Grounds Management and Fleet Services has long been a steward of sustaining our campus and community environment. Over the past several years, we have implemented several projects that have not only benefited our environment, but are also examples to other universities and communities of environmental stewardship. In 2004 Illinois State University Grounds Department was awarded APPA’s Effective and Innovative Practices Award for its cooperative program with the Town of Normal in regards to turning wood waste into mulch. Our department also drew statewide attention as being the first University to use pervious concrete as part of a parking lot re-surfacing project. Grounds Management and Fleet Services are divisions of Facilities Management and have been instrumental in developing the following processes and systems.
"When it rains it drains." Illinois State University was the first public university in the State of Illinois to install pervious concrete to address water quality runoff. Pervious Concrete allows water to flow through the concrete and seep into the ground water. First installed in the G- 73 parking lot (Main Street- Hancock Field), the project was used as a training session for area contractors, the Illinois Ready Mix Concrete Association, and the Indiana Ready Mix Concrete Association. A second and more significant design was installed in 2006 in the G -86 parking lot (School and Willow). This project drains all storm water runoff through pervious concrete. It is designed not only to address “first flush” requirements, but can store up to 1 (one) inch of rain fall under the parking lot to percolate back into the soil, or the water can be directed to the storm water system after flowing through the underground gravel bed.
See following diagram and photo.
Design of Underground Pervious System
Example of how Pervious Concrete drains
In the past three years 3 parking lots have had ultra- thin, white- topping used in place of conventional bituminous asphalt. The parking lots were in need of resurfacing but rather then applying asphalt, a thin three inch (3”) layer of concrete was installed over the existing asphalt. Most conventional concrete applications would require the removal of the asphalt and the installation of six inches or more of concrete necessary to withstand traffic loads. Using ultra thin allowed us to use the asphalt already in place as a “base” for the concrete. This eliminated the need to remove existing asphalt, the concrete will last longer, (estimated in most cases to be twice the life of asphalt), and the reflective quality of the concrete doubled the candle power in the parking lot. This means more light with our existing lighting fixtures at no additional cost and a safer environment for faculty, staff and students.
Fleet Services began a year and a half ago to blend 10% bio-diesel with its diesel fuel, and this year the percentage was raised to 15%. Over 12,000 gallons a year are used by both campus vehicles and off road equipment, (back hoes, loaders and mowers), which represents 1800 gallons of fuel used from a renewable source. This spring the percentage will increase to 20% and our reduction of fossil fuel use will be estimated at 2400 gallons.
The recent development of the Town of Normal’s Constitution Trail, through the campus of Illinois State University, provided the Grounds department an opportunity to install the campus’s first Bio-swale to handle water runoff. The Trail runs through the parking lot behind Redbird Baseball field, which sheet drains into nearby Sugar Creek. A 10’ wide by 150’ long strip of asphalt was excavated, and two and one half foot (2.5’) of sandy soil mix was installed in its place. Both an erosion control and wet-meadow seed mix was specifically selected and sown. The bio-swale is slightly concave in an effort to store some runoff as water perks into the soil.
See following photos.
Grounds Management is always looking for ways to reduce our solid waste stream. In a co-operative project with the Town of Normal, a program has been developed and established that has not only saved the University money, but at the same time has reduced our solid waste and solved a problem for the Town of Normal.
With a campus community of 24,000 we generate a large amount of solid wood waste. Standard items include brush, desks, tables and chairs, but there is also a large amount of dimensional lumber, doors, cabinets, etc which was all was being loaded into our compactor and hauled to the local landfill.
The campus also has over 27 acres of mulched beds. Each year most of these mulched beds were being chipped with purchased hardwood mulch, with an annual cost of over $16,000.
The Town of Normal picks up yard waste from the residents homes on a weekly basis and grinds this material into wood chips which they in turn, offer back to the residents to use in their yards. The Town had no problem during the growing season to distribute back into the community the processed mulch, but in the winter time, there was still a great deal of yard waste being generated from fall and winter pruning and very few people were wanting to haul and spread wood chips. In addition, if an ice storm hit the area, the Town was overloaded with yard waste and processed mulch.
Meeting with the Town, Grounds offered to provide space at our nursery for them to stockpile the mulch whenever they had space problems. In return, the Town allowed the University to haul all of our wood products to their grinding facility, and agreed to grind it into mulch. ISU purchases special grinding blades for the Town to use, resulting in a much finer and better quality product for the University’s use. In many cases the very desks, chairs and doors that students, faculty, and staff used in the buildings of campus are now protecting and holding moisture and nutrients for the campus trees and shrubs.
Town Of Normal Mulch
Purchased Hardwood Mulch
