January 2015 – Sustainability & Environment @ OWU

Delaware to improve boat access to Olentangy River

The city of Delaware will use a $152,900 state grant to build three access sites to the Olentangy River this year. Two will be in Mingo Park and one on Cherry Street, south of the city-owned recycling buildings.

Image from “Olentangy River Restoration Efforts Improve Aquatic Life” from the USEPA.

Delaware to improve boat access to Olentangy River

Reblogged from the Columbus Dispatch (Thursday, January 29, 2015)

By Dean Narciso

DELAWARE, Ohio — Since Delaware’s early settlement more than 200 years ago, boats and canoes have been launched from its Olentangy River banks.

With the help of a grant from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, there will now be a safer, easier method of entry than climbing over rocks and along crude paths.

The city will use a $152,900 state grant to build three access sites this year. Two will be in Mingo Park and one on Cherry Street, south of the city-owned recycling buildings.

The Mingo Park access will be on the park’s north and south sides. The north site will include timber stairs and handrails leading to a boat-removal area.

The south site will have a paved parking area and a 55-foot paved path to a launch area.

The Cherry Street site will have a gravel parking lot and a 200-foot gravel trail to the river. That site is intended for both launching and boat removal.

Traffic to the sites will be helped by Preservation Parks of Delaware County, which plans to build an entry point at River Run Preserve, north of the city limits near Delaware Dam. Together, these projects will provide the public access to 7.5 miles of water trail.

“Opportunities for our recreational boating community will greatly increase because of these launch sites along the Olentangy River,” Delaware City Manager Tom Homan said in a news release. “ Water trails join communities, provide scenic venues for recreation, increase health and well-being and create educational opportunities.”

Delaware spokesman Lee Yoakum said “the river is not used as much as it could be because access is poor.”

The new facilities, to open around April 2016, should help the river become as important as the city’s network of road and bike paths, Yoakum said.

“It’s truly the heart of the city. It’s where Delaware began.”

Campus Event: “A Tax on Carbon” – 2015 Environmental and Natural Resources Symposium: February 18 2015

“A Tax on Carbon: Would It Work for Business, Consumers, and the Environment?” is the topic of the 2015 Environmental and Natural Resources Symposium. 7:30 p.m. Feb. 18 2015 in Benes Rooms A and B of Hamilton-Williams Campus Center, 40 Rowland Ave., Delaware.

“A Tax on Carbon: Would It Work for Business, Consumers, and the Environment?” is the topic of the 2015 Environmental and Natural Resources Symposium.

7:30 p.m. Feb. 18 2015 in Benes Rooms A and B of Hamilton-Williams Campus Center, 40 Rowland Ave., Delaware.

Panelists will include Scott Nystrom, M.A., senior economic associate for Regional Economic Models Inc., and Ian Sheldon, Ph.D., the Andersons Professor of International Trade at The Ohio State University.

The discussion will be moderated by Laurie Anderson, Ph.D., OWU professor of botany and microbiology, and is sponsored by the OWU Department of Economics; Woltemade Center for Economics, Business and Entrepreneurship; and Delaware Chapter of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, a nonprofit, nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based organization focused on policies to address climate change. Learn more at wcebe.owu.edu.

Spenser Hickey’s Report on OWU Sustainability

During the Fall semester of 2014 Journalism student Spencer Hickey reviewed the state of Sustainability on OWU’s campus, reviewing its history and current status, interviewing students, staff and faculty, and documenting his work as Special Report: OWU Sustainability.

OWU’s Sustainability Task Force (Facebook here) is actively addressing many of the issues in Hickey’s report, and a Spring 2015 practicum (Geography 499) will review and address the issues as part of the process of creating a campus-wide sustainability plan.