Environment Section

The city of Ann Arbor made a recent decision to convert to a single-stream curbside recycling system, plus implement an incentive coupon reward system to encourage people to participate in the program.

The decision came under some criticism for its initial capital costs, the possible reduction in quality of the resulting recycled material, as well as for its emphasis on coupon rewards for recycling more – which some people feared could feed back into a loop causing more consumption.

I think there are fair questions that can be asked about cost and quality.  What I missed, however, was a convincing sales pitch – one that included options within the basic idea of a single-stream system with an incentive program. In this column, I take a look at what I’d have found to be a more convincing sales pitch. [Full Story]

On March 15, the Ann Arbor city council voted to direct its city attorney to settle a lawsuit filed in August 2009 over the construction of an underground parking garage on the city-owned Library Lot site along Fifth Avenue. The lawsuit addressed environmental concerns, open meetings and freedom of information issues, as well as nuisance allegations by neighboring property owners.

Now the city of Ann Arbor has settled that lawsuit, accepting a range of requirements under the agreement.

Under terms of the settlement signed on Monday, the city has agreed to comply substantively with a request that one of the plaintiffs – The Great Lakes Environmental Law Center – had originally made over two months before the lawsuit was filed. That request was to conduct a study of environmental impacts associated with construction of the new underground parking structure, which is being built by the Downtown Development Authority.

The lawsuit settlement does not resolve the question of whether city councilmembers committed violations of the Open Meetings Act, when they communicated during their meetings via email about an agenda item related to approval of bonds for the parking structure.

However, the Ann Arbor city council is required by the settlement terms to discuss publicly, at one of their April 2010 meetings, the possibility of establishing a council rule that addresses which email accounts they use to conduct city business. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Park Advisory Commission meeting (March 16, 2010): Fuller Road Station was the focus of this month’s PAC meeting, including a presentation by Eli Cooper and others on the project’s team. Five people spoke on the topic during public commentary as well – all of them concerned about the proposed parking structure and transit center.

Several commissioners had pointed questions for Cooper. Sam Offen pressed him on the issue of revenues, noting that when the parking structure is built, the university might have no need for the spaces it leases from the city on the opposite side of Fuller Road – resulting in a loss of about $38,000 per year to the city.

Also attending the meeting was Greta Brunschwyler, the new executive director at the Leslie Science and Nature Center, who started the job on March 4 and came to introduce herself to park commissioners and staff.

Leslie Science and Nature Center is where Jason Frenzel’s office is located. Frenzel, volunteer and outreach coordinator for the city’s Natural Area Preservation program, gave a brief presentation about volunteer opportunities.

Scott Rosencrans, PAC’s chair, wasn’t able to attend the meeting, which was led in his absence by vice chair John Lawter. Lawter announced that Rosencrans has decided not to seek reappointment to PAC when his term ends in mid-April. So not only will PAC need to elect a new chair, Lawter said, there will also be an opening on the commission. [Full Story]

Editor’s note: Leslie Science and Nature Center is soon launching its frog and toad survey after holding a kick-off orientation meeting on Feb. 24. Other Leslie frog-related events include Frog Fest on May 15, 2010. Partly in that context, local history columnist Laura Bien takes a froggy look back.

Michigan’s inaugural 1996 Frog and Toad Survey started strong. “I have talked with coordinators in other states,” wrote state frog and toad survey coordinator Lori Sargent in the survey report, “and most are finding it difficult to find enough people to volunteer. Perhaps that says a lot about Michiganians – we care about our natural resources.”

So much so that Ypsilantians have been surveying frogs and toads for over a century … off and on.

“Five years ago as we sat on our porch one summer evening a toad hopped out from around the corner to the concrete walk,” was the way one resident was quoted in the July 9, 1907 Ypsilanti Daily Press. “We watched it ‘walk’ down to the street sidewalk and within half an hour or so back it came.”

The Normal Park resident continued, “The next night as we were again sitting on the porch, one said, ‘I wonder whether our toad will be out tonight?’ It was but a few minutes when out it hopped and started down the walk. Within the hour it came back.” [Full Story]

Friends don’t ask me how I feel about February. They’ve already heard me say that there’s a reason why the worst month in the year – cold, icy, gray – is the shortest month. And when it’s over, it’s still winter.

So when the first of March rolled around this year – coming in like a lamb, instead of a lion – I was left blinking in the sun and looking like I just crawled out of hibernation. There was sun and steadily rising temperatures, so sue me if I think spring is already here.

But though the temperatures are already in the 50s, these weeks can be the winter of a gardener’s discontent.

We want to get out there, we want to start digging, but we know it’s just too darn early. It’s even too early to set up the grow lights to start my tomato plants from seed. Some stoics will tell you it’s even too early to walk on your lawn! [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Greenbelt Advisory Commission meeting (March 10, 2010): After hearing from Ann Arbor Township supervisor Mike Moran, and meeting in closed session with Mary Fales of the city attorney’s office, commissioners passed a resolution of support for the acquisition of development rights on the Braun and Gould properties in Ann Arbor Township.

These deals have been in the works for more than two years. The city has binding purchase agreements with the owners based on appraisals taken when land values were higher. New appraisals, required to get funds from a federal program, came in with much lower values. That means fewer-than-expected federal funds will be available, and the city would be required to come up with the difference.

Saying that Ann Arbor Township was their partner, Moran urged commissioners to support the purchase of development rights. He called the Braun farm a “poster child” for the township’s land preservation movement, and said it would be a significant error to reject the deal simply because of the new appraisals.

Later in the meeting, commissioners also got an update on committee work being done to help support small farms in the greenbelt. [Full Story]

Eating Thin Mints recently got me thinking about locally produced food.

It’s Girl Scout cookie season, and on Saturday – after swinging through the Ann Arbor Farmers Market – I encountered a Brownie and her dad set up at the corner of Main and Liberty, their table loaded with boxes of Thin Mints, Samoas, Tagalongs and an assortment of other cookies that I remember selling too, back in the day. I bought three boxes.

At $3.50 per box, the cookies aren’t outrageously priced – though the boxes seem to get smaller every year. But later, in doing a quick calculation of all the food I’d bought that day, I realized that in buying those cookies, I’d failed to meet a challenge I’d heard earlier in the week: Spend 10% of your food budget on locally produced food.

The “10% Washtenaw” challenge was issued at the Homegrown Local Food Summit, a day-long event on March 2 that drew over 200 people to the Dana Building on the University of Michigan campus. Many of the people at the summit already surpass that goal in a fairly dramatic way. The real challenge, organizers acknowledge, is how to convince the rest of us to do the same. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Park Advisory Commission (Feb. 23, 2010): Approval of new policies for gifts, sponsorships and naming opportunities in the parks system was the only vote taken at Tuesday’s PAC meeting.

But commissioners heard updates on a range of issues, from capital projects – including the months-long closing of West Park, starting in March – to a report on the greenbelt program.

And though snow has blanketed the area, work is underway to prep for controlled burns throughout the city’s parks and natural areas. Commissioners got a report on that effort, which includes a public meeting on March 2 and volunteer training the following day. The topic also provided some fodder for puns – in introducing the presentation, PAC chair Scott Rosencrans joked that they’d be “burning with interest” to hear the report. [Full Story]

Chris Leinberger was blunt in his assessment of the proposed Fuller Road Station: If the parking structure is built as proposed, in 20 years it will be torn down.

Speaking at a forum on transit-oriented development, Leinberger – a University of Michigan professor of practice in urban planning – said current plans for the joint UM/city of Ann Arbor project do a good job of incorporating different kinds of transit, from bikes and buses to perhaps, eventually, commuter rail.

But Leinberger criticized the project for taking some of Ann Arbor’s most valuable land and turning it into something that won’t generate revenue for the city. He told Eli Cooper, the city’s transportation program manager, that “whoever’s in your position 20 years from now will tear it down.”

Monday’s forum, held at the UM Art & Architecture building on north campus, was organized by members of the WALLY Coalition and the 208 Group, among others, to focus on local transit-oriented development efforts. Moderated by local developer Peter Allen, the event included presentations by Cooper, Richard Murphy of the city of Ypsilanti and Shea Charles, Howell’s city manager. [Full Story]

For Eli Cooper, the city of Ann Arbor’s transportation program manager, a project like the proposed Fuller Road Station happens “once in a lifetime” – an opportunity for the city, he says, to take a vision and make it reality in a fairly short time.

What it will take to reach that reality was the topic of a Feb. 10 public meeting on the Fuller Road Station, a joint University of Michigan/city of Ann Arbor project. Its first phase entails a parking structure with about 1,000 spaces – nearly 80% of them earmarked for UM use.

But much of the presentation by city staff and members of the design team focused on the broader goals for that site, which they hope will eventually include a train station for commuter rail. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Greenbelt Advisory Commission meeting (Feb. 10, 2010): Citing benefits to the city’s own greenbelt program, members of the greenbelt commission at their Wednesday meeting voiced support for a county land preservation millage, which is up for renewal this year.

The commission passed a resolution urging the city council formally to endorse the millage, though it’s up to the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners to decide whether to put the millage on the ballot. It’s not yet clear the board will do that.

Greenbelt commissioners also discussed the implications of new, lower appraisals that had just been received on the Braun and Gould properties in Ann Arbor Township. The city already has binding purchase agreements with the owners based on older, higher appraised values, but recently learned that new appraisals will result in fewer federal matching funds for the acquisitions. The city could be on the hook for more money than was anticipated to close these deals.

Related to that, some commissioners raised concerns over information they’d received last month from the city attorney’s office, which appeared to be in conflict with what they were being told by staff at Wednesday’s meeting. [Full Story]

Donald Staebler was without question the oldest resident to show up at a Jan. 26 public meeting on the Washtenaw County Parks & Recreation master plan. And the 99-year-old farmer had a very specific reason why: He sold his farm to the county nearly 10 years ago, and he wants to see what they’re going to do with it.

“I’m open to suggestions,” Staebler told The Chronicle, “and willing to give up plenty of what I know.”

During their presentation about a five-year master plan for the parks system, county staff outlined plans for the Staebler Farm – a proposed $2.3 million investment – as well as for several other county parks, recreational facilities and preserves. It was one of three public meetings to get input on the master plan; the next meeting will be on Wednesday, Feb. 3, at the Dexter Library, starting at 7 p.m.

A draft of the master plan – which is also available online – includes items in an extensive capital improvement program that was approved last year by the county’s Parks & Recreation Commission. Several of the largest projects are planned for Rolling Hills Park, including the addition of a dog park, an expansion of the water park and construction of softball fields and an amphitheater. The county also plans to invest nearly $12 million in greenway and non-motorized trails over the next five years. [Full Story]

A resolution to hire Verna McDaniel as the next county administrator is on the Feb. 3 agenda for the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners, and commissioners gave her a round of applause on Wednesday when that agenda item was announced at their administrative briefing.

But it was an item not on the agenda that yielded the most animated discussion on Wednesday: A countywide millage for Washtenaw County’s Natural Areas Preservation Program. The tax, which was first approved by voters in November of 2000 and took effect in 2002, will expire in 2011 and would need to go back to voters this year for renewal. Based on comments at Wednesday’s briefing, the millage renewal might face resistance from some commissioners. [Full Story]

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series written by Ann Arbor city staff on the environmental indicators used by the city of Ann Arbor in its State of Our Environment Report.

Although Matt Naud, the city’s environmental coordinator, is listed as the author of this piece, he received “a boxload of help” from Adrienne Marino, Tom McMurtrie, and Nancy Stone.

The SOE report is developed by the city’s environmental commission and designed as a citizen’s reference tool on environmental issues and as an atlas of the management strategies underway that are intended to conserve and protect our environment. The newest version of the report is organized around 10 environmental goals developed by the environmental commission and adopted by the city council in 2007. This installment focuses on responsible resource use.

All installments of the series are available here: Environmental Indicator Series.

With the closing of the 2009 holiday season, and many of us surrounded by lots of new “stuff” – including the associated boxes and packaging – and even a few of us with New Year’s resolutions to “simplify” our life in the coming new year, it seems like a good time to talk about all of the stuff we buy, use, reuse, recycle, and then throw out in Ann Arbor. [Full Story]

There’s broad consensus on open space and farmland preservation among Superior Township’s roughly 13,000 residents.

It’s evident in words like those on a banner in the township hall touting a commitment to preservation. It’s evident in actions like voter approval of a special tax to defend the community’s growth-management plan.

But for all the agreement, there’s discord over the means to that end.

Rather than fighting a lawsuit they say they expected to win, township officials have struck a deal with a development group that sued after a zoning change was denied.

Disappointed residents say the settlement bails out the developers, and is a retreat from a strategy of enacting and defending a strong master plan and zoning. Township officials say buying land and development rights – as the $400,000 settlement deal will do – is the only sure way to end the battle for good.

The real goal isn’t a legal victory, but the conservation of the community’s rural character, says township supervisor Bill McFarlane. “I feel we would have won the lawsuit this time, but land values will eventually go up again and we could be fighting this again in a year, or two years or five years.” [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Park Advisory Commission (Jan. 19, 2010): As part of a project to upgrade the athletic fields at Fuller and Olson parks, members of the city’s Park Advisory Commission approved an increase in fees to use those fields. One commissioner described the fields, which had previously been in serious disrepair, as “a thing of beauty.”

Three speakers during public commentary, all representing groups that use the fields heavily, said they didn’t have a problem with the fee hike, but hoped that the change could be phased in over three years, rather than implemented this season. The recommendation for an increase, along with changes in how the fields are used, will be forwarded to city council.

Commissioners also approved recommendations from the task forces that are working to raise revenues and cut costs for Mack Pool and the Ann Arbor Senior Center. Commissioner Tim Berla clarified that the PAC resolution was primarily an “atta boy!” for the work of the staff and task forces, and support of the direction they’re headed. The recommendations – which aim to keep those operations open – will be presented to city council at their Feb. 8 meeting.

And finally, as a bonus for readers who stick with this report until the end: One commissioner is championing an urban dog park, and has identified a potential location within the city. [Full Story]

“How about a round of applause for beets?!” Kim Bayer asked the group gathered for dinner on Thursday night.

When a room of people cheers for root vegetables – and later, for pie – there’s probably a theme at hand. On Thursday, the theme was locally grown food, fêted at a potluck hosted by Slow Food Huron Valley. The 30 or so people at Hathaway’s Hideaway on South Ashley heard an update on the nonprofit’s activities over the past year, and got a preview of what’s to come in 2010.

There was also plenty to eat and drink: Derby sandwiches (with pickles, bacon and mayo), parmigiano pumpkin soup with prosciutto, spinach walnut pesto, vegan “slop,” sweet potato pie – most of these and other dishes made from locally grown or produced food.

The connection between the meal and the mission of Slow Food Huron Valley was clear, as Bayer – a member of the group’s leadership team – told the diners: “Good food needs to be a basic human right.” [Full Story]

Bob Voakes is sitting in the front room of the main Leslie Science and Nature Center building, encircled by more than a dozen children sprawled on the floor. “It’s a special day today – does anyone know what day it is?”

“New Year’s Eve!” they cry out.

It would be hard not to know the answer – everyone is wearing New Year’s Eve hats or masks that they’d made earlier that morning, using construction paper and markers.

They’re all enrolled in the holiday break camp program, with a full agenda of crafts, sledding, hiking, searching for animal tracks, s’more-making, and “who knows what other exciting things we might do!” Voakes, a staff member, tells the kids.

Just down the hall – in Dr. Eugene Leslie’s former study – someone else has a full agenda, too: executive director Kirsten Levinsohn, who’s getting ready to step down from the post in February, after 20 years at the center. With the sound of children happily hollering in the background, Levinsohn talked about the upcoming transition, and why it’s an exciting time for LSNC. [Full Story]

About once a month, I load up my bicycle cargo trailer with an assortment of gallon jugs – plastic and glass – plus a mountain of rigid Styrofoam, then pedal off to Recycle Ann Arbor’s drop off station at the corner of Platt and Ellsworth.

When I drop my load of recyclables there, I’m not wearing my Ann Arbor Chronicle editor’s hat. Rather, I’m working as the sole-proprietor of a (very) small bicycle-based business called HD Hauling and Delivery.

I bring this up mostly to establish some sort of credibility as a friend of the environment.

That way when I reveal what I’ve been thinking about recently, there might be a brief hesitation before readers reach into their recycling totes, retrieve a well-rinsed artisanally-crafted mayonnaise jar, and chuck it at my noggin. Not that it will do those readers any good – I generally wear my bicycle helmet, even when I’m just typing.

Now, when I say I’ve been “thinking about” the idea of turning Huron Hills Golf Course into a landfill, I’m not saying that I advocate creating a landfill there. I’m not even saying that it’s a good idea to research the question. I’m just saying that the idea crossed my mind, okay? Why?

It’s because of a recent decision by Recycle Ann Arbor to charge a $3 entry fee for their drop off station, starting Jan. 2, 2010. How do you whack a rhetorical ball all the way from that $3 fee to a landfill at Huron Hills Golf Course? Believe me, you need a lot of club. Fore! [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Park Advisory Commission meeting (Dec. 15, 2009): If projects discussed by the city’s park advisory commission move ahead, next year will bring a series of art installations to the Huron River, and turn two city parks into parking lots for University of Michigan home football games.

At its Dec. 15 meeting, park commissioners raised concerns but ultimately signed off on a city staff proposal to use parts of Allmendinger and Frisinger parks for football parking during the 2010 season. The plan could raise an estimated $34,000 in net revenues for the city.

In a separate move, the commission gave the go ahead for UM to apply for a state permit that’s needed to install a series of wire sculptures at four locations along the Huron River, from Argo to Gallup. It’s an ambitious project by UM visiting artist William Dennisuk, designed to bridge the town/gown communities – assuming that the project itself gets approval from the city and state.

Commissioners also got a budget update from Jayne Miller, the city’s community services director, who told them to anticipate additional cuts over the next two years, and described how that might affect parks and recreation. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Greenbelt Advisory Commission meeting (Dec. 9, 2009): During a relatively brief final meeting of 2009, members of the greenbelt advisory commission got reports on the program’s finances and its preservation activity for the last fiscal year.

Also discussed was a direct rebuff to the greenbelt program from Northfield Township’s supervisor, who wrote that the township wasn’t supportive of “an outside community exerting its influence on our community.”

Peg Kohring of The Conservation Fund, which manages the greenbelt program for the city, had approached the township on behalf of landowners who were interested in participating in the greenbelt.

Commissioners strategized over how to respond, and are forming a group to talk with township officials about their concerns. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor City Council meeting (Dec. 7, 2009) Part I: Based on dialog at the city council’s budget retreat on Saturday, and the absence of any action at Monday’s council meeting to prevent it, layoff notices to 14 firefighters will be sent sometime this week.

Mayor John Hieftje also gave some additional detail on a proposal he’d mentioned at the council’s budget retreat on Saturday: an across-the-board wage cut of 3% for all city employees, which would include councilmembers.

Though the topics of firefighters and wage cuts were mentioned during the council’s communications section of the meeting, what pushed the meeting to nearly midnight were deliberations on two resolutions: (i) a three-year reduction of the Percent for Art program to effectively a “Half-Percent for Art” program, and (ii) acceptance of the Huron River and Impoundment Management Plan (HRIMP).

Both resolutions passed, though the HRIMP resolution was heavily amended. The material effect of the amendment was that it was not technically “accepted” by the council, but rather remanded to the city’s park advisory commission and the environmental commission. [Full Story]

Editor’s Note: This is the first of what The Chronicle intends to become a series of pieces on the environmental indicators used by the city of Ann Arbor in its State of Our Environment Report. The report is designed as a citizen’s reference tool on environmental issues and as an atlas of the management strategies underway that are intended to conserve and protect our environment. The newest version of the report is organized around 10 Environmental Goals developed by the city’s Environmental Commission and adopted by City Council in 2007.

The first in the series is an introduction to the creeksheds indicator by the city’s environmental coordinator, Matt Naud.

The overall creekshed indicator for the city is yellow (fair) and stable (level arrow). But that overall picture is composed of individual indicators for each of the creeksheds that drain into the Huron River – the central natural feature of Ann Arbor. More than 10 miles of the Huron are located within the city limits.

We assess individual creeksheds, not just the Huron River watershed as whole, because that allows us to focus on exactly the areas that need the most improvement.  Seven different creeks within the city of Ann Arbor flow into the Huron: Allen Creek, Fleming Creek, Honey Creek, Malletts Creek, Millers Creek, Swift Run Creek and Traver Creek. [Full Story]

The main topic of discussion for the Ann Arbor Greenbelt Advisory Commission’s November meeting could be distilled into this: How can the greenbelt program support the development of small farms, and ensure that farm properties remain farms, even when the property changes ownership?

It’s an unlikely resource that might actually be able to help answer those questions: the federal housing programs administered by the Office of Community Development, a joint county/city department.

Jennifer Hall, OCD housing program coordinator, attended the Nov. 4 meeting of the greenbelt group and floated some ideas for how federal funding might provide resources to retain land for the farming community.

The commission also heard from the managing organization of the greenbelt program, The Conservation Fund, about strategies for preserving small farms. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Park Advisory Commission (Nov. 17, 2009): With the golf season coming to an end, the city’s Park Advisory Commission got a status report from Ann Arbor’s director of golf, Doug Kelly. He did not, however, provide a recipe for his chicken salad, which he added to the menu this summer at the two city-owned courses. Then again, no one asked – but someone did ask when the golf courses were expected to break even.

Also at the meeting, PAC honored Roger Wykes, the 2009 Natural Area Preservation volunteer of the year. Wykes helps out with the city’s breeding bird survey – commissioners heard details about that project from ornithologist Dee Dea Armstrong.

And an artist who’s spending this year as a visiting lecturer at the University of Michigan made a pitch for an art installation along the Huron River – a project that he envisions will help build a bridge between the university and the community of Ann Arbor. [Full Story]

The city of Ann Arbor and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality have moved towards resolving a dispute about what needs to be done to address problems with the earthen embankment next to Argo Dam. Late this summer, the MDEQ had issued an order to the city to close off the flow to the headrace and dewater it by Nov. 1. That order was based on concerns about the structural integrity of the earthen berm dating back several years.

The city had retained the law firm Bodman, LLP on the matter, and filed a contested case with the MDEQ, asking for a 90-day stay on the MDEQ’s order, which includes a stoppage of flow in the headrace, and its dewatering.

The order also includes other points, among them a need for the city to make a decision on the dam-in/dam-out question. Whether to keep Argo Dam in place or remove it has been the focus of community-wide conversation on that topic, which has taken place with great intensity over the last nine months, but which has a years-long history.

The MDEQ agreed to the city’s request for a stay on all elements of its order except for shutting the water flow to the headrace. The city has now complied with the MDEQ’s order to close the headrace. [Full Story]

Ann Arbor Park Advisory Commission (Oct. 20, 2009): Last week’s meeting of the Ann Arbor Park Advisory Commission (PAC) was in many ways a buffet of updates and tutorials, accented with a soupçon of art and a dash of dog park.

City staff talked to commissioners about special events planning and facilities rental at the parks, and gave an overview of how the city’s natural areas are prioritized for restoration. PAC also got a time line for the state-mandated rewrite of the Parks, Recreation and Open Space plan, known as PROS.

But we’ll start with the saga of a man and his dog, and what he’d like the city to do to make their time together more enjoyable. [Full Story]

Most homeowners would say that they’d love to save a few dollars on heating their houses. And caulk is cheap, right? So why would a homeowner who feels a draft hesitate to invest in a caulking gun and a tube of caulk? One possible reason: To do a really good, comprehensive job sealing up a whole house could require a $3,000 investment – in labor, caulk, spray foam, weatherstripping, and other materials.

So if  homeowners are going to spend a few thousand dollars to improve the energy efficiency of their houses, maybe there’s a more cost-effective investment they could make – like throwing $2,000 worth of extra insulation in the attic.

The city of Ann Arbor has a similar challenge – if it receives more than $1 million in federal stimulus funding from the U.S. Department of Energy to invest locally. Andrew Brix, energy coordinator for the city, and other city staff need to answer the question: How do you spend that money in the most cost-effective way for the community?

Their tentative answer could include financial help for homeowners in the form of loans set up through a self-assessment energy financing district – help for homeowners like the one faced with the $2,000-for-air-sealing versus $3,000-for-attic insulation question.

The Chronicle didn’t pull those numbers out of a hat. We pulled them out of a Matt – as in Matt Naud’s energy audit report. Naud is the environmental coordinator for the city of Ann Arbor, and he agreed to let us shadow the Recycle Ann Arbor energy audit team as they conducted their analysis of his house. [Full Story]

At the Project Grow annual meeting, held on Oct. 8 at the Leslie Science Center, the same contentious issue surfaced as at last year’s meeting: Should the organic gardening nonprofit add members to its board or not?

Last year the answer was yes: Kirk Jones and Royer Held were voted onto the board by the members present at the meeting. [Chronicle coverage: "Project Grow Board Expands"]

This year was no different. In addition to re-electing Damaris Suffalko as a continuing board member, members elected Andrew Comai, David Corsa and Alice Telesnitsky as additions.

The ease with which board members can be added by a member vote is a function of Project Grow’s incorporation as a 501(c)3 membership organization as contrasted with a 501(c)3 directorship organization.

And although the meeting’s written agenda indicated board president Devon Akmon as a candidate for re-election to the board, he withdrew his name in the course of the meeting, which an attendee aptly summarized at one point by saying, “It feels very tense in here.”

The departure of Akmon from the board prompted board member Catherine Riseng to caution the roughly 40 people in the room: “We’re going to miss his skills more than you can possibly realize.”   [Full Story]

In Ann Arbor on Saturday, the visiting Hoosiers came up three points shy in a homecoming game against the University of Michigan football team. Final score: 36-33.

And at a pre-game tailgate hosted by the UM Alumni Association, a team of  Student Sustainability Initiative (SSI) volunteers came up at least three coffee creamer containers shy of their goal: a “zero waste” tailgate.

Those three coffee creamer containers came from Edward J. Vander Velde – from the 50th reunion class of 1959 – who kidded the volunteers who were staffing one of the waste stations inside Oosterbaan Fieldhouse, saying, “We’re still short of perfect!”

The coffee creamers weren’t the only items that still wound up in the trash instead of the compost bins, or the paper containers, or the bottle receptacles.

But according to SSI board member Greg Buzzell, who’s studying at UM’s Erb Institute, early post-tailgate estimates are that the zero-waste effort diverted about 500 pounds of material from the landfill to the compost pile, and that the tailgate generated “really very minimal” trash. [Full Story]