| Meetings and Events | Unless otherwise specified, all meetings are held at H-GAC conference rooms A, B, or C; 3555 Timmons, 2nd Floor, Houston, TX 77027 (map) |
| | | Director's Welcome | | This is the March 2008 issue of the Houston-Galveston Area Council's (H-GAC) Community and Environmental Planning (C&E) E-newsletter. We hope this monthly newsletter will keep you up to date on the wide variety of community planning, economic development, and environmental programs going on at H-GAC. We want this information to be useful and are very interested in your feedback! If you have any questions about any of our programs, please feel free to contact me at 713-993-4560 or Jeff.Taebel@h-gac.com. |
| For He's a Jolly Good Fellow... |  Hearty congratulations are in order for Jeff Taebel, H-GAC's Community and Environmental Planning Director, for being chosen for induction into the 2008 class of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP). Taebel and his colleagues will be inducted into the College of Fellows on Sunday, April 27, 2008, at the APA National Planning Conference in Las Vegas. AICP is the American Planning Association's professional institute, providing recognized leadership nationwide in the certification of professional planners, ethics, professional development, planning education, and the standards of planning practice. Certified planners use their skills to find solutions to community problems in ways that will carry the community toward its desired long-term goals. Election to Fellow in AICP is one of the highest honors that the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) bestows upon a member. This honor recognizes the achievements of the planner as an individual, elevating the Fellow before the public and the profession as a model planner who has made significant contributions to planning and society. Fellowship is granted to planners who have been members of AICP and have achieved excellence in professional practice, teaching and mentoring, research, public/community service, and leadership. Those chosen become members of the College of Fellows. The College of Fellows is concerned with mentoring and future advancement of the profession of planning. As outstanding professionals in the field of planning, Fellows of AICP will address student organizations and/or state APA conferences or professional development programs. Click here to see the entire 2008 class of Fellows of AICP. |
| Urban Best Management Practices Performance Tool |  The Urban Stormwater Best Management Practices (BMP) Performance Tool has been developed to provide stormwater professionals with easy access to approximately 220 studies assessing the performance of over 275 BMPs. Additional studies will be added to this collection periodically. This Tool presents information previously compiled by the International Stormwater BMP Database and by the State of California in an easy to use search and sort format. In the future, EPA hopes to add more studies to this collection, particularly ones that evaluate the performance of "green infrastructure" or "low impact development" BMPs. Choosing effective stormwater BMPs is one of the key challenges facing anyone interested in improving or protecting the quality of our rivers, lakes, and coastal waters. Having access to studies of BMP performance that have been conducted by public agencies, academic researchers, non-profit groups, and others will help make better decisions. This tool provides access to summary information on studies that have been published in recognized journals or that have met detailed criteria established by EPA. |
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| Register Now! TreePrint Workshop - March 31, 2008 |  The TreePrint workshop will provide decision makers with the tools necessary to quantify the economic benefits of urban forests and how trees can create and preserve a sense of place and boost the local economy. Register today for this two-day workshop to learn about the benefits of developing a community TreePrint project and incorporating tree plantings into new development projects, roadway expansion projects, and neighborhood parks. Jack Steele, Executive Director of H-GAC will discuss opportunities to support regional tree planting initiatives and develop community forests. Facilitated by Eric Douglas, Principal Consultant with Leading Resources, Inc.. TreePrint March 31 & April 1, 2008 TxDOT Training Facility 7600 Washington Avenue, Houston, TX 77007 For more information or to register visit www.h-gac.com/treeprint or contact Michael Merritt with the Texas Forest Service at mmerritt@tfs.tamu.edu. |
| Clean It Like You Mean It! - River, Lakes, Bays N' Bayous Trash Bash® |  Saturday, March 29, 2008 Rain or ShineOnce a year thousands of volunteers gather along the Texas waterways to do their part in cleaning up the environment and participate in the largest statewide event to educate the public about the importance of our water resources. Volunteer at any of 17 sites!
>>Free lunch
>>Entertainment
>>Door Prizes
>>T-shirts Click here to find a cleanup site near you! You do not need to pre-register for the event, however, all participants must complete a liability form. If you are bringing a large group please contact the site coordinator to let them know. In addition, you will want to have all liability forms complete before arriving to the site. For more information please visit www.trashbash.org, call 281-486-9500, or email swinformation@h-gac.com. |
| Volunteer Spotlight |  Mary Ellen Whitworth has been an active Texas Watch volunteer Water Quality Monitor since July 2002. As a part of the Texas Watch volunteer cadre for almost six years, Mary Ellen takes time each month to sample a site on Buffalo Bayou because she cares about our environment.
Texas Watch Volunteers are trained to collect quality-assured information that can be used to help make environmentally sound decisions. H-GAC has been a Texas Watch partner since 1991. The state wide program focuses on citizen involvement to improve communication and facilitate education about water quality issues. It is a cooperative partnership between Texas State University, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Mary Ellen is involved in environmental protection activities because she wants there to be natural areas for future generations and the numerous animals, fish, birds and other aquatic organisms that relay on our bayous. For ten years she has been the Executive Director for the Bayou Preservation Association and she serves on several local environmental committees. She currently is a member of the H-GAC Envirocast Committee, Natural Resources Advisory Committee, and the Parks and Natural Areas Subcommittee. She also participates with the Clean Rivers Steering Committee, TRASH BASH, and the Stakeholders group for White Oak and Buffalo Bayou.
For all the hours Mary Ellen gives to our environment, she says she really enjoys water monitoring because she gets to observe Buffalo Bayou as it changes during the seasons. Texas Watch activities provide her the opportunity to enjoy nature and keep an eye on the ever-changing water. We appreciate all Mary Ellen Whitworth does for our environment and thank her for her volunteer service. For information on how you can become a Texas Watch volunteer contact Gayla Stock at gayla.stock@h-gac.com. |
| Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Recreation Grants |  Texas Parks and Wildlife Department acts as a silent partner in hundreds of communities across the state through its grant, assistance, education, and outreach programs. From the largest metroplex to the smallest rural community these programs help to build new parks, conserve natural resources, preserve historical sites, provide access to water bodies, develop educational programs for youth, and much more.Click here for a list of grant types and application deadlines.
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| NRC Spring 2008 Bin Grant Cycle: Mark Your Calendar! | 
NRC with support from The Coca-Cola Company opens its next round of grants in spring 2008, through the Recycling Bin Grant Program. The program supports local community recycling programs by providing bins for collecting beverage container recyclables in public settings. The grant program is open to government, civic, school, non-profit organizations and for-profit companies. Interested parties fill out an online application describing their proposal, justifying the need and specifying the bin types they are interested in from a pre-selected menu of options. The grants are awarded on a competitive basis to proposals likely to have the greatest impact on increasing beverage container recycling. Over seventy-five grants were awarded at the end of the fall 2007 grant cycle to community recycling programs across the country. Recipients included municipalities, colleges, Native American tribes, and community-based NGO's. Among the winning proposals were plans to establish lending programs, provide special event recycling bins for community events, place bins throughout a local baseball stadium, expand recycling opportunities within university administration buildings, and place recycling bins alongside existing trash receptacles on a small town's streets. The online application for the spring 2008 cycle will be open for submissions beginning Monday, March 3, 2008, and will close Friday, April 4, 2008. Recipients will be announced on Earth Day, April 22, 2008. For more information about the grant program or to apply, visit the program website at http://www.bingrant.org. |
| EPA Helps Communities Increase Water System Sustainability |  EPA is providing tools and timely information to help communities improve sustainability of their water systems. Two new documents that describe how EPA is carrying out efforts to help are the "National Capacity Development Strategic Plan" and "Analysis on the Use of Drinking Water State Revolving Fund Set-Asides: Promoting Capacity Development." EPA works with a number of partners, including organizations that provide technical assistance to small public water systems, to improve technical, managerial, and financial capacity of systems. The "National Capacity Development Strategic Plan" describes how EPA, state drinking water programs, drinking water system owners and operators, and technical assistance providers will work together to achieve the objectives and anticipated outcomes of the national capacity development program. The strategy outlines how EPA and its partners will promote proactive communication and outreach to help ensure that water systems have the capacity to demonstrate long-term sustainability. Funding made available through the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) program can be critical in advancing capacity development programs at the state level. EPA's report titled "Analysis on the Use of Drinking Water State Revolving Fund Set-Asides: Promoting Capacity Development" provides information on how states have used their funds and will help state drinking water personnel, drinking water system owners and operators, and technical assistance providers to better understand how the DWSRF can support supporting capacity development programs and EPA's sustainable infrastructure initiative. For more information about capacity development and water system sustainability click here. |
| Greenest Cities in the United States |  Popular Science has just recently released a list of "America's 50 Greenest Cities". The author, Elizabeth Svoboda, is clear about the fact that it is the local governments, not the federal government, that are the driving forces behind the green progress being made in our cities. "In everything from emissions control to environmental stewardship, cities across the country are far ahead of the federal government, and they're achieving their successes with ready-made technology. Austin has pledged to meet 30 percent of its energy needs with renewable sources by 2020, aided by planned wind-power installations that will surpass their predecessors in efficiency. Seattle has retrofitted its municipal heavy-duty diesel vehicles with devices that will reduce particulate pollution by 50 percent. Boulder has enacted the country's first electricity tax to pay for greenhouse-gas emission reductions. Something about the comparative speed of city government-a city-council member can greenlight a project and be cutting the ribbon a year later-leads to bold action, and as cities trade ideas, a very positive sort of mimicry is spreading."
To read the full article, see the complete list of green cities, and see six case studies click here.
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