REGIONAL—University of Iowa engineering students could be seen wielding tape measures or wading through a creek in Lyon County on a recent Saturday through a partnership with the Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities.

Students in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering worked with Lyon County at five sites as part of the Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities for their senior design capstone course at the Iowa City institution.

“Our approach is to go to communities within the state of Iowa,” said Paul Hanley, lead professor of the senior design capstone course, about IISC. “We’ve been doing this for approximately 12 years, and we have visited or we worked in 94 different communities within the state. We go from Mississippi to the Missouri River.”

This partnership helps the communities with decision-making support.

“Students have information that they can use to make more informed decisions. Then ideally, and this seems to happen more regularly now, the students’ work is so good that they can actually see some financial benefits through cost savings from working with taking that work to a consulting firm, for example, or using it to apply for a grant,” said IISC director Travis Kraus.

When the IISC put out a call for proposals, Lyon County Economic Development director Jen Smit and Inwood mayor Becca Bixler expressed interest in the partnership.

“Lyon County is an excellent partner willing to take the time,” said IISC assistant director Ashley Laux.

Each project has an identified project lead, a representative from each community, who will meet online with the students every other week.

“That capacity and commitment of all the communities in Lyon County is really impressive,” Laux said.

Making the trip

The students spent Aug. 29 in Lyon County taking measurements for their projects and will continue to work in Iowa City. They will return to Lyon County at the end of the fall semester for their engineering presentations.

“Even though Lyon County is a distance, from the University of Iowa perspective, we want to be able, through our program, to give back to the communities that send their kiddos to us,” Kraus said.

He expressed the importance of giving back to all types of communities that make up the state, and how it is important for the public university to care for the state it serves.

“It’s a great opportunity for any of the communities in our county as a whole to have the ability to have a project completed or on a shelf ready for a grant proposal,” Smit said. “They don’t usually get that type of opportunity.”

The goal of the Aug. 29 event was to gather data that could only be collected in-person and on-site.

“Getting the site-specific measurements is important, but I don’t think you have quite the same experience if you never set foot in the place,” Kraus said.

The hands-on experience makes the projects feel “real,” the IISC director said, rather than an assignment from a textbook, enhancing the students’ awareness of each project.

“It also just really sets the stage for them to care a lot about doing good work,” Kraus said. “So, we, through the Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities, have high standards for quality. Being here in person and talking to the people that live in these communities helps them understand that they have a responsibility to really do their best work.”

This partnership is fully funded by the Lyon County Riverboat Foundation.

Bixler and Smit attended a meeting and requested funding for the IISC.

“We went to one of their meetings and talked about the program as a whole and we requested $50,000 in funding, and so they voted and approved to cover that funding for financial assistance for us,” Smit said.

Fall projects

Students met with their team leads and began to work on their projects in the morning at their respective sites.

Bixler met with a group of three University of Iowa civil engineering students at Inwood Reformed Church to answer questions and inform the students about their project of developing phase two of a subdivision plan.

“When the University of Iowa’s Initiative for Sustainable Communities was offering up what they do in their program, it seemed like a win-win,” said Bixler, who is the team lead for the project. “We need the platting and surveying and the engineering work, and that’s costly to a city. This group of people can provide those services for a very nominal fee.”

If the IISC partnered only with Inwood, the city would have had to make a $5,000 contribution.

“But we ended up pitching it as a larger, Lyon County project to get 10 to 12 projects going, and then ask the Riverboat for donations, and now it’s a free service, essentially,” Bixler said. “To be able to utilize this group of students and faculty to drum up this next phase for us, which will give Inwood the opportunity to sell residential lots.”

Regional trail

Bixler is also a team lead, along with Lyon County Conservation director Justin Smith, for a team developing a connected trail system from Lake Pahoja to Inwood and the West Lyon School District.

The Inwood mayor has been passing around an idea for a countywide trail system with the Recreational Trails Committee and Lyon County Conservation.

“When you travel around in Iowa farther away from us or Minnesota or wherever, you see these trails that are all over the place connecting cities from a great distance,” Bixler said. “It’s always been so appealing to think about if we could figure out a way, if all of us cities who have our students in a shared school system, who do so much together as Lyon County, to figure out a way to connect our towns legitimately with something physical.”

When Bixler reached out to communities that make up West Lyon’s district about the connected system a few years ago, they loved the idea, but getting even the plans for the project costs “tens of thousands of dollars,” she said.

“That’s why it was an idea to push forward through IISC to see if they could provide some sort of plan where the trail could go or different options of where the trail could go to connect Lake Pahoja, to connect these different cities so that we could actually present something to the communities to see if they’d be interested in it,” Bixler said.

Smith said the trail is important for the wellness of the community and the county.

“Getting people outdoors and enjoying everything. Giving them a place safe from traffic to walk and bike,” he said.

The Inwood mayor hopes the groups can provide options that can be presented to the community for both projects.

“Because if I have options, I can give choices to people and they can tell me what they like, what they don’t like and, potentially, find something that everybody is OK with and we can move forward with in figuring grant money, donations, things like that,” she said.

Community center reuse

In Larchwood, the team examines how the community center along Broadway Street could be repurposed due to a new community center set to break ground this fall. Larchwood mayor Ken Kerkvliet is the team lead. He hopes the students can come up with at least three ideas for the city to consider.

“They asked that question, too. ‘Do we have any preconceived notions of what we want to do with that space?’ At this point, we don’t, so we’ll see what they say and go from there,” he said. “We’re really interested in finding out what they have to say because it could be a lot of different things. It could be tearing the building down because there’s not another great use for it because it’s an old building. We’re just interested in seeing what they say.”

Lester senior housing

In Lester, students are tasked with designing accessible and low-maintenance homes for senior living.

“There’s a need for retirees wanting to downsize from the farm and maybe move into town where they’re close to family, friends, churches, community,” said team lead Michael Leuthold. “We’re excited because it’s something that we’ve talked about, and this is a great opportunity to pursue some options and see what the students come up with.”

As a civil engineer, Leuthold is excited to work with the students and give them hands-on training with the project.

“I’m hopeful that we can kind of get an idea of what is possible for the site that we have. There’s a lot of area that’s able to be developed, and right now it’s kind of a blank slate. We’re excited to see their ideas and how creative they can be,” he said. “If this is something that appeals to us, we could perhaps move forward with their concept and, ultimately, that may help us save some engineering dollars if we’re able to bring those concepts to fruition.”

Skunk Creek management

On the eastern side of Lyon County, George City Council member Joe Anderson serves as the team lead for Skunk Creek flood mitigation and stormwater management.

“We had a group of three Iowa students come up, and they’re pretty passionate about researching the creek that runs through George and trying to first, make it more suitable for transporting water through during flood events, and then, two, also, trying to add a beautification aspect to it so it’s not a big eyesore through the center of town,” Anderson said.

Skunk Creek serves as a stormwater drainage corridor, but will often overflow its banks, spilling into nearby neighborhoods. A goal for the IISC team is to determine how to contain floodwater within the banks.