February 11, 2003

Environmental Council

February 11, 2003

Minutes

Present:  Nan Jenks-Jay, Andi Lloyd, David West, Helen Young, Gail Smith, Diane Munroe, Charlotte Tate, Connie Leach Bisson, Ben Wessler, Doug Dagan, Nick Benjamin, Suzanne Nagi, Jesi Warren, Andrea Hamre

Missing:  Mandy Helwig, JS Woodward, Meg Smith

1.  Minutes of January 21, 2003    No changes requested.

Nan suggested that we alter the process for reviewing minutes of the past meeting so that it does not take up meeting time.  Beginning with this set of minutes, Connie will strive to distribute a draft of the meeting minutes in the same week that the meeting occurs.  It is the responsibility of each member to send comments/changes to Connie.  If the comments are substantive, they will be brought before the Environmental Council.  Otherwise, minor edits will be made to the draft and the minutes will be considered final by the date of the next Environmental Council meeting so that they can be posted to the web and sent to President McCardell.

1.  Subcommittee Reports with Year End Goals

1. EDUCATION

Four goals include:

i.  Environmental Films in partnership with Commons Environmental Liaisons

ii.  Promotion of Consumerism series with a variety of PR activities including "What do you want that money can't buy?" message board

iii.  Globetrotters – a collection of writings from students from abroad about environmental reflections in their host country

iv.  Move Out – work with Recycling to raise awareness about leaving less, bringing less, and buying less

1. LAND USE

i.  Meeting with President McCardell, Bob Huth and Ron Liebowitz  to discuss subcommittee's interest in establishing management objectives for the College's sectors of land

ii.  Talk with numerous people within mid-level administration to get their ideas on how to manage College lands in more sustainable, env. friendly ways.  Particularly planning to meet with Tom Corbin to discuss the subcommittees work and obtain his input on developing a policy to cover land use at Middlebury

iii.  Develop pilot projects

1. PURCHASING/CONSUMPTION

i.  Work with Middlebury Dining Services on seafood and fish purchasing

ii. Recommend two species of fish to discontinue offering in the dining hall (from the "Red List" of Seafood Watch)

iii.  Work with chefs to include healthy recipes in MiddPoints & create tabletents for dining halls

iv.  JS & Charlie are going to the Seafood Show in Boston

v. Meeting with George Whitney and Betty Anderson from Operations about areas where the subcommittee could assist in environmentally preferable purchasing for new buildings or renovations

vi.  Educational signage on energy use for elevators and education on double-side printing / reducing paper consumption

vii.  Health Fair – March 17th

Healthy food, household cleaners, outside recreation, greenhouse,

Co-op, 7th Generation

3.  Transportation survey next steps

Contact Diane if interested in working on next steps.

4.  Campus Environmental Grants update

Connie has received most of the grant updates and shared highlights.  She will collect remaining reports from the Tree Inventory, Organic Garden, Biodiesel, Yellow Bikes and Green Room and report on these at the next meeting.

1. Paper Alternatives – has met with Gail and Carl in Purchasing and will be meeting with the Purchasing/Consumption subcommittee next week to gain some additional feedback on the criteria they will use to test various papers.
2. Vending Miser – In November five vending misers were installed on frequently used vending machines.  Paired with equally popular vending machines elsewhere on campus without the miser, all ten units are being monitored with wattage meters.  Weekly energy savings have ranged from 31 to 52%, meaning that the payback for each miser is about one year.  The misers will be switched to the "paired" machines at the end of January and the wattage will continue to be monitored on all ten vending machines.
3. Hybrid Vehicles – Accompanied by Skip Brush, Director of Purchasing the two students have tested two hybrids (Honda & Civic) through Burlington dealerships.  A survey was distributed to employees who frequently rent College vehicles (Admissions, College Advancement) to assess their willingness to use a hybrid vehicle for some/all of their College travel by vehicle.  Skip Brush announced at the CRI Working Group meeting that he was recommending the purchase of a hybrid vehicle for the College fleet in his 03-04 budget and later told Connie that the students would be discussing this recommendation with the Budget Office.
4. Aligning with the Sun – The grants team has been meeting bi-weekly.  They have retrofitted Farrell House with compact fluorescent light bulbs and asked Dean Ouellette from the Electricians area to assist with a ballast.  The grant team has full support from Mike Moser and Dean Ouellette including a commitment to assist with installation.  The grantees plan to conduct a pre-installation survey of community attitudes towards renewable energy to 200 community members in the next few weeks.  They are currently awaiting bids from four solar engineering firms.  Nan noted that the aesthetics issue, like with wind turbines, is important and that dialogue with the "neighbors" needs to be done in advance.  Connie will follow up with Amy on this.
5. Water Collection Vessel – Matt Biette has not installed this system on the greenhouse as he felt it would damage the greenhouse in winter.  It will be installed in the spring.
6. Laundry Water Recycler – The clothes washer for Dining Services has just arrived and Matt anticipated that the water recycler attachment would be delivered soon.
7. Yellow Bikes—Ben is away for winter and spring terms.  The new coordinator is Nate Morris and Connie will contact him about an update.  Based on information provided by Ben in December, the bikes were collected for winter storage, a survey was sent to the 238 current members to gain feedback on how to improve the program, the locks are now physically attached to the frames because many were disappearing, and gearing improvements will be made to the bikes over the winter.
8. Cornwall Path – The grant team has held 4 meetings and held a GPS Field Party.  Different members are taking on specific tasks such as GIS mapping, PR, funding, contact with landowners and renters along the proposed route. Their current thoughts are to site the path to the north of Rte 125 away from the road where there are better views, and easier connections to the garden and the running roads heading north.
9. Weather station – Grantees have purchased Campbell Scientific software for the Snow Bowl and obtained a higher speed computer and flat screen on which the Snow Bowl can receive data.  There has been a hardline connection problem receiving Snow Bowl data from the weather station to the computer that they are currently working on.  Connie will follow up on this grant to gather more information about work connected to the golf course weather station.
10. Biodiesel – No report has been received but Connie mentioned that a class was offered at the Hannaford Center and the students had retrofitted a campus tractor to run on biodiesel or straight vegetable oil as well as diesel.  Nick mentioned that it was running the previous night and Charlotte noted that her husband had attended the class and had found the information useful.

5.    Environmental Policy revision update

Charlotte and Connie met with Eric Davis to obtain guidance about reworking the Environmental Policy.  Nan, JS, Suzanne, Charlotte and Connie will draft something for review by the EC at a future meeting.

6.  Announcements

Charlotte asked if the Environmental Council would be meeting with President McCardell.  Connie has checked on dates for the end of the year for attending the Grant presentations and will now check on his availability to meet with the EC.  Nan explained that Connie had mistakenly thought that the meeting with President McCardell occurred in the latter half of the year because that was the case during the Capital campaign and then he was on leave.  Based on President McCardell's availability it is also possible for a delegation of Environmental Council members to meet with him during his posted office hours and report back to the full EC.  Connie will provide more information at the next meeting.  Meetings with the President will revert back to the fall in future years.