All Environment Content
Ethanol plant work not likely this year
CHAMPAIGN – A proposed ethanol plant in northwest Champaign likely won't be built this year, according to city officials.
Champaign Planning Director Bruce Knight said company officials have indicated they do not intend to proceed with construction this year.
Scientists look for best feed from ethanol byproduct
URBANA – Ethanol is the star on the agriculture stage now, but behind the scenes, University of Illinois animal scientists are casting the spotlight on its not-so-sexy byproduct.
Resolution drafted to authorize studies for removal of dam
DANVILLE – Feasibility studies may be the on horizon for removal of a low-head dam on Vermilion River.
The city's public works committee will consider a resolution authorizing the mayor to pursue engineering studies and evaluation of the dam's deconstruction. The resolution will also permit officials to seek funds for the study.
Thanksgiving in Urbana: Turkeys captured
URBANA – Chet Utterback was at the poultry club's omelet breakfast Tuesday when his cell phone rang.
The turkeys were back, his wife told him.
Spring brings out aggression in tom turkeys
URBANA – Never mess with a wild tom turkey during mating season.
Stacy Lischka of the Illinois Natural History says male turkeys are feeling a bit of urgency about now.
Official: Enjoy geese from afar
URBANA – Halt! Put down that marshmallow! Don't feed that fowl!
Signs have gone up at Crystal Lake Park warning animal lovers that they're not doing the geese any favors by teaching them human flavors.
Five cities named Tree City USA winners
SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois Department of Natural Resources on Monday named Champaign, Paxton, Rantoul, Savoy and Urbana as 2007 Tree City USA winners.
The designation recognizes communities that invest at least $2 per resident in forestry programs; adopt an ordinance outlining forest management and tree care standards for the community; conduct an annual Arbor Day tree planting ceremony; and legally designate a city official or volunteer to serve as tree advocate.
Farmers prepare to meet biofuel demand
DANVILLE – This year, farmer Greg Learnard intends to plant more corn than he usually does, because he's anticipating an increased demand from local ethanol plants.
Learnard of Catlin normally plants 1,000 acres of soybeans and 1,000 acres of corn, but this year, he'll plant an extra 100 acres of corn and only 900 acres of soybeans.
Students get 'green' lesson from Frerichs
OAKWOOD – After viewing a documentary film about global warming, 88 students in Cammie Richter's eighth-grade social studies class at Oakwood Junior High School took their teacher's advice and wrote their local legislators – never thinking they might actually get a response.
Richter's class viewed former Vice President Al Gore's Academy Award-nominated documentary about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth," during a geography unit that included climate change.
Two horses found dead east of Tuscola
TUSCOLA – Fourteen horses have been taken to new homes after sheriff's deputies and state animal investigators discovered two dead horses at a horse training center in rural Douglas County.
According to a Douglas County sheriff's report, deputies were helping serve an eviction notice at the Three Crosses Learning Center on U.S. 45 east of Tuscola on Saturday when they discovered two dead horses and several others in distress.
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