Indiana

Collaborating on Climate Action | Indiana Environmental Reporter

Published

3 years ago

June 1, 2022

Collaborating on Climate Action | Indiana Environmental Reporter

Northwest Indiana, dwelling of metal mills, BP and Albanese Sweet manufacturing unit, can be the house of Indiana’s largest greenhouse fuel stock and sustainability effort.

“The Northwest Indiana regional effort has grouped collectively 13 native governments throughout three counties to concurrently measure their greenhouse fuel emissions and develop a regional account of all emissions inside the three counties,” mentioned Steve Chybowski, the resilience cohort coordinator with Indiana College’s Environmental Resilience Institute

The cohort hopes to concentrate on community-oriented methods to restrict the quantity of greenhouse gasses produced within the area whereas encouraging waste discount and vitality effectivity. The cohort’s report was finalized in early Might and might be launched on the NWI Area Resilience web site later.

In accordance with Connie Wachala, a Highland resident and volunteer who helped encourage the hassle, the challenge has many advantages.

“Measuring emissions offers a group a baseline measurement by which they will plan the right way to decrease them; they will higher perceive the place emissions will be diminished, thereby saving cash,” Wachala mentioned. “The cash saved by decreasing emissions will be reinvested in different tasks that profit the group.”

The Northwest Indiana Area Resilience began when Wachala and Kathy Sipple, a contractor for Earth Constitution Indiana and the creator of the podcast 219 GreenConnect, went to the Local weather Management Summit in Goshen, Indiana, and heard Andrea Webster, an IU ERI skilled, converse. The summit, organized by ECI, impressed them to start out being lively in their very own communities. (Full disclosure: Youth Environmental Press Workforce is an ECI program.)

Organizing a local weather initiative takes a whole lot of communication and teamwork, which is the place Sipple got here in. Sipple hosted weekly Zoom conferences for residents. The residents then reached out to their native governments and defined to them what the cohort was attempting to do.

“Speaking with governments, you begin with one particular person, then you definately go to the following, then you definately get handed off to a different that it’s important to speak to… It’s a complete course of that takes a very long time,” Sipple mentioned.

The stock was initially projected to take 10 weeks, however because of the complexity of gathering the data, it took longer. With six school interns overlaying 13 cities and three counties, the work was intensive. Two municipalities, Hammond and Portage, joined even after the unique 10 weeks had come to a detailed.

In all, 13 municipalities in Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties joined the initiative. Gary and Michigan Metropolis beforehand went by way of the method with ERI, setting an instance for different cities within the area.

“Beforehand, the variety of individuals in our regional cohort was the quantity in our total state,” Sipple mentioned. “It’s huge now. We needed to get artistic with the right way to do the stock as a result of it was so massive. Most interns do just one stock, whereas ours did two or three every.”

Northern Indiana Regional Planning Fee performed a vital half in serving to the separate cities work collectively. In accordance with its web site, NIRPC is “a regional council of native governments serving the residents of Lake, Porter, and LaPorte counties in Northwest Indiana. NIRPC offers a discussion board that permits the residents of Northwest Indiana to handle regional points regarding transportation, the surroundings, and financial improvement.”

Wachala, the Highland activist, mentioned, “We’re all so shut collectively as communities, it’s very totally different from different elements of the state the place smaller cities are extra unfold out. We’re many alternative cities and cities shut collectively, so we needed to use [to IU’s program] regionally, and we knew we’d must have an company (like NIRPC) coordinate this.”

Coordinating among the many totally different age teams is also a precedence.

“It’s necessary to take the intergenerational method as a substitute of only a bunch of younger individuals or a bunch of previous individuals as a result of then you’ll be able to say, ‘Your complete citizenry needs this: How will you say no?’” Sipple mentioned.

Doing such an intensive stock, nonetheless, got here with some difficulties.

Julianne Roser, an environmental and ecological engineering pupil at Purdue and one of many key interns for the research, defined the challenges the research confronted.

“We have been attempting to determine the right way to collect knowledge from 14 [at the time] totally different communities. We needed to request knowledge from many individuals, so the quick timeframe was troublesome. Organizing and getting what we wanted within the 10 weeks was our greatest problem. The six of us actually got here collectively and received the information to make the stock work out,” Roser defined.

To get outcomes, the interns checked out data from the totally different communities and targeted on totally different sectors — residential vitality, industrial vitality, business vitality, transportation and cellular sources, strong waste, wastewater therapy, agriculture, forestry and land use, and course of and fugitive emissions. From these sectors the interns extrapolated info on CO2, methane and nitrous oxide.

From the outcomes, municipalities will concentrate on working collectively to scale back air pollution. By the ERI program, communities might be guided by way of this a part of the method.

“We’re hoping this received’t be a stand-alone challenge however that it will likely be one thing that we will replace virtually like how a census is up to date,” Roser mentioned.

IU’s Chybowski mentioned, “There are different regional local weather motion efforts occurring all through the nation, akin to in Southeast Florida, the metro D.C. area, Denver and Chicago, however it is a first for Indiana, and it’s nonetheless a comparatively new and novel method to local weather motion nationally. We’re excited to see this method developed in Indiana and to see native governments collaborating on local weather motion.”

Olivia Mapes is a senior at Lake Central Excessive College. An earlier model of this story appeared in Lake Central Pupil Information.

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Indiana

Latest forecast: How much snow will Indiana get Friday? When will it fall?

Published

9 hours ago

January 10, 2025

Press Room

Latest forecast: How much snow will Indiana get Friday? When will it fall?

The Bloomington area will get more snow today. Here’s how much the National Weather Service now expects to fall and when.

How much snow will Monroe County get Friday?

Aaron Updike, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Indianapolis said the Bloomington area is expected to get between 2 and 4 inches of snow.

Southern parts of Indiana could see even more, with Bedford projected to get close to 4 inches and areas closer to Louisville possibly seeing 6 inches.

When will the snow fall today in the Bloomington area?

Updike said the NWS expects the snow to begin around 11 a.m. and end about 12 hours later. However, he said, the day will bring periods of lulls and peaks, though those are more difficult to predict.

Generally, Updike said, the heaviest accumulation will occur from mid-to-late afternoon, around 2 to 6 p.m.

He urged commuters to take extra time and care, as they may experience slippery roads and sidewalks on their way home.

What kind of snow will be falling in Indiana on Friday?

Updike said the snow should be light and fluffy. The NWS expects only light wind, with gusts of 10 to 15 mph, which means the area should not expect to see much drifting snow.

How cold will it get in the Bloomington area tonight?

The NWS projects that the cloud cover will hang around the area for a while, which will contribute to temperatures falling only to about 20 degrees.

Is there a chance of snowmelt any time soon in Indiana?

Updike said temperatures should rise to near freezing on Sunday, and the area also might see some pockets of sunshine, which should help melt some snow especially on pavement and roads.

However, he said temperatures will not rise enough in the next few days to melt all of the snow.

Boris Ladwig can be reached at bladwig@heraldt.com.

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Indiana

Indiana Fever linked to trade for 2-time All-Star

Published

17 hours ago

January 10, 2025

Press Room

Indiana Fever linked to trade for 2-time All-Star

Satou Sabally was immediately linked to the New York Liberty after announcing that she has played her final game for the Dallas Wings during Unrivaled Basketball’s media availability on Thursday. However, the Indiana Fever are another team who were recently mentioned as a possible trade suitor for the two-time All-Star, via Chloe Peterson of indystar.com.

Satou Sabally announced during Unrivaled media availability that she will not be returning to Dallas, and she has already communicated that with the franchise.
She could be a huge target for the Fever, if Indiana is able to put together a lucrative enough trade package.
— Chloe Peterson (@chloepeterson67) January 9, 2025

Sabally’s announcement was the primary discussion swirling around the WNBA world on Thursday. The Wings will have the option to core Sabally, which will likely lead to a trade given her comments on Thursday. The chances of Dallas simply letting Sabally walk in free agency while passing on the option to core her are slim, but Sabally will likely still end up with a new team for the 2025 season.

The question is which team will she end up with? The defending-champion Liberty have Satou’s sister Nyara Sabally on the roster, so that may catch Satou’s attention. Joining an up-and-coming team like the Fever may also entice Satou, though.

There will be other candidates aside from Indiana and New York, of course. The Fever and Liberty both make sense as possible trade destinations for Satou Sabally, however. At only 26 years old, Sabally features the ceiling of a true superstar. If she can stay healthy, Sabally can significantly impact any team she joins.

Fever could trade for Satou Sabally

Sabally would add more star-power alongside Caitlin Clark in Indiana. Clark instantly became one of the most popular players in the WNBA in her rookie season during the 2024 campaign. Adding a star or two would help Indiana, though.

The Fever reached the postseason but were quickly eliminated in the first round. Indiana’s future remains bright, but they need to upgrade the roster around Clark. Sabally would turn the Fever into serious contenders.

If the Liberty find a way to acquire Sabally, however, the rest of the WNBA may be in trouble. With Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu and Jonquel Jones already on the roster, the Liberty project to be a championship contender once again. Assuming Stewart returns, the Liberty will compete with or without Sabally, but adding her to the roster would turn New York into a super-team.

Sabally’s announcement on Thursday is already changing the landscape of the WNBA. Rumors will continue to swirl over the next few months. If Sabally is traded, which is seemingly expected at this point, whichever team acquires her will take a big step forward.

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Winter Weather Advisory issued for Friday morning across central Indiana

Published

1 day ago

January 9, 2025

Press Room

Winter Weather Advisory issued for Friday morning across central Indiana

It was the coldest morning of the season so far across Central Indiana. For Indianapolis, we had our coldest temperatures since January 21, 2024 with a low of 5°. Crawfordsville and Columbus both had balmy lows of -8°. The clear skies, light winds and fresh snowpack allowed more heat to be released into the atmosphere. For tonight, it will still be chilly. But, we’ll have increasing clouds overnight ahead of our next snowmaker.

Tracking our next snow

This behemoth of a weather maker prompts winter headlines across several states across the United States. This includes Winter Storm Warnings from Raleigh, North Carolina through Dallas, Texas. Some spots in the northern Dallas suburbs could approach half an inch of snowfall overnight and into Friday. We’ll get our share of the snow Friday, too and it will come with commute impacts. Winter Weather Advisory kicks in at 4:00 a.m. Friday and sticks with us through 4:00 a.m. Saturday.

Most of the Friday morning commute should be okay. However, the tail-end of the commute could see some snow showers starting SW and west of Indianapolis. Because of this, a few slick spots can’t be ruled out but those will be few and far between. That activity will gradually spread NE throughout the morning and afternoon. It will become a steady snow from that time and stick around through the Friday p.m. commute. We anticipate that the p.m. commute will come with slowdowns and headaches. So plan ahead!

The snow will taper through the evening before exiting into the overnight hours. When all is said and done, most will end up with 2-4″ of snow. This will be the story through much of Central Indiana. Less snow likely further NW but more possible south and southeast. Those spots could approach 5.0″ in spots.

This will continue what has been a busy winter season for Central Indiana. Since October 1st, Indianapolis has 12.0″ of snow under its belt. Compared to last year’s 2.2″ to date, we have 10″ more snow overall. It’s the most snow to date in 11 years. A typical season (October 1st to May 1st) sees 25.5″ for Indianapolis.

Cold (and more snow) follow

The cold temperatures aren’t going anywhere following Friday’s snow. High temperatures in the 20s will be around through the weekend. We’ll “peak” with highs near 30° Sunday ahead of a frontal boundary. This clipper system could bring some snow showers Sunday night into Monday but those chances are low. If any snow were to occur, amounts would be low.

That will pass through late Sunday into Monday which will give us our next cold blast. Temperatures will tumble during the day Monday setting the stage for more cold. Highs in the teens on Tuesday and Wednesday as we remain dry. Lows in the single digits with subzero wind chills are also likely.