The Lone Star Coastal Exchange is proposed by the SSPEED Center at Rice University as a landscape-scale, non-structural hurricane surge mitigation strategy for  Matagorda, Brazoria, Galveston and Chambers Counties.  The LSCE proposes a web-based transaction platform to connect buyers and sellers of ecological services.  The goal of the LSCE is to create an ecologically-based economy will allow private landowners to realize income from creation and restoration of native ecological systems that are productive and resilient to surge flooding.  If successful, this effort could redefine private land conservation efforts in Texas.   

Are you interested in learning more about available funding for recreational trails? If so, please join us as Texas Parks & Wildlife Department’s Recreational Trail Program Manager, Andy Goldbloom, discusses the Texas Recreational Trails Grant Program. During this interactive meeting, he will explain the grant program, application process, and answer questions you may have related to trail funding and/or the grant program in general. 

Texas Parks & Wildlife Department's Recreation Grant Programs

“TPWD administers the National Recreational Trails Fund in Texas under the approval of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). This federally funded program receives its funding from a portion of federal gas taxes paid on fuel used in non-highway recreational vehicles. The grants can be up to 80% of project cost with a maximum of $200,000 for non-motorized trail grants and currently there is not a maximum amount for motorized trail grants. Funds can be spent on both motorized and non-motorized recreational trail projects such as the construction of new recreational trails, to improve existing trails, to develop trailheads or trailside facilities, and to acquire trail corridors. Application deadline is February 1st each year.”

Speaker: 

Andy Goldbloom, Recreational Trail Program Manager, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department  

RSVP:
Holly Thorson - holly@houstonwilderness.org

This meeting is designed to highlight Network Partner organization’s successes, current work, and future plans for the areas in the Sam Houston Greenbelt Network and to illustrate the connectivity of various organization’s work in the area. Our goal is to continue to raise awareness of the collaborative and connected work that independently and together make significant impacts in our region. There will be a continuation of this meeting in 2014 to show the work of other Network Partner organization’s in the Sam Houston Greenbelt Network.

Event Speakers:
Kim Icenhower, Fort Bend Green
Jim Robertson, Cypress Creek Flood Control Coalition
Jeri Kinnear, East End Lagoon Park & Nature Preserve Committee/Julie Ann Brown, Galveston Island Nature Tourism Council 
Mary Anne Piacentini, Katy Prairie Conservancy
Blake Alldredge, Texas AgriLife Extension/Ken Klaveness, Trinity Waters

Event Sponsors: 
ConocoPhillips
KBR

RSVP: 
Holly Thorson - holly@houstonwilderness.org