Houston, partners kick off EPA-funded tree-planting and environmental justice initiative in Fifth Ward

Mayor John Whitmire joined city officials, neighborhood leaders and nonprofit partners to launch a three-year, EPA-funded environmental justice initiative in Houston’s Fifth Ward, organizers said at a kickoff event.

The program, city and partner speakers said, will plant 1,000 climate-resistant trees, conduct large-scale trash cleanups, offer free solar job training with paid internships, distribute fruit trees, and fund pollution monitoring and flood mitigation efforts in neighborhoods near the Union Pacific site.

The initiative is funded in part by grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and involves multiple community and nonprofit partners. A Health Department representative said the EPA grants are “responsive to some of the concerns that were raised” in neighborhood meetings and described the projects as targeting extreme-weather impacts, pollution and illegal dumping. The Health Department representative said, “The trees and trash…