Learning about climate change can be overwhelming, but there are ways Illinois residents can take action in their own community.

The University of Illinois Extension is hosting a free virtual webinar on Oct. 10.

It’s part of their Everyday Environment series. The goal is to teach people about how climate is changing in Illinois, and what residents can do about it.

Abigail Garafulo is an educator at the Extension. She says Everyday Environment gives people a community and helps them feel more hopeful.

“It’s empowering,” she said. “It gives you the opportunity to do something, and it gives you the tools to tell people about it.”

Topics include climate-friendly lawn care tips, like waiting for your grass to grow at least three inches before you mow or leaving fall leaves on the lawn as mulch. They’ll also talk about collective action as a community.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – The Curt Cignetti era of Indiana football is off to a strong start, but the difficulty level will continue to rise with Big Ten play the rest of the season.

The Hoosiers are 4-0 with wins over Florida International, Western Illinois, UCLA and Charlotte by an average of over 40 points. Next up, they host a 3-1 Maryland team, which has won three straight games against Indiana and has won at least seven games in each of the last three seasons.

“They got a lot of talent,” Cignetti said. “They’re a good football team. They’re very well coached. Will be a tremendous challenge.”

The Hoosiers and Terrapins both rank top-20 nationally in total passing yards this season, but there may be an additional obstacle as rain is currently forecasted for Saturday afternoon in Bloomington. With a win, Indiana would have its first 5-0 start since the 1967 season, when it made the Rose Bowl.

*** LIVE BLOG: And once the game starts, follow all the action on our live blog written by Todd Golden. To check that out, CLICK HERE.

The state of Iowa is suing a Washington state company and its executives for allegedly dumping tons of old wind-turbine blades around Iowa, in violation of the state’s solid-waste laws.

The lawsuit alleges that over the past seven years, Global Fiberglass Solutions has failed to properly dispose of decommissioned wind-turbine blades and stockpiled them at multiple locations across Iowa.

The lawsuit, filed in Iowa District Court for Jasper County, seeks payment of civil penalties and a court injunction to prevent any additional violations of the state’s solid-waste laws.

More: MidAmerican has removed tornado-collapsed turbines, but repair, replacement work ongoing

Global Fiberglass Solutions and its CEO, Donald Lilly, are named as defendants in the case, as is Ronald Albrecht, one of Global’s corporate officers. The defendants could not be reached for comment.

The lawsuit claims that General Electric, which provides parts and equipment for wind turbines, and MidAmerican Energy, which owns wind turbines in Iowa, each hired Global in 2017 to recycle their decommissioned wind-turbine blades.

MidAmerican and General Electric paid Global “millions of dollars,” the lawsuit alleges, to cut up, transport, and recycle the blades. Typically, such blades are about 170 feet long and weigh roughly 16 tons.

Rather than recycle the blades, the lawsuit claims, Global instead dumped roughly 1,300 of them at four locations around the state: Newton, Atlantic and a site in Ellsworth that was used to store blades that were originally dumped in Fort Dodge.

At one time, the lawsuit alleges, there were about 868 blades stored at the Newton site, which was a parking lot for the former Maytag factory. In Ellsworth, Global allegedly dumped 400 blades in a field, directly on the ground. In Atlantic, 22 blades were dumped in a field, directly on the ground, according to the lawsuit.

State says company never posted bond ensuring blades would be recycled

In 2018, according to the lawsuit, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources began fielding complaints about the Newton site. In 2020, the department sent Global a notice of violation related to the sites in Fort Dodge and Newton, indicating the blades were not being recycled as claimed and had simply been discarded. Later that year, a similar notice was issued regarding the Ellsworth site.

In December 2020, the lawsuit alleges, Global agreed to a consent order obligating the company to “take a number of concrete steps to purchase, install, and commence using recycling equipment” to process a certain percentage of the blades according to a series of deadlines.

The company also was required to post a $2 million surety bond to defray state expenses should the DNR be forced to remove and dispose of the blades because of Global’s lack of compliance with the consent order.

The DNR then agreed to extend the deadline for posting the bond until April 1, 2021.

Global never posted the bond, according to the lawsuit, and so the DNR ordered Global to stop accumulating wind-turbine blades in Iowa and to remove all of the blades scattered at the disposal sites. Global didn’t comply with that order and in July 2021 the matter was referred to the Iowa attorney general’s office for legal action.

The state’s lawsuit against Global was filed thie week of Sept. 22, three years after that referral. It seeks a civil penalty of up to $5,000 for each day the company was out of compliance with Iowa’s solid-waste laws.

State records indicate MidAmerican has removed and properly disposed of the blades once located at the Ellsworth site, while General Electric has removed the blades from Atlantic and Newton — a task that was completed in June this year.

Global and its executives “dumped and abandoned 1,300 decommissioned wind-turbine blades in stockpiles across the state,” Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird said in a news release.  “We are taking action to hold them accountable.”

Find this story at Iowa Capital Dispatch, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: kobradovich@iowacapitaldispatch.com.