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S1 E10 - Environmental Sustainability Feat. Bob Lindmeier · Inside the OSD

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  SPEAKER1: Today on Inside the OSD, we are talking about environmental sustainability.
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  I'm here with Bob Lindmeier, longtime Oregon community member and senior chief meteorologist at WKOW TV, and our business director,
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  Andy Weiland.
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  We are going to discuss climate change and how our district is doing its part to be and educate responsible environmental citizens.
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  SPEAKER2: Welcome to this episode of Inside the OSD podcast, where it's all about the kids.
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  Here is your host, lifelong educator, and our superintendent, Dr.
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  Leslie Bergstrom.
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  SPEAKER1: I would like to start our conversation by welcoming you to Inside the OSD, Bob.
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  I'm here with Andy Wyland, our business director, and we're delighted to have you and excited for this episode and to hear about your work and how it connects
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  to our district's value statement regarding environmental sustainability.
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  And you've lived in our community for a very long time and you've had children in our schools.
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  So I know you're familiar with the district, but could you start by telling our listeners a little bit about yourself and how you came to be a meteorologist?
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  SPEAKER3: Sure. I'm originally from Minnesota.
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  I came here to the University of Wisconsin to receive my degree to get my degree in meteorology, and I did that back
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  in 1979.
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  When I had my degree, I really wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it.
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  There's many different directions you can go, and the last thing I really had planned to do is go into TV meteorology.
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  I thought I would be more behind the scenes with a private forecast company or maybe the National Weather Service.
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  But at that time there weren't too many offerings, any job opportunities.
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  But there's this one job posting for TV, TV posting in Wausau, and I decided, "Well, I need a
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  job." I had some -- I had a child at the time.
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  So I decided, well, I'll go -- Wausau it is.
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  Wausau it is.
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  No experience, nothing.
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  I just went up there and gave it a go.
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  Well, I found out that it was not as easy as I thought it might be.
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  It was harder than I thought and after a few months they decided, "Well, Bob, this just isn't working out." So my first venture into TV weather was
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  not not the best, but it did give me the bug.
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  I thought I could do it. I needed another opportunity and I got that here in Madison.
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  So in January of 1980, I started at a private forecast company called Weather Central.
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  And Weather Central provides forecasts - provided forecasts to many industries at the time, but also provided the TV
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  weather people for WKOW TV.
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  So I was able to get back into TV through Weather Central.
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  I Did a lot of radio work, we had a lot of radio stations and I was able to get comfortable talking about the weather on the radio and that kind of took care of
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  a major component of a stumbling block on TV.
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  And that's just talking to the weather in a way that the viewer understands.
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  Right. Right. And so I got that component done.
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  And so through the 80s, I got back into TV.
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  I was doing the mornings and the weekends to the point where in 1989 I was able to secure the job as the chief
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  meteorologist for the station.
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  And I had that position for close to 30 years.
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  A couple of years ago, though, I decided to scale back and become the senior chief meteorologist.
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  And now we have a new chief.
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  That's Johnny Ziegler.
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  So I just do vacation fill in.
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  So I'm still on the air, but not nearly as often as I used to be.
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  But it's -- it's been an amazing career.
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  I really enjoyed it.
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  It's been a lot of fun.
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  But just to tag on to that, as I was going through my career, I was keeping track of what climate scientists had to say, and they were
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  getting more and more alarmed as I was going through my TV career and I was noticing a disconnect.
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  Though the general public wasn't as alarmed as I was and as they were.
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  So I decided about six years ago now to use my position.
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  We're considered a trusted source for many people.
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  The only scientists they connect with is their weather man or weather person.
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  Oh, that's an interesting thing.
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  SPEAKER1: I haven't thought of it that way.
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  SPEAKER3: Yeah. Yeah. So I decided to use my position as a trusted messenger to communicate what climate scientists are really saying.
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  The peer reviewed research that they were issuing, trying to get past a lot of the disinformation that was out there and so wide
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  spread. So that's been kind of a passion of mine now for the last five, six years, is to talk to folks and let them
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  know how concerned I am, how alarmed I am, and hopefully get them in the same place I am.
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  SPEAKER1: So knowing that you give presentations on climate change just as you were describing, what do you think is most important for people to walk away with
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  now? You mentioned you want them to know how alarmed you are, and I understand that.
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  But factually, what's the most important thing you want them?
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  To walk away from those presentations with?
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  SPEAKER3: That there are solutions.
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  That there is a way out of this.
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  That it is -- that it is dire and the word catastrophic, I don't think is a word that is that can be
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  used because that's the path that we are on if we don't change things.
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  And the thing is, we can't change the path.
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  We are changing it to a certain degree right now.
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  We have to change it more to get away from those real dire outlooks that the climate scientists have been have been talking about.
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  So that's the main thing.
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  There are a lot of solutions out there.
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  They're here now.
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  It's not theoretical.
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  It's just a matter if we have the political will to enact those things.
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  SPEAKER1: Well, let's talk about that.
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  That's interesting. So what do you think is most important?
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  What are the most high leverage actions we can take as individuals and then also as organizations?
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  SPEAKER3: Yeah, there's there's many things that people can do.
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  And that's the most important thing is to do something.
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  You can sit at home, watch TV, see the dire news and just stress out about it, or you can do something about it.
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  And there's many directions that you can go.
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  You can join organizations that support that are environmental organizations, people power.
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  As a group, you can do a lot more than as an individual.
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  So there's Sierra Club, many environmental organizations, 350.org among many that you can join.
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  And I really strongly encourage people to do that.
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  Personally, I'm part of Citizens Climate Lobby, which is another group that encourages the federal government to enact
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  legislation to to change again, this trajectory, to get into into renewables faster than we are right now.
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  That's one thing that people can do.
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  The other thing that people can do is get educated, know what what's really going on.
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  But again, when you're on the Internet, you have to be really careful.
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  You have to make sure you're looking at peer reviewed information from climate scientists.
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  And once you're educated, talk about it to to friends, neighbors, because kind of the elephant in the room, people are so busy with their
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  lives, especially young families.
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  Many of the young families in Oregon, in the school district, you know, you're just trying to get through your day.
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  It's hard to also concentrate on this massive problem out there.
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  But that's what we have to do.
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  Talk to your friends, your neighbors, your children, or if you're a student, talk to your parents.
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  You know, get that information out there.
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  And the last thing I would say is exercise power through the ability to vote.
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  Make sure that the people that you're voting for believe in climate change and that we should be doing something about it.
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  And I'm not talking just at the federal level, Congress, Senate, the presidency.
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  I'm talking about the state level.
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  I'm talking about city village, school board level.
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  Right. Make sure that those people are in place to make the changes we need to.
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  SPEAKER1: So, so many of the things that you've been talking about are connected also to our vision for Portrait of a Graduate, right?
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  The ability to understand the importance of sources, analyze and synthesize information, be an active community member who's aware of the world around them.
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  So I think the topic of environmental sustainability is really integrated into who we are as a district.
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  So I appreciate hearing from you about that.
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  And I'm going to turn a little bit to Andy now.
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  Andy is our Oregon School District business manager, and it's really important that he's here with Mr.
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  Lindmeier today, too, because the work he's doing on behalf of the district is exactly what you're talking about.
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  Taking action steps, right?
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  Making sure that we're elevating the importance of environmental sustainability.
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  So, Andy, could you introduce yourself and just make sure that everybody knows the role you play within the school district?
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  SPEAKER4: Sure. So the business manager is kind of a wide ranging position.
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  I like to tell people that anything that costs money, I'm probably involved in some way.
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  So just basically allocating the resources amongst the district and trying to help make sure that those resources are used as efficiently
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  as possible, which is kind of what brought me into the energy component because, you know, we spend over $1 million a year just on utilities.
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  And so obviously that's that's a chunk of money.
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  It's not -- it's not a huge portion of our budget, but it's enough that it gets our attention.
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  And then trying to figure out how we use that those funds as effectively as possible to reduce climate change and stop burning fossil fuels essentially, so
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  that we can kind of bend that curve.
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  So yeah, as the business manager, I get involved in anything from buildings and grounds to transportation to obviously building new schools,
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  financing the district on an annual basis, insurances, all those different things.
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  And I've been doing this now for over 30 years, over 23 years in Oregon School District.
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  SPEAKER1: So what connections do you make to Bob's message about the importance of taking action?
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  SPEAKER4: Yeah. What Bob was talking about really resonates with me because I had a conversation a few years ago with some family members and was talking about
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  kind of like Bob was saying about climate change and their -- the reaction I got was, "yeah, we -- there's nothing we can do," you know, type of thing.
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  And that conversation really was I can remember it was a Halloween party.
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  We were -- we were at.
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  And I remember just going, "wow, like, people just don't understand that there are tons of things that we can do." There's obvious solutions that cost money.
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  But what people don't understand is we're going to be spending that money anyhow if we don't do something.
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  And that's that's the message that I like to tell folks, is you can spend it on more insurance claims.
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  You can spend it on creating, you know, barriers around the country related to the seawater coming up.
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  All those different things are going to cost money anyhow.
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  It actually be significantly less expensive to actually try to figure out a way to cut our carbon and reduce the actual impacts that are heading our way.
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  SPEAKER1: Well, it's almost as if you two should do joint presentations, right?
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  It's kind of an interesting idea, isn't it?
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  Yeah, Yeah.
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  SPEAKER4: We -- I think we've done 1 or 2 maybe.
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  Yeah, we should --
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  SPEAKER3: We should do some more. But we've done a little bit together.
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  SPEAKER1: Yeah. Here's why it's important.
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  Here's the way that an organization can make impact.
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  I mean, it really, it fits together.
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  So I mentioned our district's value statement on environmental sustainability and that it's actually part of board policy 139.
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  And I'm just going to take a second to read it.
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  "The Oregon School District believes it is critical for the future of our planet to develop learners who are ecologically literate and environmentally
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  responsible citizens and stewards.
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  We believe it's important to model the district's commitment to establishing these values and developing practices consistent with them." So, Andy, you've
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  led a lot of sustainability efforts here in the district.
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  Could you share some examples with our listeners to help them understand how we are living up to board policy 139?
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  SPEAKER4: Yeah. So we have a lot of different initiatives going on and a lot of them are kind of, you know, school based.
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  Like they kind of fed up from the schools into the, into the district, which is awesome because then you have buy in from everybody.
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  So I like to kind of talk about my journey actually started into this area more heavily about ten years ago, probably when
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  some teachers, some science teachers over at the Oregon Middle School started kind of talking about this and what could we do and actually, our local Rotary
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  group got involved in it too, and we started looking at different solutions or different paths to to do some sustainability type things.
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  And, you know, the first thing we did was kind of just real small scale where we actually brought in a couple solar panels and connected them to just a
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  portable battery and then allowed our kids to basically charge their -- their devices with that battery that was charged by the solar panels that were
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  outside. And those solar panels still sit on the on the building today.
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  If you look at the south side of Oregon Middle School.
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  And from there, the next thing we did was the company that was helping us with that doesn't exist anymore, but they actually helped us put in what's called an
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  E gauge unit. And an E gauge unit is called a submeter.
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  It basically just allows us to live time, see how much energy the building is using so that and then the building could do different things like, "hey, let's
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  turn off the lights and see if we can actually see a difference in what type of difference that is."
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  Just to understand the amount of energy that the building uses, even when there's nobody in it.
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  So that was that was kind of a crucial first step that we had because that then gets you to understand the needs of the of the
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  building. And then the next thing we did was we actually ended up passing a referendum and then the referendum, we put some solar panels in there for
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  Brooklyn Elementary School, the Oregon Middle School, and the Oregon High School, along with some other projects that we were doing.
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  And so we learned kind of about how solar works and incorporated that information into the gauge device.
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  So you could see when we were producing energy and how much energy we were producing compared to how much we were using and kind of get a feel for that, so
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  to speak. At the same time, again, in that 2015 -- 2014 or 2015 referendum, we put on our first geothermal systems over at the Oregon Middle School
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  and Oregon High School.
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  And so this was kind of an iterative process.
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  We were learning along the way.
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  We didn't do everything right away.
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  We were like just kept building on the skill sets that we were kind of developing over time.
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  And once we got familiar with the geothermal systems and the solar and understood that they weren't real maintenance problems for us or anything, and
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  how they could kind of work together, that's the next step was in 2018 when we were building Forest Edge Elementary School and we came up with the idea of a
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  net zero school, and we had to kind of educate people like we're net zero school doesn't mean that we're off the grid, like we're we're not standalone or
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  anything. We actually work with the grid to basically produce as much power as we used throughout a year.
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  So there are some days where we produce more power than we use and there are some days that we produce less than, than than we use.
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  And so then we have to bring power into the grid or when we're producing more, we send it out to the grid and actually end up helping basically power the
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  neighborhood around it.
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  So we've been lucky to some degree and smart strategically the last two years that the building's been in existence,
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  we've actually been net zero certified by New Building Institute.
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  Basically, it's really easy to get certified because you just add up how much power you output it to the grid and how much power you inputted to the grid.
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  Super simple. There's 12 numbers you got to add up on each side of that equation.
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  And then you compare the two numbers.
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  And if there's more power out than in, you're in net zero building.
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  That's super easy because the Forest Edge is all electric.
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  There's actually no natural gas that even comes into the building.
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  So all the energy that comes in that is utilized in that building is electric.
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  So you don't have to do any conversions or anything like that.
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  It just uses electricity.
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  So I've said a fourth or fifth grader could easily add up these five digit numbers, 12 on each side.
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  Compare those two numbers with a calculator and you could obviously see that the building is net zero.
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  We've been lucky in the last two years as weather patterns have worked in our in our favor and we've been about 2%.
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  We produce about 2% more energy than we've utilized both of those years.
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  We are right on track again this year.
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  So we've got a couple more months through to get back to net zero because the winters are really tough on us.
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  We do bring more -- we do use more power than we we use -- we do use more power than we produce during those times.
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  And and some of that is just related to the solar panels getting covered in snow.
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  So when we have these snow events, you know, people have always kidded me that I was going to go out there with a shovel and shovel them off.
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  But you can't do that because there's a film on those panels.
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  So and there'd be no place to put the snow anyhow.
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  So you just have to be patient and let it -- and let it melt.
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  But that does create a little anxiety because you're like, "Oh, I really need to be making a little bit of power here to kind of get get us back to net zero."
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  So the months that are critical are actually -- today's March 1st and usually March is a positive energy month for us.
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  So we've kind of convert from February where we're we're bringing more power in than we use to March, where we start producing more power than we actually need.
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  So that's I'm always happy when March comes around.
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  SPEAKER1: You're one of the only people who get happy in the month of March.
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  But that's good.
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  I'm glad to hear it.
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  SPEAKER4: So yeah the building super efficient and we do -- there's all kinds of other strategies that we've used with the building and not only with energy but also
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  with water. We try to conserve water.
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  We have dual flushed devices there.
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  The Forest Edge actually uses less water per person than any of our other buildings.
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  So it's there's other components of sustainability that we try to incorporate into everything we do.
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  SPEAKER1: Thank you. Thank you for your work, Andy, and thank you so much for your time today, Bob.
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  You've been a part of the fabric of the community for so long.
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  As a matter of fact, my grown adult son used to be very concerned for you in tornadoes.
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  He would share that concern every time there was bad weather.
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  "Where is Bob Lindmeier?
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  Is he going to be okay?"
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  SPEAKER3: Oh, that's that's that's great to hear.
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  Thank you. Thank you for that.
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  I just want to add that I'm just really impressed by what the Oregon School District has done.
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  Forest Edge, all the solar that's been put on all the school buildings.
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  I mean, you are really leading the state in terms of what a school district can do.
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  So I'm just so proud to live here to be part of this.
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  And, you know, you have to practice what you preach.
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  You mentioned, you know, you want to teach the students about sustainability.
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  You show it to them.
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  It's just not theoretical.
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  You're not reading a book.
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  So I just think that what the school district is doing is awesome.
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  SPEAKER1: Thank you. We appreciate your time today.
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  Andy, you mentioned that we were about to begin a really interesting project with the pool, too.
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  Could you please talk about that?
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  SPEAKER4: Yeah. Like, we've added solar to the rooftops of several of our buildings.
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  We are about probably in about May of this year to add solar to the Oregon pool facility as well.
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  And what's really kind of unique about that is we are also trying to build a splash pad.
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  We've been working on with that with the Oregon Optimists for a number of years, and we're getting very close.
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  We've actually applied for a grant from the Department of Natural Resources that will get us pretty close to to being fully funded for that.
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  And what's one of the neat things that we're trying to basically talk about in the grant is with the solar that's added to the pool, it would be most likely
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  the only solar powered splash pad in the state.
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  Who knows, maybe even the country.
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  So we when the -- when the splash pad is in operation, we would absolutely be making more power than the building needs.
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  And so we would actually be covering the the energy related to the splash pad as well.
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  SPEAKER1: Well, that is another exciting thing that the district is a part of related to sustainability.
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  Thank you. You bet.
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  Remember that you can find links to all episodes of Inside the OSD and submit topic ideas on our website at
• 22:38
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• 22:45
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• 22:51
  We'll see you next time on Inside the OSD, where it's all about the kids.