Parks and Natural Areas Summit and Awards and WISE Awards – February 5 (Online)

The combined Parks and Natural Areas Awards and Water Innovation Strategies of Excellence (WISE) Awards will be from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Friday, February 5.

The event will include the annual Parks and Natural Areas Awards recognition ceremony. These projects serve as models for planning and project implementation for parks and natural areas in the region. Projects will be honored in three categories: Planning Process, On-the-Ground Projects Over $500,000, and On-the-Ground Projects Under $500,000. 

H-GAC will also honor the winners of the WISE Awards, recognizing innovative strategies and projects in the Houston-Galveston region that serve as models for improving water quality.

Registration is required.

Solid Waste Workshop Focusing on Household Hazardous Waste – February 24 (Online)

The next Solid Waste Workshop will be from 9 to 11:30 a Wednesday, February 24.

This event will be online, and the topic will be household hazardous waste (HHW). Presenters will discuss running a one-day collection, operating a permanent facility, the impacts of COVID, going beyond basic HHW collection, rules and approvals needed, HHW operations from a service provider's “point-of-view,” and more.

H-GAC's solid waste workshops focus on in-depth studies of different topics each quarter.

Registration is required.

Trash Free Texas: Adopt-A-Spot Training - February 25 (Online)

Save the date for a Trash Free Texas: Adopt-A-Spot training from 9 to 10 a.m. Thursday, February 25. 

This training is a part of H-GAC’s Trash Free Texas project. For this project, H-GAC has partnered with the North Central Texas Council of Governments and the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment  to establish a unified, coordinated approach to litter abatement and community engagement in the six river basins in the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston-Galveston regions. 

Registration is required. For more information, contact Kathy Janhsen. 

Parks and Natural Areas Roundtable - March 8 (Online)

Mark your calendar for the next Parks and Natural Areas Roundtable from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Monday, March 8.

Registration is required. For more information, contact Andrea Tantillo

The River, Lakes, Bays 'N Bayous Trash Bash is being re-imagined for 2021 to protect volunteers and their families. The event is still set for the week of March 27, but will feature educational videos about watersheds, sources of pollution, and ways to keep our waterways clean.

Cleanups are encouraged on an individual family level but will not be hosted at our normal Trash Bash sites. Save the date and learn how to be a good steward of our Galveston Bay watershed, from backyard to bay.

Trash Bash hopes to welcome everyone back in person in 2022.

H-GAC plans to release a call for study sponsors for the Livable Centers program this month. Sponsors are limited to local governments or other eligible entities.

This is not a request for proposals from consulting firms. 

H-GAC and project sponsors have completed more than 30 livable centers studies, and 75% of those studies report that implementation expectations are on-track. Learn more about the program's progress in the 10-year evaluation report and summary.

More information about deadlines, specific application content, and pre-proposal meetings will be available online.

For more information, email [email protected].

H-GAC recently completed the Resilience and Durability to Extreme Weather in the H-GAC Region Pilot Study and Regional Resilience Tool.

The Regional Employment Density application displays regional employment in 1-square-mile hexagonal grids, including hotspots for high employment concentration areas. Users can explore data using filters by industry sector and county. The tool shows historic employment trends. The source of the employment data is US Census LEHD Workplace Area Characteristics (WAC) 2009-2018.

The Crash Hotspot Map is a data visualization tool displaying crash hotspots areas using 1-square-mile-hexagonal grids. The tool allows users to filter the data by county, crash type, severity, and primary contributing factor. The tool displays 2019 crash data and provides last five-year crash trends.

H-GAC recently updated several of our Interactive Web Applications with new US Census Data.

Using the newly released US Census American Community Survey Data 2015-2019 5-Year Estimates, H-GAC updated demographic data, including regional vulnerable population. The tools using the updated information include the Regional Demographic Snapshot, Demographic Data Explorer, and Regional Equity Tool.

Coastal Communities works to provide communities resources and opportunities to reduce pollution concerns in area waterways. One of the resources is the Coastal Communities Roadmap with free outreach messaging communities can share with residents on different topics, such as illegal dumping, pet waste, and FOG (fats, oils, and grease).

A full year’s worth of messaging is available, with two messages each month in four formats (social media graphic, web banner graphic, flyer, and bill insert).

All messages are free to download, and communities are welcome to add their logo/branding to all messages.

For more information, contact Kendall Guidroz.

Serving as H-GAC’s small business financing arm, the Houston-Galveston Area Local Development Corporation (H-GALDC) is able to help new or established small businesses access capital to purchase and develop real estate. With interest rates at all-time lows, now may be the time to move your business from a lease to a mortgage.

For more information about H-GALDC and its resources visit hgaldc.com or email [email protected] and learn how H-GAC can help your business.

The Urban Riparian Symposium, set for February 10 - 12, provides an opportunity for natural resource professionals to share ideas, discuss management and policy issues, lessons learned in urban riparian and stream planning, assessment, design, construction, and evaluation. The symposium will be held virtually and will include presentations, panel discussions, virtual socials. Late registration through February 5 is for $90.  Included with your conference registration is a complimentary, one-year membership to the Texas Riparian Association. For more information or questions contact Clare Escamilla at [email protected].

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is hosting the Take Care of Texas Art Contest for kindergarten-fifth grade students to depict positive ways to help keep the air and water clean, conserve water and energy, and reduce waste. The deadline to enter is Friday, March 5.

For more than 30 years, Keep Texas Beautiful, in partnership with the Texas Department of Transportation has awarded the prestigious Governor's Community Achievement Awards to Texas communities for their outstanding overall efforts to keep their communities beautiful. This year, 10 winning communities will share $2 million in landscaping awards from the Texas Department of Transportation, with the amount based on population size. The funds are used for landscaping projects along local rights-of-way. The deadline to apply is Thursday, March 4. 

H-GAC has compiled a list of local, regional, state, federal, and private funding sources for local governments and other organizations. H-GAC also maintains a list of ongoing funding opportunities for parks improvements and economic recovery resources.

If you know of a funding opportunity, forward it to Andrea Tantillo.

Looking for interactive applications or GIS data related to the H-GAC Community and Environmental Planning Department? Visit H-GAC's interactive applications web page.

H-GAC has a Facebook page where information about current and upcoming events is posted. Please visit and like H-GAC's page. While there, visit other H-GAC pages on Facebook, including Recycling, Trash Bash, Regional Data Lab, Bacteria Implementation Group (BIG), and West Fork Watersheds Partnership.

Find the latest information about activities around the region at H-GAC's Twitter feed @HouGalvAreaCog. H-GAC's water resources program also offers Twitter updates on water quality issues in the region @HGACwater.