The City of Laredo is aggressively searching for grants to help provide seed monies to fund new programs to benefit the community.

The City of Laredo, located on the United States/Mexico border is the largest inland port on the southern U.S. border, accounting for 41% of U.S. trade with Mexico. This colossal volume of trade with Mexico has made Laredo one of the fastest growing cities in the United States, leading to a population increase of 60% between 1990 to 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Ironically, nearly half of all households (46.2%) in Laredo have a medium annual income of less than $14,999 per year, making them official low-income households, according to the U.S. Bureau of Census, thus defining Laredo as an environmental justice community. Moreover, environmental issues have been largely ignored on the U.S./Mexico border, which was mainly due to the belief that since pollution from the Mexican side of the border could not be regulated, it was not worth investing in environmental programs on the U.S. side. This attitude has been changing through joint programs with Nuevo Laredo, Mexico through the Border 2012 Program.

Through the U.S./Mexico Border Grants Program, the City has developed an e-waste collection program designed to recycle obsolete home electronics. This program has been extremely successful in keeping toxins from electronics out of the environment by recycling over 200,000 pounds of e-waste. Additionally, the City has developed a bilingual/binational early childhood education program, as well as developed a bilingual and binational watershed survey program through the assistance of Border 2012 grants.

The City of Laredo is constantly looking for ways to improve its service to the citizens of Laredo through new projects. These projects, however, can only be implemented in poorer communities, such as Laredo, through partnerships with federal agencies. The City of Laredo will continue to aggressively target pollution prevention through new services and programs, and with federal funds, these new services and programs will be implemented more quickly through federal funding rather than relying on local funding alone.

Grant funds and other federal assistance will enable the Environmental Services Department to continue to provide seed monies for new programs.

Increase Border 2012 grant funding. City of Laredo has requested $50,000.00 through a grant under this program.

• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Border 2012