This and that: A post-holiday weekend edition
Including, what a new, $1 million NICHES Land Trust stewardship headquarters in Warren County will mean for preserving natural areas in and near Tippecanoe County.
Today’s edition is sponsored by Tippecanoe County CASA. A Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) is a trained community volunteer who speaks up for the best interests of abused and neglected children in the Tippecanoe County court system. If you wish to become a CASA volunteer, please visit our website at tippecanoe.in.gov/CASA, email casa@tippecanoe.in.gov or call 765-423-9109 to apply and get details of the fall training schedule starting Oct. 3.
This and that, and other reads, after a holiday weekend …
ABOUT NICHES LAND TRUST’S $1M STEWARDSHIP HQ: This one lingered in my notebook far too long, but getting work started this summer on a new, $1 million stewardship center for NICHES Land Trust counts as a huge deal for the nonprofit as it acquires natural areas across 13 counties in and near Tippecanoe County, making them accessible for hiking and preservation.
“When you say it’s huge, I mean, it really is huge for what we’re doing at NICHES,” Bob Easter, stewardship director for the Lafayette-based organization, said. “This really does open a way for NICHES to meet the goals it has to grow.”
The project includes a maintenance facility along Independence Road near Williamsport, in what NICHES considers the weighted center of the 4,700 acres of forest, savanna, prairie and wetlands it manages and opens to the public.
Easter said the Warren County location will serve as a jumping off point each day for NICHES crews to have equipment centrally located, rather than having it in scattered storage areas and, at times, in home garages.
The 6,000-square-foot facility will have room for larger equipment, herbicide and seed storage that will offer more quality control over what’s being used on NICHES properties and laundry facilities for gear used in prescribed burns. Easter said the land, most recently home to a livestock transfer station, includes 14 acres that is cash rented now but eventually could be used as a nursery to produce seed for NICHES restoration projects.
“It’s going to be great for all of our preserves, but in particular it’s going to be really good being within 15 minutes of all of our Big Pine properties and all of our holdings in Fountain County, at Shawnee Bottoms and the Black Rock area,” Easter said.
NICHES says its raised 92% of its project goal. That includes a $450,000 grant from North Central Health Services and support from the Roy Whistler Foundation and the McAllister Foundation.
NICHES has goals to grow its portfolio of natural areas from 4,700 acres to 8,000 acres by 2030.
“I’m not sure how we do that without this stewardship headquarters, to be honest,” Easter said. “It’s really an important step for us. If you want to get to that point, getting things maintained at the level that we’re trying to maintain it is really key.”
For more about NICHES and its properties, check nicheslandtrust.org.
THE SELF-CHARGING EXPERIMENT ON U.S. 231: Construction is done on a stretch of U.S. 231 in West Lafayette equipped with embedded equipment that will be tested to help charge electric vehicles, the Indiana Department of Transportation reported. The Dynamic Wireless Power Transfer test pilot project – a partnership between Purdue, Aspire Research Center and INDOT – includes a quarter-mile test bed on U.S. 231, between Lindberg Road and Cumberland Avenue. Testing that includes specially equipped trucks from Indiana-based Cummins is expected to start in spring 2025 in experiments meant to see how well a vehicle can be directly charged while in motion as well as the technical and financial feasibility of electric roads. INDOT will host a public presentation about the pilot project at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 4, at its Division of Research and Development, 1205 Montgomery St. in West Lafayette. INDOT, Purdue and Cummins officials will be on hand to answer questions during an open house a half-hour before the presentation and then again afterward. Here are links for more details about the open house and about the entire project.
OPENING DAYS DOWN AT PURDUE-INDY: Mirror Indy reporter Claire Rafford took stock in the opening days for Purdue’s new Indianapolis campus, after the breakup of IUPUI, the longtime collaboration with Indiana University. The upshot: Students and everyone else on both fresh campuses are adjusting. Here’s a look: “‘Kind of confusing’: Purdue, IU students head back to class after IUPUI split.”
Thanks, again, to today’s sponsor, Tippecanoe County CASA. For more information about CASA and how to become a volunteer Court Appointed Special Advocate, go to: tippecanoe.in.gov/CASA, email casa@tippecanoe.in.gov or call 765-423-9109 to apply and get details on the fall training schedule starting Oct. 3.
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Tips, story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com.