July 26, 2024
Dear Members of the Gonzaga Community,
It is a great privilege to share the following exciting and important news with you. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced that Gonzaga University’s Institute for Climate, Water and the Environment has been awarded a $19.9 million grant to support projects aimed at reducing pollution, increasing community climate resilience, and building capacity to address environmental and climate justice challenges in the Spokane community.
This significant funding, delivered through the EPA’s Environmental and Climate Justice Community Change Grants Program and funded via the Inflation Reduction Act, comes at a crucial time as Spokane and the Inland Northwest face historic summer temperature challenges impacting low-income families who lack access to air conditioning and cooling centers. The Institute applied for funding to create the “Spokane Climate Resilience Project” in partnership with the Carl Maxey Center, Spokane Neighborhood Action Partners (SNAP), and the City of Spokane. The project seeks to build coordinated responses on behalf of those most impacted by extreme heat and wildfire smoke.
The $19.9 award represents the largest federal grant in Gonzaga history, and the largest investment in climate resilience for Spokane.
This funding will enable SNAP to utilize its $8 million allocation to install electric heat pumps in 300 low-income homes, reducing greenhouse gas emissions while providing a means to cool the homes in the summer. Those houses will also receive improved HVAC systems with high-quality air filtration systems and air-quality monitors. The City of Spokane’s $8 million portion will jumpstart the formation of a network of resilience hubs, funding solar arrays and backup batteries at four community centers so they can function “off-grid” to provide refuge to citizens during extreme weather events. The Carl Maxey Center, a Black-led and Black-centered non-profit organization that supports both a community center and programs and services in Spokane, will use its $900,000 allocation to upgrade its building and install a solar array and battery backup, joining the city buildings as a resilience hub..
The grant will also allow for the creation of a Community Climate Action Fund, with Gonzaga’s Institute administering $2.7 million to local community organizations doing climate-resilience work. It will also provide scholarships for nine Spokane residents to join Gonzaga’s course for a certificate in climate action planning. This much-needed funding comes at a crucial point in our history, and will be a much-needed catalyst that will move Spokane further down the path of becoming a more environmentally just and climate-resilient community.
Please join me in congratulating Dr. Brian G. Henning, Director of Gonzaga’s Institute for Climate, Water and the Environment, his colleagues, and our regional partners at SNAP, the Carl Maxey Center, and the City of Spokane for their success in securing this important funding.
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For more information on the work of the Gonzaga Institute for Climate, Water and the Environment, visit gonzaga.edu/ClimateInstitute. For more information about this grant project, visit gonzaga.edu/ClimateResilience. You can read the EPA’s national announcement on Environmental and Climate Justice Community Change Grants here.
“The Inflation Reduction Act is the largest investment in climate action in our nation’s history and it could not come at a more important time,” said Brian G. Henning, director of Gonzaga’s Institute for Climate, Water and the Environment. “As deadly heat waves and poisonous wildfire smoke increase in frequency and duration, we are living in a changed climate that affects those who are least responsible first and worst. In collaboration with our partners, this grant will be a much-needed catalyst that will set Spokane on the path to being a more environmentally just and climate-resilient community.”
Sincerely yours,
Thayne M. McCulloh, D.Phil.
President