Agricultural land management decisions are situated within a complex and interconnected system, influenced by a suite of social and economic factors, many of which are difficult to control. Landowners can, but often don’t, take it upon themselves to drive stewardship of their land. This report focuses on land ownership and tenure as levers to increase conservation and rebuild soil health in the Midwest, where over 50% of the agricultural land is leased.
Delta Institute’s Gary Green Infrastructure Plan was a two-year project focused on assisting the City of Gary with planning and implementing Green Infrastructure designs, identifying 61 Priority Projects to install 26 acres of rain gardens, permeable pavements, street planters, and other GI designs.
Delta Institute designed new soil-health loan vehicles to allow farmers to more easily transition to regenerative agricultural practices. Our project is enabling investments in—and therefore increasing the scale of—regenerative agriculture. The Wisconsin pilot is focused on building the investment case for the expansion of regenerative diversified small grains production and processing within the NRCS Driftless Area Landscape Conservation Initiative.
Delta Institute (Delta) secured funding from Cook County to perform an energy audit and LEED assessment of the Museum. As a non-standard building type, the Museum was one of the most challenging LEED projects Delta has pursued. It achieved LEED Gold certification and received the Governor’s Sustainability Award in 2015.
Delta Institute’s Demystifying Waste report provides data to the private and public sector to decrease the disposal rate of reusable materials—and save these valuable supplies from landfills—and increase the capacity of local and state governments to adopt policies encouraging building material reuse and recycling with the recognition of local economic benefits.
Delta Institute is an expert with construction and demolition waste reduction, recycling, reuse, policy and economic development. The City of St. Louis, St. Louis Development Corporation, the Missouri Environmental Improvement and Energy Resources Authority, and Region 7 EPA selected Delta Institute to revise its demolition handbook, develop specifications for deconstruction, train contractors around building material reuse.
Delta Institute partnered with the Michigan City Sanitary District (MCSD) and the Alliance for the Great Lakes to make stormwater, ecological restoration, and recreation improvements at Michigan City’s Cheney Run. A 40-acre site surrounded by wetlands, Cheney Run is a primary source of stormwater-related pollution that ends up in the Trail Creek, a major tributary that feeds into Lake Michigan.
Delta provided the City of South Bend and then-Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s Administration with an actionable municipal plan to reduce emissions, called Carbon Neutral 2050. Strategies were prioritized for their ability to provide the most substantial emissions cuts while maximizing benefits to residents and businesses.
Delta Institute (Delta) created a performance-based program for implementing agricultural best management practices to address sediment loading associated with agricultural sources, such as cropland erosion, livestock access, and road/bridge crossings that impacts habitat and water quality in the Rabbit River. Performance-based programs are a targeted approach to investing in conservation when traditional funding is limited. Instead of paying for specific farm practices, this project directs payments that are based on the net environmental improvements resulting from a comprehensive set of practices.
Delta Institute and the City of Hobart, Indiana have implemented four GI installations throughout the city, including a courtyard rain garden at Hobart Middle School, a parking lot rain garden and permeable pavement in the front and backsides of Hobart City Hall, and a large bioswale in the city’s Hillman Park. These installations will collectively provide an additional 800,000 to 3.5 million gallons of stormwater management capacity.
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