Today on Eco Report, Environmental Correspondent Zyro Roze asks Hank Duncan, the City's Bicycle Pedestrian Coordinator, about recent changes in local infrastructure to address E-scooter misuse and other challenges relating to access for the disabled and providing alternative transit options for Bloomington residents and visitors.

And now for your environmental reports:

Columbus Looking at $2.3 million Solar Project at Wastewater Plant

Photo courtesy of City of Columbus.

Columbus City Utilities is planning a solar project at its wastewater plant with an estimated price tag of $2.3 million, though a tax credit is expected to lower the cost by around 30%.

We are looking at installing solar panels on our property at the wastewater treatment plant, said utilities engineer Ashley Getz. The array will be located west of the plant and be just under 2.5 acres.

According to CCU Executive Director Roger Kelso, the solar array will be located in a field that is utilities property, and they will not need to acquire additional ground for the project.

The one-megawatt system will allow CCU to cut energy purchasing at the plant by 30%, Getz said. It’s expected this will save them $140,000 for the first year. Savings in future years will depend on how much the cost of electricity increases over time.

-Norm Holy

'Indiana Bats Appear to be Thriving' at Vermont Colony 

Photo courtesy of Pinterest.

There’s hope for the Indiana bat. A colony has been found in Vermont. The bats' habitat, a 301-acre public forest, was conserved when the colony was discovered nearly 20 years ago — just before the onset of the devastating white-nose syndrome. While bats elsewhere have struggled to rebound, the Indiana bats in Hinesburg, Vermont appear to be thriving.

To wildlife experts, the colony's resilience is a testament to how conservation and good land management can help restore a species on the brink.

When the bats were discovered in Hinesburg in 2006, it marked the farthest point north and east that the species had ever been found. Members of the Hinesburg Land Trust and other conservation groups worked with state and federal officials to purchase the land, which was being sold by a longtime farming family, and succeeded in 2007, permanently conserving the bats' habitat.

The deal came just before white-nose syndrome began spreading across the region and decimating the local population. The fungus attacks hibernating bats, waking them and sapping their stores of energy and fat. Since arriving in Vermont in 2008, the disease has killed nearly 65 percent of Indiana bats. Where biologists once counted hundreds of the species, they were tallying fewer than 50. So when biologists went to catch, release and count the bats in Hinesburg, they were shocked when many instantly flew into their nets. Researchers caught between 700 and 800 that night.

The story did not comment about whether the bats had developed immunity to the white-nosed fungus, or whether they had lived isolated from other colonies.

-Norm Holy

Judge Rules That Montana Violated the Constitution for Failure to Consider Climate Change for Fossil Fuel Projects

Photo courtesy of the Wall Street Journal.

The New York Times reports that a group of young people in Montana won a landmark lawsuit on Monday when a judge ruled that the state’s failure to consider climate change when approving fossil fuel projects was unconstitutional.

The decision in the suit, Held v. Montana, coming during a summer of record heat and deadly wildfires, marks a victory in the expanding fight against government support for oil, gas and coal, the burning of which has rapidly warmed the planet.

As fires rage in the West,