This agreement provides funding under the inflation reduction act (IRA)

The City of Houston's Department of Health and Human Services received a $19.999 million Project Grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 6 under the Environmental and Climate Justice Community Change Grants Program (CFDA 66.616) on March 1, 2025. Funded through the Inflation Reduction Act, this award supports comprehensive environmental and climate resilience initiatives across Houston, with completion targeted for May 1, 2025. The project delivers nature-based contamination remediation solutions in high-risk areas identified through community engagement and surface water modeling, replaces non-native grasses with Southeast Texas native species to enhance ecosystem services, installs a detention pond in Houston's Fifth Ward near Tuffly Park for flood control, and implements green infrastructure enhancements including tree plantings and native vegetation.

Additionally, the grant funds Strategy 4 activities focused on community energy resilience, including solar farm installation and microgrid development to provide free or reduced-price solar energy options for residents. The City of Houston collaborates with the Black United Fund of Texas (BUFTX) as a state partner to execute these activities. Collectively, these deliverables address heat mitigation, flood control, pollution reduction, and ecosystem service enhancement while advancing climate justice goals in disadvantaged Houston communities.

The project will focus on several key areas in the city of houston: contamination and pollution mitigation: the project will identify regions at risk of contaminated surface soil redistribution and non-point source pollution runoff. Nature-based solutions will be designed and implemented to remediate contamination and reduce exposure in these areas. Habitat restoration: IT will identify locations where non-native grasses can be replaced with southeast texas native grasses. This will involve removing non-natives and planting and maintaining native species. Detention pond installation: a detention pond will be established in a neighborhood where the need and location have already been identified by houston public works. All three activities will enhance ecosystem services, including heat mitigation and flood control. Additionally, the city of houston will implement strategy 4, which includes the installation of microgrids and solar farms to improve community energy resilience. Activities:the activities include 1.1.community engagement and assessment: utilize community testimonies and localized surface water modeling to identify areas at high risk of contamination from runoff. Remediation effort: design and implement nature-based solutions to remediate contamination and reduce exposure in the identified at-risk areas. Detention pond installation: construct a detention pond in the area across from tuffly park in houston, TX, located within the fifth ward. Nature-based enhancements: implement enhancements such as tree plantings and the introduction of native grasses to support ecosystem services around the constructed detention pond. Solar farm installation: hire a technical consultant to assist with solar farm activities, aiming to negotiate free or reduced-price solar energy for community residents. Collaborate with our state partner, the black united fund of texas (BUFTX), to connect community members with city resources and services. Civic engagement and resilience building: establish a local civic group led by black united fund to provide a platform for dialogue among community residents and organizations, addressing pressing issues collectively. Black united funds will create a sub-award program for local community-based and faith-based organizations to promote resilience within the community. Additionally, they will offer sub-awards to combat illegal dumping. Subrecipient:black united fund of texas (BUFTX): is the statutory partner for this grant. They will serve as a bridge between the other project partners and the community residents, and use community voices to guide project activities. This will include: hosting regular community events to directly interface with the community to ensure we are aligned with their vision for the community; establishing a community based organization subaward program . University of houston (UH) department of civil engineering: they will identify areas at risk for the RE- distribution of contaminated surface soil and non-point source pollution runoff, and then design and implement nature-based solutions to remediate contamination and limit exposure in these areas. This process will involve modeling that consists of overland sediment deposition/erosion using both hydrological simulation program-fortran (HSPF) in better assessment science integrating point and nonpoint sources (BASINS) and environmental fluid dynamics code (EFDC) at the catchment/sub- watershed and at the census block level, respectively, for contaminated sites in the community houston wilderness (HW): HW will utilize the results of UH's modeling to conduct the super tree, native grass, and bioswale plantings in the community, in locations with the greatest impact. HW estimates to plant about 10,000 super trees, 8 acres of native grasses, and 5-6 bioswales over the course of the project. They W