Special Edition: MCAP Award Winners for 2019
The Minnesota Climate Adaptation Partnership (MCAP) hosted the annual statewide conference last week on January 22nd at the University of Minnesota St Paul Campus. You can learn more about this conference at the Water Resources Center web site.
Each year MCAP presents awards for outstanding accomplishments
in the area of climate adaptation. The
awards cover four categories: Business, Institutional, Organizational, and
Individual.
I had the honor to host the Awards Program and I wanted to
highlight the wonderful award winners in this special edition of Minnesota
WeatherTalk. You can read more online
about the efforts of these people at the MCAP Awards Summary.
In the Business Category we have a wonderful example of
collaboration from diverse expertise, as well as deployment of
interdisciplinary knowledge and technology that created the first biosolar roof
top in Minnesota upon the Guardian Building in downtown St Paul. The collaborators include the Capitol Region
Watershed District (with grant monies), Sustology (consultants in
sustainability), AD Greenroof (green roof consultants), (Hanging Gardens a
Milwaukee-based green roof consultant), Sundial Solar (solar photovoltaic
consultants), and AWH Architects. The
biosolar roof on the Guardian building finished November of last year provides
watershed protection, renewable clean energy, reduces the urban heat island,
and establishes pollinator habitat. It
will serve as a model for the design and deployment of urban roof technology
for years to come. Craig Wilson and John
Greene are here to pick up this award.
In the Institution Category our winner is the 2019 Minnesota
State Hazard Mitigation Plan-a collaboration of Minnesota Homeland Security and
Emergency Management with the Geospatial Analysis Center of the University of
Minnesota-Duluth (U-Spatial). It is the
first statewide Plan of any kind to comprehensively integrate climate change
and climate adaptation knowledge and data.
The Plan was adopted in March of 2019 and will be used by counties as a
basis for their local hazard mitigation plans, and it will undoubtedly be used
by other states our region as model for integrating climate change and
adaptation knowledge into their plans for hazard mitigation.
Congratulations and work well done. Jennifer Nelson from the Department of Public
Safety-Homeland Security and Emergency Management and Stacey Stark, Director of
Geographic Information Systems Lab at UM-Duluth picked up the award.
For the Organization Category we have a salute to the great
work from the partnership of the Mississippi Park Connection and the Science
Museum of Minnesota. They took an idea
planted by the MPCA and launched a major effort to establish multiple gravel
bed tree nurseries and educate the public about the benefits of using them to
grow resilient trees. A gravel bed nursery
gives saplings a head-start on successful transplant as trees show less shock
and higher survivability and at a reduce cost over the use of containerized or
balled saplings. 6,000 bare root trees
were planted along the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area,
including 300 in an area where they replace ash trees lost to Emerald Ash
Borer. As we journey through climate
change in coming years, we must broaden the use of tree canopy cost effectively
and especially in the urban environment.
This project has been successful in securing investment for continued
efforts in expanding gravel bed tree nurseries well into the future. Bravo! Mary Hammes and Pat Hamilton picked up the award.
In the Individual Category the MCAP award goes to a well
known and highly respected person known throughout the state as MPR’s chief
meteorologist Paul Huttner. Paul has
earned the trust and praise of citizens across the great state of Minnesota for
his meteorological expertise, not only to deliver a correct forecast (most of
the time), but also for his ability to provide insights and knowledge about
what went into the forecast. But since
2013 Paul has broadened his contributions to MPR in developing “ClimatCast”, a
one of a kind weekly program which features knowledge and expertise about our
changing climate, its impacts, and how we might adapt to climate changes, and
move in the direction of mitigating the future pace of climate change. He has merged the disciplines of meteorology,
climatology, and journalism to bring us all greater knowledge about the issue
of climate change and its impacts in our own state, challenging us individually
and collectively to think about things we can do to slow the trajectory of
change, and make our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren more
hopeful. Paul Huttner received the award
and thanked his MPR colleagues.
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