Environmental Integrity Working Group – 2/15 Discussion Highlights

Loras College
Alumni Campus Center, Arizona Room
February 15th, 2017

The ‘Environmental Integrity Working Group’ took place on February 15th at Loras College. The purpose of the working group was to guide the development of the Environmental Integrity Workshop that was held at the University of Dubuque on February 21st.

The meeting started with an overview of the comprehensive plan process and an update on the project timeline. Mike Hoffman, lead consultant with Teska Associates, explained how this plan is community-driven.

Environmental topics for the workshop include:

Clean Air and Water
Natural Resources
Smart Energy
Plants & Animals
Land Resources
Ease of Mobility by Car, Bike, Walking Transit
Reuse of Buildings
Community Design

When participants were asked to add to this list, they offered:

Stewardship
People are the environment
Human-environment interaction

Word Cloud Polling

Smart phone polls were then conducted to gauge the greatest environmental assets and challenges facing Dubuque. The following results were recorded:

Explanations of why participants reported select assets and challenges were offered.

Driftless:

The Tri-State Area offers great recreational opportunities
Dubuque offers ready access to open space/nature/wild spaces (10 minutes from town)

Housing architecture:

Dubuque has aesthetically pleasing older neighborhoods that make you want to take a walk outside
Older neighborhoods have been taken care of

Agricultural runoff:

Feed lots are detrimental to surface water quality. Creeks become blocked with manure
This watershed problem is at the county-level

Cross-sector collaboration:

Create a cross-sector working group to increase resource management opportunities and collaborations in the community.

Poor green space:

Lack of maintenance
Swiss Valley Nature Center is a good example of what to do
Natural spaces on periphery are great, but poor in city
Midwestern mown lawn mentality is a lost educational opportunity for wetland and native planting programming
Bee Branch is game changer; connectivity and urban core location
Community gardening has been good – an example for schools
Mines of Spain connection needs to be better to the city

Environmental Outreach Highlights

A brief recap of environmental events, including Green Dubuque and Leadership Dubuque was shared with group.

Critical Environmental Issues

The group was asked to identify two environmental themes important to Dubuque’s future. Each participant was asked to respond, and some responses were duplicated by multiple participants (see voting tally). Elicited from this exercise:

Surface Water Quality (3 votes)
Reduce Consumption (3 votes).
- Refers to personal, everyday choices.
- You can target landfill reduction, but the source is public behavior.
- Cities can regulate how retailers consume (i.e. Mississippi River Cities + Towns)
- Law of big proportions: targeting the largest waste category will have the largest impact

Student Access to Nature (2 Votes)
- Free museum programming, but how do you get the students to the programming?
- Get children out experiencing nature
- Travel to Mines of Spain? EB Lyons Nature Center? The River Museum would be willing to support.

Cross-sector Collaboration
Data Management
Re-use Building Materials
- More reuse policies

Hydro-electric Dam
- What are the ecological consequences of the dam?

Cultural Change/Dated Mentality
Regional Land Use Coordination
Practicing Empathy
- North Side vs. South Side investment
- Bee Branch help curb disparities