- [Announcer] This program is made possible in part by the Backlund Charitable Trust established to educate and create awareness of environmental issues.

- Welcome to our latest edition of "EcoWatch" on WTVP.

I'm Mark Welp.

This program is dedicated to bringing you the latest environmental stories impacting our area and the state of Illinois.

We're going to introduce you to people finding unique ways to make the Land of Lincoln a better place for mankind and animals by protecting plants, water, soil, and crops.

Let's get started.

(poignant music) (poignant music continues) This episode, we look at how the Trump administration and Illinois lawmakers are shaping environmental laws, an update on protecting the Mahomet Aquifer and our drinking water.

Plus, we show you how vertical indoor farming works and why it could be part of the future of growing crops.

But first, big cuts to the agencies that protect our environment, food supply, and more.

The Trump administration is cutting budgets and jobs in the Environmental Protection Agency and the US Department of Agriculture.

At the same time, existing energy regulations are now being repealed, and there's now a push for more gas, oil, and coal development.

- Under my administration, we're putting America first.

It's very simple.

America's always gonna be first.

On my first day in office, I terminated the green new scam.

I declared the national energy emergency and withdrew from the unfair one-sided and extremely costly to the United States only Paris Climate Accord.

- I recently talked with Congressman Eric Sorensen, who represents parts of Peoria, Henry, Fulton, and McLean Counties.

Even though President Trump has called climate change a scam, Sorensen says our country shouldn't accept that as fact.

- The rest of the world understands the science.

The rest of the world is innovating.

The rest of the world is using science to their advantage.

We need to make sure that we're doing that in the United States because if we were to pause what we're doing, then we're just ceding the opportunity to other countries, and we need to make sure that we don't do that.

- The president also issued an executive order that directs the attorney general to stop the enforcement of state laws regarding climate laws that target the use of fossil fuels.

Here in Illinois, Governor Pritzker has committed to a goal of one million electric vehicles on the road by 2030 and net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

It's unclear how the Trump executive order will affect the Land of Lincoln, but you can bet court battles are coming.

Another federal agency is cutting budgets and workers, the US Department of Agriculture.

The USDA made headlines in February when it cut 6,000 probationary workers nationwide.

19 of those people work at the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria, better known as the Ag Lab.

In March, an independent federal board ordered the USDA to reinstate those 6,000 employees after finding reasonable grounds to believe the agency acted illegally in firing them.

But the problems aren't over yet for the Ag Lab.

Ethan Roberts, the local president of the union representing Ag Lab workers, says 31 of the lab's 168 employees have taken the USDA's Deferred Resignation Program.

That means 18% of the lab's employees are gone, and more are looking for new jobs.

Now, Robert's told me that and two more things.

One, he says people didn't want to leave but felt anxious about their futures.

And two, he says the USDA has created an environment of fear and intimidation.

The Ag Lab is most well known for developing the mass production of penicillin in the 1940s, but it also works on ways to improve ag production, food safety, and environmental quality.

Many politicians in Illinois are working to make sure the lab stays up and running.

- The good news is the courts have stepped in and said once again the Trump administration has overstepped in closing these jobs down.

You know, this Ag Lab may sound, and I described the projects.

They sound so farfetched you wonder, "Would we really miss that?

Can't the farmers take care of themselves?"

Well, the honest answer is they need help in research, good research, and the Ag Lab in Peoria is one of the best.

- But the Ag Lab is one of only five in the entire country, and we have to make sure that if there is a cut in funding, it doesn't happen here.

And so what we need to do is be out front of what are the things that we do here at the Peoria Ag Lab, and then we need to shout it out so that people understand what the value is so there isn't someone in Washington that decides, "Oh, I've never heard of the Peoria Ag Lab.

Just cut that out."

That's what we're seeing right now, is these blanket cuts in the federal government, and we need to make sure that those blanket federal cuts don't make it back home.

I'm grateful that Congressman LaHood and I have been able to work together to increase the significance of it.

- One local nonprofit organization is feeling the effects of federal grant funding cuts, and that's the Ecology Action Center in Normal.

The Environmental Sustainability Agency works with local governments in McLean County on waste disposal, recycling, energy efficiency, and more.

Executive Director Michael Brown says federal grants do not impact the day-to-day operations of the EAC but do impact bigger-picture projects.

One federal EPA grant is still in place for now, and one has been terminated.

- The first that we received was a grant under the Air Quality Monitoring for Communities Program.

And so I believe that grant was for approximately $410,000, a three-year project with EAC as the lead on that grant in the project with Illinois State University as a sub-awardee under the EAC working very closely with the Environmental Health and Community Health Departments at ISU.

And then we had other partners on that such as Bloomington-Normal NAACP, the local governments and other social service agencies, other nonprofits.

And the intent of that project was essentially to collect more and better air quality data, especially in the environmental justice areas of our community, which are essentially areas where there's known to be disproportionate environmental impact and disproportionate public health impacts from that environmental pollution on the residents living there.

'Cause prior to this grant, there was one air quality monitor, one official air quality monitor, for all of McLean County.

And McLean County is the largest county in the state of Illinois by size.

And yet to have one air quality monitor that is supposed to tell us about the air quality and the pollution for all of residents in all areas of McLean County, that just doesn't make sense.

That's just impossible for one sensor to be able to do that.

So with this grant, we had planned and did follow through with the installation of three air monitors in different parts of our community, two in West Bloomington, one in North Normal, and then also got a set of mobile air monitors.

So we have a second US EPA grant that is not only frozen, but is now completely terminated.

This grant was under the US EPA's Environmental Justice Cooperative Problem-Solving Program.

And so essentially the intent of that grant program is for communities to be looking at the needs of their communities, of specifically environmental justice areas within their communities where there is disproportionate impacts from pollution, from climate change, from other related issues, and work on collaborative solutions to address them.

And so under this grant, which was for, I believe $498,000, a three-year project with the Ecology Action Center as the lead, Illinois State University as a sub-awardee, McLean County Health Department as a sub-awardee, Mid Central Community Action and United Way McLean County, we were working to, first of all, do an assessment of various risks or threats to residents in environmental justice areas of our community, specifically tied to disproportionate impacts from, say, climate change.

We know just about two years ago there was a big flood event here in Bloomington-Normal.

They call it a 500-year flood.

During that event, a lot of residents on the West Side had raw sewage in their basements.

That was disproportionately on the West Side in West Bloomington, a known environmental justice area.

And that 500-year flood event, while I can't say for sure that that was a climate-induced event, we do know more significant weather events like that are going to become more frequent.

And then third, this grant was gonna help us pay for more tree equity, tree plantings.

And so tree plantings are known to be an extremely cost-effective way to deal with climate change when we look at their carbon sequestration ability.

They're extremely cost-effective in dealing with air quality issues.

They can remove a lot of different types of air pollution.

They can help reduce urban temperatures during extreme heat events, just the cooling impact, cooling effect that they have in urban areas.

And so we're trying to do more and more of our tree planting under our Tree Corps initiative in urban areas and in environmental justice areas.

So we are aware that the current administration is targeting DEI efforts, DEI initiatives, DEI programs, you know, across the board.

And so yes, the term environmental justice to them might be synonymous with DEI.

I myself completely don't understand, you know, why this would be a target, trying to address disproportionate public health impacts of pollution on vulnerable residents of our community.

I don't know what's unfair or inappropriate about that.

That's what we do.

And so if there's something unethical about that, then, yeah, that confuses me greatly.

The bigger threat of this is that these issues are not gonna be addressed.

They're just gonna be, you know... We're just gonna kick the can further down the road, the issues of air pollution and disproportionate impacts on local residents, the issues of climate change and increasing disproportionate impacts of that on residents in our community.

And so this was, you know, a unique and very much needed opportunity to finally tackle some of these bigger-picture issues that local funding alone won't support.

- In March, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul joined three other attorneys general in filing a lawsuit against the Trump administration to preserve federal grant dollars used for clean energy products.

Another project Michael Brown and the Ecology Action Center had been working on is a feasibility study looking into the possibility of a permanent hazardous household waste collection facility.

Recently the EAC presented its findings to the McLean County Land Use and Transportation Committee.

Brown says the study revealed the county has a significant need for a facility and that it would benefit Central Illinois.

The site would dispose of oil-based paint, paint thinner, and other toxic products.

Building a brand-new facility would cost between $3 and $6 million.

An existing building would be an option and would be cheaper.

Operational expenses could be 200 to $350,000 a year.

The feasibility study indicates a collection facility would be about 14,000 square feet on land covering a couple of acres.

As we told you in our last "EcoWatch" episode, Champaign County is raising money to build a collection facility.

All five of Illinois's current facilities are hours away from us.

The feasibility report is being shared with local governments to gauge their interest in moving forward.

Now some updates on Illinois legislation that will affect the environment.

On the last "EcoWatch," we told you a million people in 14 Central Illinois counties rely on the underground Mahomet Aquifer for their drinking water.

And there are some people worried that the aquifer could be contaminated by carbon capture and storage which has been happening around Decatur.

Now the Illinois Senate has passed a bill that prohibits carbon sequestration activity near a sole-source aquifer.

While many environmentalists applaud the bill, others say it's not enough.

Originally, the plan included the aquifer's project review area, but the revised bill limits the ban to the sole-source aquifer area, which is a smaller area.

The Illinois Manufacturers' Association is against the bill, saying the technology is safe and will help the environment.

The bill awaits a vote in the Illinois House.

Speaking of drinking water, Governor Pritzker has signed the Safe Public Drinking Water Act into law.

The goal is to protect people from toxins in drinking water such as PFAS or forever chemicals and 1,4-dioxane.

The Illinois EPA will conduct samples of community water supplies for 1,4-dioxane and develop rules on maximum contaminant levels.

Illinois will also adopt federal standards for PFAS.

That law takes effect January 1st.

Two state senators are proposing bills that would move us away from using environmentally harmful disposable plastics.

The Single-Use Plastic Bag Reduction Act would prevent large and mid-sized retailers from offering single-use plastic checkout bags to customers by 2029.

But it would allow them to offer recycled paper bags instead.

That bill is currently in the Senate.

- Lightweight single-use plastic ends up everywhere, littering the streets and highways, stuck in trees at parks and forest preserves, breaking down into microplastics in rivers and lakes.

Ultimately, it pollutes every natural resource we rely on and have in our communities.

That's why I am working to pass Senate Bill 1872.

The bill represents a balanced approach between sustainability and the needs of small businesses, and it is the first step toward reducing our heavy reliance on plastic.

Addressing the impact of plastic waste in our environment is a priority not just for myself, but for every community in Illinois.

We've seen other states and municipalities implement these strategies with positive results, and it's time for Illinois to join them.

- The law would exclude restaurants, gas stations under 5,000 square feet in size, and small independent retailers with fewer than 12 locations within Illinois.

The Disposable Food Container Act would prohibit the sale and distribution of polystyrene or styrofoam starting in 2030.

The Senate has approved the bill, and it's now headed to the House.

- According to the Ocean Conservancy, the International Coastal Cleanup crew has collected more than 57,000 pieces of polystyrene foam from Illinois beaches and waterways.

Because it is so lightweight and easily breaks apart into smaller pieces, polystyrene tends to drift away on currents of wind and of water.

Since it's used so much in disposable packaging, polystyrene is one of the largest causes of global pollution.

It also poses a threat to ecosystems that humans and animals rely upon.

Degraded polystyrene results in carcinogenic microplastic particles that end up in our food chain.

They are eaten by animals like fish and birds, who mistake the particles for food, and then may die as a result.

- Illinois has already banned the purchasing and distribution of polystyrene from foodware in all state facilities and agencies.

Climate change is having an effect on farming.

Severe weather, droughts, and soil health are just some concerns farmers are facing.

Now what if you could grow plants indoors away from the elements and protect the environment?

Illinois State University is preparing to do just that.

This is vertical farming.

- The main objective of the vertical farm is to bring technology and a learning environment that we don't have on campus for students who are interested in controlled environment and specialty crop agriculture.

So one of the things that actually justified the expense to bring the vertical farm to campus was we don't have a hydroponic growing system on campus.

We don't have LED grow light technology on campus.

And we don't have a means to bring many disciplines together, such as agriculture, family and consumer sciences in their food science program, technology for the instrumentation we're gonna see, and also an opportunity for the new College of Engineering on campus to be involved with the technical aspects of the vertical farm.

The positive aspects of this particular controlled environment is that you can grow 365 days a year in Central Illinois, and that means in December and January when we have snow outside.

It's set up in such a way that the 320 square feet of growing space inside the container equates to about two to four acres of what a field production would be.

However, because it's a controlled environment, the water that is used to produce the plants can be recycled.

So we will actually use 95% less water to grow those plants than you would in two to four acres in the field production.

So that really adds to the sustainable aspect of it.

And the other great thing about this particular unit is it is a recycled freight farm container that was donated to the university.

So we're repurposing that with the whole mission of the Office of Sustainability and their focus of sustainability efforts on campus.

It is a completely sterile, completely enclosed environment.

The only thing that goes into the vertical farm are seeds and fertilizer.

And the only thing that goes out are the plants that we actually produce.

So we have systems in place to exclude insects from flying in and to exclude dust particles from flying in.

And all of the workers are going to first put on a lab coat and shoe booties and have their hands washed and have a hair net protection.

So once we start the plants, they will never be touched by human hands until they're used at the dining services or whoever the end user is with the final consumer actually consuming the product.

The negatives are it's quite a bit of a capital investment.

So brand-new, these particular growing units are well over $150,000.

However, we were very fortunate that our unit was actually donated to ISU, so that really alleviated the costs.

And there is installation costs as well.

But over the course of the long run, it is more of a long-term capital investment for growers looking for markets that are more specialty crops.

So another aim of this particular project, not only with student education, is also to educate entrepreneurs in the community and local growers as could this be something they could envision or investigate as incorporating into their operations?

So it'll be a model system, and we're actually gonna hopefully work with students in the College of Business for enterprise budgets and entrepreneurial models to see will this cost out for local growers for the markets they're actually selling to.

I think it's actually gonna become more and more popular as we start to see technology becoming less expensive and then as we also start to see more effects of climate change.

So in this controlled environment, it doesn't matter what the weather is outdoors.

Again, 365 a year, the weather and growing conditions on the inside of the farm will stay constant throughout that.

I also see it as becoming more and more popular when we start to become more and more aware of transportation costs and how far food is moved from where it's produced to where it's consumed.

So, as you can see, all you really need is a parking lot, and you can set a vertical farm or a freight farm on the particular location, and then you're growing food where it's actually being consumed.

Well, what we do, we hope to plant, start out with herbal crops in the vertical farm.

And the plan is going to be hopefully to start out with cilantro, basil, and parsley.

And the plan is to be able to provide those herbal crops for our campus dining services to incorporate them into the meals that are served in all of the dining services as well as UHI and Metcalf.

So how plants start their life in the vertical farm is as seeds.

So seeds come into the farm, and we start 'em in this area right here, which is a seedling nursery, which are shelves underneath this bench.

There are grow lights where the shelves are.

Each seed is gonna start in this plug tray with these... Let me see if I can get one on there.

With these compostable plugs.

So once they're seeded, there's a nutrient solution that floods up in this area that waters the trays from below because the trays have holes in the bottom.

They will flood up, water the seedlings.

Seeds are gonna spend about three to four weeks here before they get to a transplant size.

Once they get to that size, they're gonna be transplanted into these media inserts, which are almost like a coarse spongy material.

And there's a wicking material in the inside that the plugs are gonna be planted at about three to four-inch spacings and then pulled into this plastic tower.

The tower itself is about seven feet long, and the reason why it's called a vertical farm is once the tower is seeded, it's situated in a vertical nature and hung from a hook in the area behind me.

That area behind me, or 2/3 of the growing container, is where the vertical towers are located.

There are two rows of 64 towers on either side of the aisle, and the sets actually face inward to the hanging LED lights.

So these LED lights provide the wavelengths of light that plants need for photosynthesis.

So as you can see, they hook up on the tower.

Above the tower is piping that pumps up a nutrient solution.

Over each tower is a small drip emitter.

The nutrient solution drips down into each tower when the pump is turned on through the media.

Once it drains through the whole tower, it runs into a trough, and the trough gravity feeds back to the main nutrient tank, which is at the front of the unit.

Also critical to the vertical farm is how fertility is added to the nutrient solutions.

We have proportioners and sensors that are set up for the fertility amounts that are in the nutrient solution.

We have stock solutions and solutions that monitor the pH or help alter the pH of the nutrient solution.

These are injected into the nutrient reservoir tanks.

This tank is the small reservoir for the seedling nursery.

And if we walk down to the other end of the farm, this unit I'm standing on is a 140-gallon nutrient tank.

So the nutrient tank has pumps that will pump the solution up and feed the towers with the nutrient solution.

And it also has a small pump that will pump nutrient solution constantly past those sensors which monitor its level and add it when it needs to be added.

- Shipping containers aren't the only options for indoor vertical farming.

"Smithsonian" magazine reports nearly 20% of office space is empty in the US with more people working from home.

One developer says office spaces already have HVAC systems, and not many modifications need to be made to start farming.

It would also be cheaper to install farms instead of turning offices into residential space.

Thanks for joining us for "EcoWatch."

If you'd like to watch again, share with a friend, or watch past episodes, just to look us up at wtvp.org.

I'm Mark Welp.

See you again soon.

(poignant music) (poignant music continues) (poignant music continues) - [Announcer] This program is made possible in part by the Backlund Charitable Trust established to educate and create awareness of environmental issues.