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State-backed Clean Coast Texas offers Port Arthur help with stormwater, green infrastructure and grantwriting
Summary
A Texas A&M AgriLife Extension representative introduced the Clean Coast Texas partnership and offered technical assistance on stormwater retrofits, grant applications, volunteer training and community planning.
Texas Community Watershed Partners, operating under Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, presented Clean Coast Texas’s services to the Port Arthur City Council on Feb. 25 and invited local coordination on stormwater, resiliency and grant opportunities.
Scott Jones, representing Texas Community Watershed Partners, said Clean Coast Texas works with coastal communities to design green stormwater infrastructure such as rain gardens, bio-retention cells and retrofitted wetlands. “The big one is stormwater retrofit design and construction,” Jones said, and offered to help the city with ordinance language, volunteer water-quality monitoring and grant-writing support.
Jones cited Port Arthur planning documents — including the 2018 comprehensive plan and downtown and parks revitalization plans — as points of connection for green-infrastructure projects that can reduce flooding and improve water quality. The program partners with the Texas General Land Office (GLO) and noted that GLO funding supports many coastal-resiliency grants.
Council members asked whether Clean Coast had experience with detention-pond retrofits and how the program could help enforce or encourage developers to install required retention infrastructure. Jones said the program could provide lessons learned and engineering assistance and could help with volunteer monitoring and planning exercises.
Jones also said Clean Coast Texas could assist with converting underused or blighted sites into stormwater wetlands and park space, citing an example of an old golf course converted successfully in Southeast Houston. He offered to follow up with city staff and bring technical contacts from the General Land Office for more detailed discussions.
Ending
City staff and the city manager said they would accept follow-up from Clean Coast Texas and explore partnership opportunities to support local stormwater and resiliency projects.
