A Keeper of the Great Lakes

Photo by Clare Ruen

Clare Ruen has always lived where the water was. A true child of the Great Lakes, nothing enamors her like Lake Superior and Lake Michigan’s unchanging blue horizon.

But the world’s water supply is not limitless. And Ruen knows the clock is ticking.

As a dancer and District 65 teacher, Ruen shares her appreciation for the Great Lakes with Evanston public schools. Since 2009, she has spearheaded a collaborative project with the Alliance for the Great Lakes Curriculum—bringing 3rd and 6th graders to field trips and special lessons on understanding the environment, with a focus on water.

“I have just some strong connection with the clear clean water,” Ruen said. “It’s cold; its ability to smash and destroy things is amazing. My brother and I, after a year away, we’d go back to Lake Superior and notice which rocks had been thrown around.”

This year, Ruen’s educational program expanded from five schools to the entire district’s 13 schools when she was awarded a coastal management grant from the Department of National Resources. Currently, the budget of the entire project is close to $90,000. More than 42 teachers and about 1,500 students total will participate in the program.

The series of field trips actively engages students with nature. The kids participate in tasks such as cleaning up a beach, touring a water treatment facility, and working with watershed models. Through the curriculum’s assignments, students learn how to collect data and monitor aspects of sites, such as litter control.

Ruen also teaches kids a form of dance that expresses water in motion, which she calls “lake dance.”

“I’m not a politician, not a lawyer, not a scientist,” Ruen said. “So the thing that seemed available was teaching kids through movement. It was a logical deduction, and they have a lot of fun with it.”

The lyrical, interpretive movement of Ruen’s signature lake dance evokes the natural flow of rivers and waves. Ruen, who performed these dances long before she went into schools, says such poetic movement puts a creative twist on education.

“I know it’s a relief to get out of their seats,” Ruen said. “I get them outside as often as possible. There are kinesthetic learners who don’t get it until they act it out.”

Ruen first became enraptured with the environment after reading The Great Lakes Water Wars, a book detailing water rights and conservation of freshwater lakes in the Midwest.

“That book was really the catalyzing moment,” Ruen said. “My hope with this program is to have children grow up appreciating the Great Lakes and have some sense of global significance so they can write policy to sustain them.”

Since finishing that book, she has become hyper-aware of the precarious situation of the world’s resources. Living in the water-rich town of Evanston, she never thought of the world’s scarcity of usable water. Now, she considers every wasted drop of storm water and leaking faucet. She has no room to be what she considers “oblivious to the peril of the future.”

“I guess I just feel a strong kinship with the parts of creation that seem to thrive in spite of humans,” Ruen said. “Almost everything has been touched, and all of those wild things that continue on in spite of us, I feel connected to.”

Uprooting and rooting: Restoring Evanston’s urban forest

Fall color near the Grosse Point Lighthouse. Image by Tom Gill.

The battle to revive Evanston’s tree population continues. As plagues attack Evanston’s trees, city officials find themselves enmeshed in an effort to revitalize the urban forests that line Evanston’s streets and fill its public parks.

An ongoing depletion of trees has plagued Evanston for more than a decade now. Since then, workers have been hacking away at infected or dead trees while city officials struggle to stay afloat with planting as many trees as it has been taking down.

“It’s not an ideal situation at all,” said assistant director of Public Works/Forestry Paul D’Agostino. “We have always been replanting trees, but the amount of trees we started losing jumped way up.”

Each year, Evanston cuts down 700 trees—but only budgets enough to plant 500 new trees. Thus, a gap has formed. The new trees are also mostly 2-inch diameter trees, as larger ones are significantly more expensive. And with neighboring communities facing similar threats, prices of mature trees have spiked.

The result is an obvious reduction in overall tree cover in Evanston.

In public property, there are about 34,000 trees in the city, with 830 of them only stumps, according to D’Agostino. As thousands of trees have been chopped down and replaced in the past decade, the total inventory of trees present in Evanston public property has decreased since the beginning of the project by about 500. It is what D’Agostino said he considers for now “not losing much ground,” but still “getting behind.”

The average cost to get a tree in the ground is about $375, according to D’Agostino. He noted that prior to the sudden tree loss, usually a tree could be replaced in less than a year. Now, it takes two years for that site to emerge at the top of the city’s planting list.

“My limit is that I don’t have enough money to buy more trees,” D’Agostino said.

The trouble intensified in the summer of 2006, when the Emerald Ash Borer beetle was confirmed present in a portion of Evanston’s ash tree population. Although the infected areas were quarantined, in two years the infestation had spread all over Evanston, leading the city to increase its planting budget to keep up with the losses.

Since then, the public ash tree population has reduced from about 4,200 to 1,000. With no known defense against the Emerald Ash Borer existing, the ash population will likely die out.

Many of these ash trees are large in diameter, like most of the other trees being cut down. Even if the city could keep up with replanting where ashes have been cut down, there still will be a significant period of sparse tree coverage in many neighborhoods.

Ash trees also had made up 13 percent of the tree population before the infestation. Many other Evanston neighborhoods were also planted with only one kind of tree, leaving those streets vulnerable to a similar menace.

The city has since changed its policy, stating that it will ensure each species doesn’t make up more than 10 percent of the total tree population.

A similar plague occurred around 2004, when the Dutch Elm Disease fungus infected elm trees in Evanston. While the city has since vaccinated against the threat with a 97% effectiveness rate, there are still many mature elm trees that will not survive.

D’Agostino said the city is looking at breeds that can tolerate urban conditions well, including air pollution and salt spray. Some successful breeds so far include different types of oaks, the Kentucky coffee tree and hybrid elms.

A year ago, the city initiated fundraising for this cause, using methods such as crowd funding, donor letters and fundraising at events. The endeavor, called the I Heart Evanston Trees campaign, raised short of $25,000 and secured an extra 100 trees for the city. D’Agostino said due to the program’s success, it was restarted for 2014-2015 with a goal of $25,000 by next spring.

“There’s still a lot more that can be done,” D’Agostino said during a meeting with SEA. “Last year, we were closer to keeping up with removals. We will catch up when we remove most of the ash trees.”

EvPLA seeks support to keep Harley Clarke mansion in public ownership

Harley Clarke Mansion. Photo by Flickr user Teemu008

Do you think it's important that the Harley Clarke mansion remains in public hands? If so, our friends at the Evanston Parks and Lakefront Alliance say now is the time to make sure your Alderman, Mayor and City Manager know it.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) is currently negotiating with the City to purchase the Harley Clarke mansion to house the IDNR Coastal Management public education program and offices. This use is consistent with the goals of the Evanston Lakefront Master Plan, unanimously passed by the City Council in 2008.

We think this is a great way to keep this beautiful property in public ownership, while providing a path to restore and maintain it for years to come.

But what happens if IDNR decides to sell the property someday? We'd like to ensure that the property remains in public hands, and we think this should be part of the terms of its sale.

If you agree, please contact your city officials. You can look up your ward and contact your alderman here.

Your support makes a huge difference. 

Don't Miss Streets Alive! September 7

This Sunday, September 7 Streets Alive! hits Main Street and you’re invited. The City of Evanston will be closing down Main Street to automobiles from Hinman Avenue to the Robert Crown Center from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. The street will be packed with fun, interactive activities, games, performances and demonstrations for people of all ages! Come enjoy Main Street like never before at this “open-streets” event.  We will have local bands performing, food trucks, basketball, four square, limbo and much, much more! Check it out.

SEA is proud to sponsor Streets Alive! Stop by and visit our booth in the 500 block of Main Street.

Medical Marijuana Dispensary Coming To Evanston?

No, we’re not blowing smoke. It’s true. On August 11th, Evanston City Council voted to agree to lease City-owned property at 1800 Maple Avenue to a medical marijuana dispensary. But don’t call your doctor for an appointment.

There’s a catch: Medical marijuana is not legal in the state of Illinois. Yet. Given the state law’s requirements and limitations, there’s no telling if/when the law will pass and a license will be granted. The firm that will operate the dispensary will be selected by the state later this year, after an open application process in the fall. And now, Evanston will be ready with this accessible location in the 2nd Ward.

According to a recent article in the Evanston RoundTable, Johanna Nyden of the City’s Economic Development department said that a tax of 4% could bring in anywhere from $30,000 to $200,000 annually. She explained that wide range is due to the uncertainty of something completely new and untried to Illinois. But if other states are any indication, revenue could exceed many expectations.

“If someone is going to open it up, why not us?” said Alderman Mark Tendam of the 6th Ward. “If there’s money to be made...it’s a good revenue source for the city.”

Depending on legislation at the state level, Evanston’s first and only medical marijuana dispensary could open as soon spring of 2015. 

How SEA sees it

If managed and supervised properly according to state mandates, this dispensary could be a valid and viable source of revenue for Evanston. Why let those potential taxes go up in smoke?