Evanston residents have two Whole Foods Markets, a bike path and ample recycling bins. They also have four mayoral candidates who want to make it even easier to be green.
While the environment has not been the most crucial issue in this year’s election, the candidates said it is still an important one.
The possibility of building an offshore wind farm in Evanston has attracted public attention, and the mayoral hopefuls are thinking about other issues, they said in interviews this week.
Urban planner Jeanne Lindwall and small-business owner Barnaby Dinges are focused on conserving energy within homes and creating green jobs; Ald. Elizabeth Tisdahl (7th) is interested in revamping Evanston’s water treatment facility; and attorney Stuart Opdycke would like to see enforcement of the city’s Climate Action Plan.
Lindwall said personal changes such as installing more effective insulation and geothermal heating would save residents money and help the environment.
“Reducing energy costs puts more money in people’s pockets,” she said. “It’s not just a wind farm on the lake. It’s making sure it’s a win-win for everyone.”
Businesses that help residents conserve energy in their homes, also known as “weatherizing,” will increase jobs, the candidate said.
“It has a side benefit of building local businesses and creating jobs,” she said.
For Dinges, whose issue advocacy consulting firm works with Invenergy LLC, a Chicago-based company that builds wind farms, weatherizing buildings is also a priority over possible construction of a wind farm. He mentioned the free industrial space near Evanston Township High School as a place that could be used to train students in weatherizing homes, adding that it would create green jobs for residents.
Tisdahl said one of the environmental issues she is most concerned with is Evanston’s water treatment facility. The alderman said the building needed to be “rehabbed to the tune of $9 million” and that rehabilitation should include making the facility more environmentallyfriendly.
She said she would like to see some of the funding for this and other projects come from Northwestern, since the university uses Evanston’s water. She said another one of her objectives as mayor would be to require larger buildings to be certified by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, an organization that evaluates structures’ sustainability.
Opdycke said he wanted to see the Climate Action Plan, which the City Council approved unanimously last November, acted upon. The plan, passed with support from Tisdahl as well as other aldermen, includes more than 200 ways by which Evanston can make itself more environmentally friendly.
“I’m hoping that the environmental board will expand their mission to include this climate action plan and present initiatives going forward,” he said.
The candidates had varying views on the wind farm suggestion.
Lindwall said she would have to know more about whether or not wind is a sound environmental investment before supporting it.
She said she had researched inland wind farms in Illinois and was not sure if a wind farm in Lake Michigan would pose a particular advantage, though it might be a more “high-profile” project. Since the wind farm would add power to an energy grid that serves more than just Evanston, residents might be better served using conventional energy more carefully.
Opdycke said the wind farm, although an interesting idea, brings up several other concerns in addition to being hazardous to Evanston’s winged residents.
“You’ve got to get the Great Lakes Federation involved,” he said. “You’ve got to get Canada involved. Anything you do on the Great Lakes involves a lot of agencies.”
Dinges said he supported wind energy, but not necessarily from a farm in Evanston.
“I don’t work on something I don’t believe in,” Dinges said.
He said he would be more interested to see a wind farm at Lake Michigan’s southern tip, where it would be most efficient and still serve the city’s power needs.
Each of the candidates said the possibility of harnessing wind for energy would need further study, particularly investigation into the possible impact on wildlife.
“I don’t want to be killing birds,” Tisdahl said.
