The California Environmental Protection Agency announced nearly $100,000 in grants Friday going toward two San Diego-area projects as part of the agency’s Environmental Justice Small Grants program.
The agency gave $50,000 to the Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association to identify the watersheds within in the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board’s jurisdiction where Native American cultural uses are occurring and where appropriate water quality standards are needed to ensure vulnerable populations are protected.
This grant will fund a project to improve the quality of water in areas of traditional harvest through identification of culturally sensitive areas in the San Diego watershed.
The second grant locally was $49,620 to the Global Action Research Center to train 30 San Diego youths on the “benefits of applying green infrastructure solutions in the form of climate-friendly food forests, planting trees, community gardens, water harvesting, composting systems and bioswales,” according to the grant proposal.
The youths will use what they learned to develop and implement an education campaign on climate change issues targeted at other community residents and elected officials with the goal of developing working relationships to inform climate change decision-making processes.
CalEPA awarded 28 grants for more than $1 million throughout the state with its 2020 Environmental Justice Small Grants program.
Grants went to nonprofit organizations and federally recognized tribal governments for environmental justice projects across the state.
“These grants may be small in size, but they have huge impacts in the community. The community-led projects they fund address real problems our vulnerable communities are facing today in terms of both equity and economic recovery,” said Jared Blumenfeld, CalEPA secretary.
Many of the projects funded through the agency focus on providing information to residents of disproportionately burdened communities and enabling more robust and meaningful participation in environmental decision- making at local, state and federal levels.
Since the grant program’s inception, the agency has awarded more than $5.4 million to nearly 200 projects focused on environmental justice issues statewide.
— City News Service
