Latest / Kendall County News - Shaw Local / $50K in prizes, $3K toward utility bills, part of Yorkville’s national water conservation challenge

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$50K in prizes, $3K toward utility bills, part of Yorkville’s national water conservation challenge · Kendall County News - Shaw Local

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  Speaker 1: Fifty thousand dollars in prizes three thousand dollars toward utility
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  Speaker 1: bills part of Yorkville's National Water Conservation Challenge. Written by
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  Speaker 1: Joey Weslow, this article is being read by an automated
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  Speaker 1: voice brought to you by Everlett. Fifty thousand dollars in
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  Speaker 1: eco friendly prizes, including three thousand dollars toward home utility bills,
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  Speaker 1: are up for grabs as Yorkville once again enters the
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  Speaker 1: National Mayor's Challenge for Water Conservation. Yorkville has shined in
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  Speaker 1: past national competitions, placing fifth nationally in both twenty twenty
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  Speaker 1: two and twenty eighteen inches their city population category. Each year,
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  Speaker 1: around two thousand cities compete in the competition, helping to
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  Speaker 1: reduce their fresh water consumption by billions of gallons, cut
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  Speaker 1: millions of pounds of waste sent to landfills, and prevent
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  Speaker 1: thousands of pounds of hazardous waste from entering local watersheds.
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  Speaker 1: According to a release bot the city, the challenge runs
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  Speaker 1: from April first minus thirty. To participate in the competition,
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  Speaker 1: residents consign up at my Water Pledge comm where they
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  Speaker 1: can select from different eco sustainable pledge options designed to
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  Speaker 1: conserve water, reduce pollution, and save energy. This challenge is
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  Speaker 1: a great way for cities large and small to do
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  Speaker 1: our part for the planet and reward our residents for
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  Speaker 1: doing the right thing. Mayor John Purcell said cities with
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  Speaker 1: the highest percentage of residents taking the pledge in their
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  Speaker 1: population category will win prizes. One school in each winning
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  Speaker 1: city will also receive prizes. Participants can monitor how their
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  Speaker 1: pledges impact local water issues, reduce utility costs, and enhance
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  Speaker 1: community health. Residents can also participate in the My Volunteer
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  Speaker 1: Water Project, a year round platform that offers hands on
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  Speaker 1: opportunities to support sustainability through home, community and workplace projects.
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  Speaker 1: The city said in the release, the more projects completed,
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  Speaker 1: the greater the city's chances of winning the challenge in April.
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  Speaker 1: The annual competition is hosted by the nonprofit Wiland Foundation
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  Speaker 1: in partnership with the US Environmental Protection Agency. As Yorkville
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  Speaker 1: continues to experience a population boom, the city is transitioning
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  Speaker 1: to using Lake Michigan water because the underground aquifer was
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  Speaker 1: being sourced at an unsustainable rate. Underground aquifers can take
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  Speaker 1: tens or hundreds of thousands of years to replenish once
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  Speaker 1: harvested unsustainably. The city has also recently greenlit several massive
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  Speaker 1: data center projects, which residents have criticized for their water consumption.
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  Speaker 1: To help conserve water, some of the projects have been
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  Speaker 1: designed to be air cooled in a closed loop system,