father" of the Illinois Natural History Survey (INHS), was a leading force in the development of the field of ecology. His publication, The Lake as a Microcosm, was one of ecology's foundational works. In 1906, Alfred O. Gross began a bird survey of the State of Illinois, which resulted in the first statistical analyses of bird populations in the nation.
The powerful 1962 book, Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson, which generated a public response that led to the modern environmental movement, featured several pages dedicated to the research of the INHS, which tried to "pick up the pieces" after inappropriate pesticide spraying to stem a Japanese Beetle infestation killed most of the song birds and many farm and domestic animals in Iroquois County, Illinois in the 1950's. In 1985, INHS waterfowl biologists completed a 4-year study of the effects of lead shot on Illinois waterfowl. This study is a major force in the call for the ban of lead shot in waterfowl hunting. The INHS was truly a major national and international player in promoting public support and awareness of environmental science at the dawn of the environmental movement. This 150 year-old institution has remained a major player ever since and has continued to work closely with the various life science and agricultural departments at the University of Illinois, a tradition going back to the University's beginnings.
At the Illinois State Water Survey (ISWS), Tom Prickett, a world-renowned groundwater hydrologist, pioneered the use of groundwater flow models to assess the impacts of groundwater withdrawals on sustainable water supplies. The ISWS also was the first research institution to use weather radar, which it pioneered in 1948, to detect a tornado (1953), leading to our modern methods of warning citizens of impending dangerous storms. The Water Survey subsequently designed and developed the nation's first Doppler weather radar in 1968; this led to the nation-wide network of Doppler radar stations that provide the accurate weather reports and warnings which we take for granted today.
In the 1960's, ISWS Chief William Ackerman became the first technical assistant for water resources in the Office of the President, leading water resource research at the federal level. He later organized a national Committee on Water Resources Research and served as its first Chairman. More recently, the ISWS has served as the national center for managing the National Atmospheric Deposition Program, coordinating analyses and analyzing precipitation chemistry from more than 250 sites nationwide. In 1996, the SWS began managing mercury deposition monitoring at 112 sites in the U.S. and Canada.
Most recently, two Water Survey scientists, Ken Kunkel and Stanley Changnon, were part of the team of researchers who contributed to the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); they shared the 2008 Nobel Prize that was awarded to the authors of that report.
During the relatively short time it has existed, the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC: formerly the Waste Management Research Center) has pioneered the application of diffusion principles to encourage the adoption of pollution prevention technology by businesses in Illinois. It has worked with the State Surveys, researchers at the University of Illinois, and others to develop techniques for removing sediment from impoundments on the Illinois River, restoring local habitats and transporting the removed sediment to restore habitat in brownfield areas in Chicago. The Center has also been a leader in developing innovative technologies to convert industrial wastes to diesel fuel and has sponsored research targeted to clean up decades of waste-related contamination throughout Illinois.
Something New
Just as the Industrial Revolution of the Nineteenth Century created demand for a systematic science to discover and extract natural resources (geology), and an organized curriculum to provide training for the designers of machines and processes to produce goods and food for a growing and urbanizing society (engineering, hydrology, soil science, and biology), those disciplines are once again critically needed to sustain that society in such a way that succeeding generations will be able to manage their everyday lives in an economically efficient and environmentally acceptable manner. To do this, institutions, such as the University of Illinois, increasingly must depend on cross-disciplinary research to provide answers to the economic and environmental challenges in managing and using the natural resources on which modern society depends. The new Institute is a model for developing practical, cross-disciplinary approaches to solving these problems. No other state has four state-focused research institutions covering such a breadth of natural science and engineering, and certainly no other university has four such surveys within its walls. The INRS-UIUC partnership is unique in this nation and gives the State of Illinois a powerful engine to marry University intellectual capital with the applied and intellectual skills of the Surveys to solve modern problems associated with burgeoning populations, growing urban and suburban areas, and expanding resource demands.
Already, in the short time that the Institute has been in existence, the Natural History Survey and the department of Natural Resources and Environmental Science have begun exploring opportunities for joint teaching and collaborative research. The INHS's Illinois Wilds Institute for Nature (IWIN) curricula, which were developed as adult enrichment courses, are being reformatted as credit-bearing curricula which might be offered during intersession. In addition, the INHS sponsored a highly successful, day-long ecological symposium in celebration of its 150th anniversary. ISTC recently sponsored a very well-attended and well-received joint conference on Biofuels and Sustainability in cooperation with the University's Center for Advanced BioEnergy Research and the Energy Biosciences Institute. This is an example of how the Surveys' incorporation into the University has opened the door for researchers on both sides to expand their horizons as never before.
Finally, the State Geological Survey leads one of seven US Department of Energy-funded partnerships, scattered across the continent and dedicated to developing practical methods of storing carbon dioxide from power plant emissions. Our partnership is funded at more than $100 million to carry out a ground-breaking project in which one million tons of carbon dioxide will be provided by and permanently stored in geologic formations 7000 feet beneath the Archer Daniels Midland Company's ethanol facility in Decatur, Illinois. This project will make the University of Illinois a world leader in this vital aspect of clean coal technology research.
It is my intent, working alongside the University and the Directors of the Surveys, to use the research and applied techniques we develop here to anticipate and address the problems of Illinois' modern agricultural/industrial society. We intend to look elsewhere in the nation and the world for research opportunities that will allow us to bring back to Illinois expertise and solutions to our environmental and economic development challenges. In so doing, we intend to serve as examples to the world of how to deploy 21st Century science and technology to create sustainable and economically viable plans to manage natural resources at the local, state, and national levels.
Updated 9/16/09 AW