Environmental Integrity Project (EIP)
With community partners, EIP will focus technical analysis and legal research into strengthening regulation of methane pollution from landfills, a gas that is 86 times more harmful to the climate than carbon dioxide on a 20-year scale. The state’s largest municipal solid waste landfill, Quarantine Road Landfill, happens to be located on Hawkins Point in Baltimore City. It is the third largest emitter of methane in Maryland in 2018 and produces 500,000 tons of Greenhouse Gases annually. EIP will encourage waste reduction and diversion as well as alternative methods of waste disposal.
WYPR-Your Public Radio Corporation
Baltimore and Maryland face critically important and increasingly difficult environmental issues and public health challenges while news organization coverage has shrunk dramatically over the last decade. WYPR, Baltimore’s local radio station, offers “The Environment in Focus,” a weekly program providing listeners with engaging and informative stories about the environment and environmental issues, from COVID and climate change, sea level rise, and endangered species to relevant federal rulings, state policy analysis and city actions. This grant pays the full production costs of the weekly radio program.
Chesapeake Climate Action Network
Chesapeake Climate Action’s “Rebuilding Baltimore’s Workforce” initiative will advocate for a domestic Marshall Plan to create new jobs for unemployed and newly unemployed residents in Baltimore City. The intiiative builds on their track record of success in creating local jobs and job training efforts that address the global crisis of climate change. Massive urban investments to weatherize low-income homes, plant trees, and train workers for the solar and wind power and cleaner transportation jobs is intended to restart the economy and provide living wage jobs.
Maryland Sierra Club, Fiscally Sponsored by Sierra Club Foundation
The Maryland Sierra Club launched a “Clean Transportation Initiative” to focus on transportation priorities which directly affect climate change, public health and economic development. Over the next year with operational support from the Abell Foundation, Maryland Sierra Club proposes to publish a short report and build a broad coalition to advocate for increasing mass transit, electrifying the bus fleet, and accelerating adoption of low- and zero- emission vehicles in Baltimore City to exceed a statewide goal to reduce climate pollution 40% by 2030.
Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore, Inc.
Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore creates and manages Baltimore’s Waterfront and oversees the Waterfront Management Authority. It will build an interpretive stormwater management feature within a kinetic playground at Rash Field Park. The rain garden will provide opportunities for immersive environmental education. With a focus on age-appropriate childhood development, the site will feature interpretive signage and interactive lesson plans that can be used by local science teachers. This grant provides support for capital costs for the designated stormwater management area.