Salt Brine

After the successful results of the past couple of winters, we are continuing to spray the sidewalks with salt brine in our battle to combat ice build-up on the sidewalks.  The Grounds Department uses pickup trucks fitted with large plastic tanks and spray bars on the back.  The brine helps prevent the packed snow from making a hard bond to the sidewalk surface, making it easier for the snow plows to remove the build-up down to the bare sidewalk.  On the days with temperatures fall below about 15 degrees F, we cannot use the salt brine due to re-freezing.  During these conditions, the crews continue their normal plowing operations and go to the salt brine after the temperatures warm up.  We are trying to reduce the amount of sand spread on the sidewalks, which helps reduce the amount of sand tracked into the buildings.  If you have any questions or comments, please contact grounds at 487-2722 or email facilities@mtu.edu.

Building Mechanic, John Hackmeier changing out Chem-Sci exit lights

The campus community now has an option to submit minor maintenance repairs and custodial needs like a dripping faucet, light out, hand towel dispenser out of towels, etc. These repair requests go to the responsible facilities manager and the assigned building mechanic for
that building.

Please refer to our Web http://www.aux.mtu.edu/facilities/

Our maintenance garage is equipped with the power washer as well as a powerful vacuum cleaner.  We also maintain the interior of our vehicles with environmentally safe cleaning supplies.

If your department currently leases a vehicle from our department or you own your department vehicle please make an appointment to get your work vehicle detailed inside and out.

Our hours of operation are 7am to 4pm Monday through Friday.

Call today and we will be sure to make your university vehicle shine.

Bill Mitchell

I have been involved in the recycling program at Michigan Tech for the last ten years.  I have noticed that we waste a lot of paper.  Here are some easy steps everyone can take that would not only save our resources, but also reduce costs for departments.

Two sided printing: Many printers and copiers are capable of two-sided printing.  If yours has this capability, then set your default to print on both sides.  If you need something printed on one side only, it is easy to change the settings for that print job.  If you have a color printer set the default to black and white (monochrome); this will save on toner costs.

Use print selection:  How many times have you printed the whole Tech Today because there was an item you wanted to keep?  Instead, highlight the item you want and use print selection.

Print Preview: How many times have you printed something and the last page was blank, or had only one or two lines that are not needed?  Do a print preview so you only print those pages that you need.

Reuse: If you do end up with a copy that is blank or almost blank, don’t just chuck it in the recycle bin.  Use it for scrap paper, or print on the other side when you are printing a draft or something similar.  Some professors on campus recycle used paper by using the blank sides to write on while using the document cameras in our classrooms.

We can all do our part to help reduce paper waste and cost.

We had a local contractor on site working on a large water main relocation project on Woodland Road. The project involved replacing a large water main that failed over the winter months. Contractors were busy all summer working on the site work and underground utilities for the new Great Lakes Research Center on the lake shore. Near the end of the summer a large building construction project kicked into high gear at the Portage Health Clinic near the SDC that involved relocating underground utilities and site work among other things.

The Grounds Department crew members worked on replacing a large number of the sanitary sewer laterals from the apartments to the main line in Daniell Heights. The crew also helped the Mineral Museum move into their new building on Sharon Avenue, which involved eight semi trailers and four self storage units full of parts and pieces.

Our gardeners kept busy with the continual improvements to the campus gardens. With a fair amount of rain during the early part of the summer, our mowing crew worked almost non-stop keeping everything looking nice. A few smaller sidewalk replacement projects rounded out the work on the main campus this summer.

Click here to hear Lynn and see the gardens

Stroll through the Michigan Technological University campus these days and enjoy enchanting flower gardens that burn bright, scent the air and catch the eye. Some of the gardens are in the sheltering shade; some are in the all-seeing sun, and all are beauties that invite you to pause, reflect and marvel.

Take, for instance, the memorial garden on the south side of the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts. The basis of this planting is what master gardener Lynn Watson calls “the language of flowers.” “Plants communicate human emotion,” she says. They speak in poetry, not platitudes. Walk among them and read the little signs that describe what they represent. Learn that the white firs symbolize time; the imperial honey locust, affection beyond the grave; the yew, sorrow; the French willow, bravery and humanity; the mint, virtue; the larkspur, levity; the crimson star columbine, anxiety and trembling; the juniper, succor and protection.

There is another inviting path in a garden by Dillman Hall that features tall trees, delicate flowers and boulders the size of rain barrels that look like Stonehenge in disarray. This “boulder garden” transcends time. The flowers are here and now; the boulders and cobblestones are deposits of glaciers dating back 10,000 years. Sit on a bench, nicely crafted, and enjoy the moment.

Watson certainly enjoys her work. She brings to her endeavors a sunny disposition, a callused hand and a keen eye for aesthetics. She writes, “The wind-contorted limbs of stubborn crab apples stretch over the encircling smoothness of stones, inviting artistic interpretations in all seasons.”

She strives to make her plants “happy.” Since 2008, she has planted hundreds and hundreds of flowers at Michigan Tech; tucked among them are tomatoes, blueberries, rhubarb, chives, asparagus and sugarplums. Nibble a piece of chocolate mint, she invites.

Hers is a world of transformation, turning “concrete dirt” into “fluffy soil” and transforming a plot between the Van Pelt and Opie Library and Rekhi Hall from a dust bowl to a rose bowl. All these plants enjoy soft mulch. Walking among them is like treading on a wet sponge. Watson uses baker’s lingo to describe her effort to build soil. She employs what she calls “lasagna gardening”—three tiers of cardboard or newspaper, manure, and hay. She calls rich soil “chocolate cake.”

Her plantings create little ecosystems of fruits, vegetables, trees, and flowers that attract deer, songbirds, butterflies and rabbits. “We need a fox,” she remarks.

Where there is heavy traffic, there is dart’s ninebark (tough). Where an underground steam tunnel complicates matters–a site that has vanquished many a planting”–there are deeply rooted, sodbuster grasses from the Great Plains, two to six feet high and visible even in winter’s deep snows.

In this part of the country, Lake Superior is both boon and bane, says Watson. Winds cool the summer and stress plants; and winds temper the winter and protect plants.

Michigan Tech is an international campus, and Watson’s plantings are worldly as well: lilacs (from Persia); garden roses (from China); pea shrubs (from Siberia.)

She hopes the overall impression that people get is, “One, we have a sense of aesthetics, which is classy. And two, we are into nurturing, so it’s an okay place to leave your kids.”

Watson fusses over more than 40 gardens on campus. They are simply splendid, for a flower is a flower is a flower.

“It’s only going to get better and better,” she promises.