Navigating the Murky Waters of Bureaucracy

By Nathaniel Park

The Integrated Pest Management team is chugging along as we work on our 3 main focuses for our project.  To recap, our projects are to install a Bigbelly Solar Trash Compactor as a pilot program on the Hill, use GIS to map out areas of rodent hot spot activities on the main campus, and to document incidents of rodents using motion-detecting cameras. Our efforts to install the Bigbelly has hit some snags as we are currently attempting to gain approvals from the powers at be to install them. We are unable to install them on the Hill as planned because of some reluctance by management so we are changing course and are shooting for placing them on Sunset Recreation Area. Our GIS project is proceeding successfully and the map we are creating is beginning to take form. We are still awaiting some data including building age and the locations of trash cans but we are confident going forward. The rodent detection project is similarly having some issues obtaining the cameras. We have contacted some staff members and researchers but we may have to resort to waiting for the TGIF mini fund in April. Still, we are confident that we can produce some good results for this project.