By: Ava Ubaydi (Loyola Junior)
Students in black leotards flock to the windows of the Sarah Gabel Studio in Mundelein, mesmerized by the coordination of cranes, trucks, and workers, seemingly mirroring the choreography they execute in their Intro to Modern Dance course. In between exercises, opinions are shared about the Piper and Coffey Hall stormwater management project outside, the goal of which is to build new drainage, pumps, and storm traps under the plaza.
Due to the destructive nature of stormwater management, installation required existing flora, hardscape walkways, and a scenic fountain to be removed from the space, providing Loyola with an opportunity to reimagine the space however they pleased.
Unfortunately, The class unanimously agreed that the new design choice is an eyesore.
Sophomore Lucie Pitt said, “ It’s a more modern construction that they’re doing, but all the buildings around it are in the style of the 1920s. I don’t really understand why we got rid of the old thing.” The plaza’s modern architecture clashes with the surrounding buildings, whose easily identifiable style represents the history of the Rogers Park Neighborhood.
Regardless of differences in aesthetic preferences, the daily experiences of students and faculty at Loyola have been impacted by increased construction and beautification efforts on campus. What’s more, the immediate and predicted environmental impacts associated with construction projects raise major concerns for many.
The Loyola Facilities website explains that the Piper and Coffey Hall stormwater management project, “is one of many that the University continues to undertake each year to make our campus more resilient to climate change.”
However, with a $3.5 million budget, a construction timeline spanning a year, and immense waste of existing resources, one begins to wonder if an alternative, sustainable solution could have been reached using insights from the knowledgeable Loyola faculty and students.
Senior lecturer, Rev. Stephen Mitten, S.J., who specializes in conservation biology and ornithology, holds that the construction efforts have had substantial environmental impacts on Lakeshore campus. Students of Father Mitten can testify to his impassioned speeches in class about Loyola’s current groundskeeping practices and the impacts they have on our local ecosystem.
“Much pavement and cement has been put in the last year. That, plus the removal of and pruning of a lot of trees has a potential to turn the campus into an Urban Heat Island,” said Mitten.
The Urban Heat Island Effect (UHI) occurs when an area replaces natural land, which reflects incoming solar energy, with high concentrations of buildings, asphalt, and other impermeable surfaces that absorb the sun’s energy. The potential consequences of inadvertently transforming campus to an UHI would prove disastrous for native wildlife, as well as significantly decrease environmental quality for residents.
Detailed plans for the project are currently unavailable to the public, so the drains, pipes, and storm traps used cannot be individually evaluated for their sustainability. While the aim is to decrease runoff and its impacts on campus buildings, its construction is counterproductive to that goal. The addition of more paved surfaces in the plaza will decrease capacity for green space, resulting in low permeability, increased temperatures, and ironically more rain.
Construction is just one example of our campus’s ever changing environment. Day to day groundskeeping practices employed by Loyola Facilities heavily impact both human and animal environments.
Mitten, who has been tracking birds on campus for the last 10 years, said, “The current landscaping regime has reduced the number of individual birds as well as bird species on campus by 50-75%. What once was a bird haven has become a bird desert.”
Students are noticing this dramatic decrease in biodiversity alongside the loss of their favorite hideaways on campus.
Sophomore nursing major, Isabella Bournoy, laments over the loss of a lush oasis among the built environment of Chicago. “One of my favorite study/decompression spots on campus has been torn down for something new…I thought it was beautiful before,” said Bournoy.
Green spaces are important on college campuses, with one study finding a positive correlation between well-planned green spaces with students mental health and academic achievements.
Having a ‘third place’ to go apart from a building on campus, a dorm, or apartment, is essential for students’ wellness routines.
Bournoy called the plaza her fairy garden due to the abundance of flowers and a grand fountain central to the now fenced-in lot. Upon her return to campus in the fall of 2023, she discovered her sanctuary had been demolished, in its place was concrete pavement and benches entrapped by concrete retaining walls.
Landscape management on campus falls within the jurisdiction of the grounds department, who reach out to Director of Sustainability, Aaron N. Durnbaugh for insight on suitable plants with high wildlife value. Durnbaugh previously established a landscape committee made up of Loyola faculty and student representatives from the School of Environmental Sustainability, who aim to increase biodiversity, minimize inputs, enhance local ecosystems, and reduce waste through landscaping.
According to Mitten, progress on a wildlife and people friendly campus was made under the past director of landscaping, who listened to and cared about input from the committee. This relationship resulted in the creation of a comprehensive list of acceptable trees that provide both ecological and aesthetic value.
“How much they have incorporated these plantings into the landscape at Loyola is debatable,” said Mitten.
Unfortunately, under the direction of a new landscape department head, those efforts were supposedly scrapped, and the faculty student cohort ignored. Practices like tree removal, excessive pruning and mowing, structure-less plantings, and removal of all leaf litter lead to a decrease in the environmental quality of our campus.
Unsurprisingly, there is insufficient emphasis on utilizing plant species native to Illinois for landscape design. Native species are incredibly important, but often understated in landscape design, many opting for hybrid or non native species because they appear more manicured and picturesque.
Non-native flora do not provide the same level of habitat suitability for regional wildlife when compared to native species, which require minimal attention and inputs once established.
“Little focus is on reducing landscape maintenance efforts and cost,” said Mitten.
Prioritizing native species is both financially and environmentally smart since they are specifically suited for the climate and soil of its region. The resulting landscape design provides adequate habitats for native fauna, and prevents water runoff that construction efforts seek to fix.
The SES website provides information on planting best practices: “The roots of native plants reduce erosion and help absorb rainwater.” Adding that, “The plants also provide a habitat for birds, butterflies, and other fauna.”
Soil erosion decreases when native plants, which send their roots deep underground, are utilized. The roots prevent runoff from reaching impermeable surfaces to begin with, storing excess water internally for later use. While Loyola has recognized the capability of native plants in preventing floods and soil erosion, evidenced by the Sullivan Rain Garden, these efforts are sparse in comparison to complete reconstruction.
Campus wide adoption and advancement of permeable pavers, rain gardens, and green roofs would have lessened the effects of the severe flooding Loyola faced in 2022, when 34 buildings on Lake Shore Campus sustained water damage from flooding.
In reference to this phenomenon, Mitten said that Loyola’s, “Drainage landscaping is a disaster with mulch and dirt flowing right into the drainage sewers, and then they wonder why the building basements flood.”
While improved underground drainage infrastructure may be needed depending on the age and efficiency of existing systems, the current landscaping practices further exacerbate the probability of flooding. Despite this, the project descriptions for Piper/Coffey Hall and Cudahy Library insinuate that climate change is the main reason for the floods and consequent construction.
While climate change does influence the severity of weather events and can cause increased flooding in certain regions, it is counterproductive to default to it being the explanation for any weather related disaster. The current approach of demolishing existing structures, discarding established trees and plants, and spending millions on new construction, actually increases Loyola’s contribution to anthropogenic climate change.
Effective stormwater management, that doesn’t have as substantial of an impact on climate, can be achieved through non-invasive means.
“The amount of pruning of existing tree limbs reduces the amount of water held in the tree itself, that water goes into the drains,” said Mitten.
The increased probability of flooding arises when whole trees or branches are removed from campus landscapes, resulting in the water they would have stored internally instead accumulating on the ground.
He explained that some mature trees can store more than 100 Liters of water within their bark, trunk, limbs, and leaves, the same amount as one would use in a 10 minute shower.
Runoff from rainfall is worsened by the inability of concrete, asphalt, roofs, and other common impermeable pavements to absorb the large quantities.
Instead, the water, along with eroded soil, fertilizer, and pollutants, pools onto the surface and rushes into storm drains, weakening the systems capacity and flooding campus facilities.
Alternatively, that water could make its way into Lake Michigan along with the pollutants it picks up along the way, impacting both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.
The University’s construction of underground stormwater management is an anthropocentric adaptation strategy, one that prioritizes the humans impacted by flooding while understating the intrinsic value of native wildlife and their habitats within campus. All the while, proven mitigation strategies, which aim to decrease the need for construction in the first place, can be, and have been, implemented successfully.
No matter how multifaceted the issue, solutions that benefit all who are impacted by construction efforts are necessary. By facilitating relationships between groundskeeping and those dedicated to conservation efforts on campus, sustainable solutions can be found so that current and future residents enjoy the same quality of environment.
In order for Loyola to maintain its commitment to sustainability through construction and groundskeeping endeavors, Father Mitten’s advice is to “Make the campus more accessible for student biodiversity research.”
For more information about Loyola’s green stormwater management practices, please visit: https://www.luc.edu/features/lede/iesstormwater/
