Odessa – When he was 13, Ramon Rodriguez stood in front of Presidio City Council. He had a vision for his hometown, a hot, dry border community.
He wanted the Council to create a division dedicated to preserving the environment. The department will install composting bottles in town, and build greenhouses and wooden nurseryes to collect water. Part of the town is a dedicated green space where buildings are prohibited.
The council did not adopt his proposal with its shoelaces budget.
That decision in 2018 did not stop Rodriguez looking for a way to introduce his plans in fragments. Later last year, Rodriguez learned that the area had won a $13 million federal grant that he helped write.
“We need this, we need this,” he said. “And now, it’s becoming a reality. It’s a very beautiful moment.”
The grant is part of the Infrastructure Reduction Act signed by President Joe Biden in 2022. The law included $2 billion in national environmental and climate justice projects. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Texas received approximately $53 million from the program.
The Houston Health Department received $20 million to reduce pollution. Environmental advocacy group Air Alliance Houston has won $2.9 million to bolster its programme tracking industrial permits submitted to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Meanwhile, WACO and other nonprofits have won $17.9 million to deal with pollution and climate change, installed electric vehicle charging stations, and established university programs.
The Big Bend Conservation Alliance, a community group that oversees projects in the three counties, manages money, spends it on infrastructure to support heat waves and creates green areas.
They built dedicated green spaces along bike lanes and pedestrian streets, with thousands of native trees for residents, community gardens, emergency cooling plans in the event of a blackout with solar and battery powered power, high school running air. Strengthen the community center with. A quality surveillance program and a tool that reduces traffic congestion and warns drivers about traffic on local bridges to prevent cars from idling. The Conservation Alliance will also help the city build three detention ponds to mitigate flooding. This is a project the city has in its plan but cannot afford it.
Christina Hernandez, co-director of the Conservation Alliance, said she worked with 19-year-old environmentalist Rodriguez to select the programs she would like to include in her proposal. In most cases, the project already supports existing infrastructure.
Sarah M. Vasquez from Texas Tribune
Hernandez said the organization is expected to begin construction by the end of January. They expect the proposal’s full scale to be completed in about three years.
“We know that the city is already very thin,” Hernandez said. “But this is really important and it’s a job that needs to be done.”
Precio, a town of about 3,000, is a border community just a short distance from the Mexican almao. It is also located northwest of Big Bend National Park. According to the Texas Historical Society, people have lived there for hundreds of years. Some records trace their origins to the 15th century. It officially became a city in the 1980s.
Presidio relies on property taxes, allowing landfills to be used by other cities for revenue. That’s about $4 million. The city is expanding its budget to provide funding to emergency services and police departments, President John Ferguson said.
Many of the trails passing through the road need to be paved. Some of the city do not have sewage systems. Ferguson said the city functions like a colony, povertying border communities with little or no infrastructure for local governments, primarily Hispanic.
“We’re doing our best we can. Ferguson said the city will help the Conservation Alliance.
Texan President and CEO Joni Carswell is Nature By Nature, a conservation nonprofit that supports projects across the state, and cities need to strengthen their infrastructure to withstand hotter temperatures and maintain water sources. He said there is.
The statewide conservation project restored ecosystems, including Longleaf Pine in eastern Texas, Redfish Nursery on the coast, and the fork at Baffin Bay 50 miles south of Corpus Christi.
In a report released last year, the group found that nearly 200 nonprofits in Texas spent $639 million on environmentally-related restoration, education, policies and programs.
“Presidio has a small rural community throughout the state that needs this kind of funding, so we have the opportunity to show how beneficial federal grants are on this scale,” Caldwell said. .
After learning about the town’s first recycling centre, Rodriguez first became passionate about the primary school setting. He created the project Homeleaf in his school cafeteria, named after the places he wanted to improve and the changes he wanted to see. The group, composed primarily of teen volunteers, found neighbours with the least shade and helped residents plant the trees. They funded by selling baked goods.
They recruited people to volunteer at the town’s recycling centre. It taught elementary school students about protecting the environment along with a group of students called Climate Crew.
Sarah M. Vasquez from Texas Tribune
Rodriguez began working with the Big Bend Conservation Alliance at high school. One of his first projects in the group was to plant more trees. The group has worked to end light pollution, expand community gardens and protect tribal lands. As of December, he is the program manager for the Conservation Union and oversees many projects funded by grants. The money the Conservation Alliance has acquired funds for this position.
Rodriguez hopes that his hometown will be lush with green roads.
“Precio doesn’t look the same in three years,” he said. “And in a very good way.”
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