Shakers Lincoln Ne

Sustainability ideas for city codes draw mixed reviews

Most days, Corey Godfrey rides his utility blue touring bike the 10 miles between home and work at the Nebraska Heart Institute in southeast Lincoln.

He saves on gas -- 100 miles a week round trip -- gets great exercise and arrives at work relaxed, albeit disheveled.

Six years ago, Godfrey and a physician biker convinced the institute to include a basement shower in its new building.

So Godfrey can shower, pull on his scrubs and be ready for work as a researcher in 15 minutes.

Encouraging businesses to provide showers for sweaty bikers is among the recommendations in a report to the city on promoting sustainability through land use codes.

Local sustainability expert Cecil Steward said the report is "a potpourri of concepts and ideas about various aspects of sustainability."

It's a shopping list of things that have had success in other communities, rather than a list of mandates, he said.

However, Mark Hunzeker, a Lincoln attorney who represents developers, was far more critical of the report and concerned about potential mandates.

"It appears he has not read our zoning ordinance," Hunzeker said of private consultant Chris Duerksen, who was hired by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Lincoln was the first of several dozen communities to receive technical assistance on environmental and energy conservation issues from the federal EPA.

The report is critical of Lincoln codes and plans. It said:

* The city zoning codes have "few progressive provisions."

* "The city does not appear to be very ambitious in promoting alternative energy and energy conservation in its codes or plans ..."

In addition, the report offers some suggestions that Hunzeker says are already part of Lincoln codes.

"This is an idiot's reading of our ordinances," Hunzeker said.

Hunzeker finds some of the consultant's suggestions ludicrous.

Like the suggestion that the city require a mix of housing sizes in larger residential developments, defined as 10-plus units.

"That is not a larger residential development, for God's sake. Most developers won't bother with a piece of ground if you can only get 10 units on it."

"This is a guy who came into town urging everyone to think big. The best he has come up with is a collection of very small ideas. Most of which are already accounted for in our existing regulations."

Though city staff did not directly criticize the report's negative comments, the planning department staff did go through the draft of the new comprehensive plan, called LPlan2040, highlighting in green hundreds of passages that relate to "sustainability.

"Performance Rating of De-icing Chemicals for Winter Operations ...

Abstract

The cost of deicing chemicals is a significant part of the Nebraska Department of Road's winter maintenance budget. Many products are available for use in highway and bridge deicing and new products are introduced each year. The objectives of this research are to develop a laboratory test to evaluate the performance of chemical deicers, to investigate national, state, and local standards, and to develop best maintenance practices to optimize the use of chemical deicers.

This research project consists of two phases:

Phase 1: conduct a study of literature to find data of laboratory tests used to assess the existing defroster performance.

Phase 2: develop a laboratory test to evaluate the performance of chemical de-icers and correlate the results with field data for road maintenance. Use the data from the laboratory, field, and the literature review to develop a summary of the best use of chemical deicers.

The laboratory tests were developed by obtaining samples of sodium chloride, magnesium chloride, calcium chloride, potassium acetate, and beet juice based chemical deicers for evaluation. Two of the magnesium chloride based deicers were made from byproducts of the ethanol industry. The deicers were tested for ice melting performance, resulting pavement friction, the effect from direct sunlight, and the time to refreeze after application.

The field data was collected by the Nebraska Department of Roads using Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) systems installed on plow trucks in concert with the Maintenance Decision Support System (MDSS). The MDSS is a computerized system that collects weather data from area weather stations and gives maintenance crews recommended application rates for different weather events.

The Shaker Test was developed to evaluate the performance of chemical deicers. The test works well for assessing the ice melting capacities of liquid and solid deicers, but more research is needed for prewet solids. The beet juice based deicers were found to perform well at temperatures as low as 14°F when exposed to direct sunlight. A summary was compiled to outline the recommended standards of practice for anti-icing and de-icing operations using the selected deicing chemicals during particular types of winter storms.

Encyclopedia of women social reformers

Standard Poland-China record

Selling Shaker, the commodification of Shaker design in the twentieth century

Wheat in a global environment, proceedings of the 6th International Wheat Conference, 5-9 June 2000, Budapest, Hungary

Structural and functional analysis of calreticulin and calnexin