Community-Wide Sustainability

The city of Durango adopted a sustainability plan in 2022 to better address issues such as the city's carbon footprint, renewable energy access, land and resource conservation, and more. Heading into its second year, Green Durango Grants is looking forward to continuing to bring attention and awareness to a variety of organizations working on sustainability efforts in the Durango community. You are watching the Local News Network brought to you by Kroegers ACE Hardware and Serious Texas Bar-B-Q. I'm Connor Shreve.

So the Green Durango Grants really came about in conjunction with our recently adopted sustainability plan. And the plan outlines a lot of areas that as a community we can work on, environmental sustainability and resilience. And the grants are really, the aim is to spread that work across the community and give individuals and nonprofits and businesses an opportunity to contribute to community-wide sustainability efforts.

2022 was the first year for the grant program and five grants were awarded to organizations in the community for various projects, from fire mitigation to habitat preservation along the Animas River. For the Animas View Mobile Home Park, the grant provided much needed funds to help the now self-owned park create a safer place for its residents.

So when the Durango Green Grant came up, we thought this is a perfect opportunity for us to help alleviate some of those costs in the deferred maintenance. And what we went with was fire mitigation. That's one of the biggest things, a lot of overgrowth in our park and also will allow us to then plant more native plants and trees, bring back pollinators into the area.

The grants all went to projects that reduce environmental footprint and improve resilience for a changing climate. Projects that showed innovation and creativity, projects that looked outside the box when it came to dealing with sustainability efforts.

So there's a really wide variety of projects from 2022 and we are really excited to see that. So there were a couple projects that worked on the Animas River. So Give A Dam is a nonprofit that's working to show the value of beavers and wetland restoration. And then the Great Old Broads for Wilderness also did a river stewardship project here along our Animas River. And then we also had Animas View Mobile Home Park did wildfire mitigation. So a wide variety of types of projects. And again, it all circles back to that connection we have with our environment.

Applications for the 2023 Green Durango Grants opened in March and are due by April 24th. The city is offering grant amounts from 1000 to $5,000. And anyone with an idea on how to address sustainability efforts in and around the city.

We've really designed the application process to be pretty streamlined and friendly to applicants. And, you know, we want to know as much as possible about your potential project and, and so we can weigh that with the evaluation criteria, but we also just we don't want this to be like a 20-page application that people have to sift through. It should be pretty accessible to folks.

Learn more about city sustainability efforts and view the plan online. If you or or your organization have an idea for a project that might be eligible for a grant program check out the grant application online and apply by April 24th. For more information about this and other stories, visit DurangoLocal.news. Thanks for watching this edition of The Local News Network. I'm Connor Shreve.