Lipman, J. (April 20, 2006).
Thursday, April 20, 2006
By Jonathan Lipman
Staff writer
environmentalists who will help
their neighbors plant gardens, use public
transportation or make their
homes eco-friendly.
Mayor Richard Daley announced
the creation of the Chicago Conservation Corps
as part of his 2006 environmental
agenda.
"It will be a grassroots
network of volunteers," Daley said Wednesday. "Each
neighborhood has its own needs.
We want the ideas to come from the people
who live there."
Volunteers would get
city-provided training in starting their own local
environmental projects and
would get access to city departments for
information and services.
Training for the corps, or
"C-3" as the city has nicknamed it, starts in
May. Volunteers will get
classes in core areas of environmental action as
well as help in developing
their own projects. People with less time to
commit can call the corps to be
matched with one-time projects in their
neighborhoods.
Several environmental groups
are working with the city on the project. Ben
Cox, executive director of the
Friends of the Forest Preserve, said the
corps is the "real
deal" and could boost the number of community gardens and
local cleanup projects you see
across the city.
"You're going to have
representatives in every neighborhood who are going to
be experts in whatever are they
decide (to train in)," Cox said. "They're
going to be able to get the
resources they need to get the job done. And
they'll be connected to a
network of experts in other projects."
The city itself is trying a new
environmental experiment by placing four
high-tech wind turbines atop
the
highest building-mounted wind
generators in the world.
"We're pretty excited
about that," Daley said.
The turbines, which look like
15-foot-tall vertical corkscrews made of clear
plastic, will cost $100,000 to
install and maintain and will generate enough
power for one or two courtrooms
in the 680-foot tall building. City
environmental commissioner
Sadhu Johnston said the point is to test the
technology.
"We don't know (how much
power they'll generate), because it's a test, these
are the first of their kind in
the world,"
expand it ... to as many
buildings as we can."
The turbines are built in
International and were designed
by
professor Bil Becker.
Becker said his vertical
turbines rotate slower, but with more force, than
traditional propeller-style
windmills. That makes them safer, quieter and
more stable. Propeller turbines
often spin so fast they rock off their base,
throw off dangerous chunks of
ice and are invisible to hapless birds who are
killed by the blades.
"We don't know what the
winds are. We know they're going to be significant
at the top of the
resource here."
For information about the
Chicago Conservation Corps, call (312) 743-9283.