Eco-Leadership Grant in Grand Forks

Feature
Eco-Leadership Grant in Grand Forks
By Deena Davis
Contributing Writer        

Competition for a grant is tough, but when you have a thorough plan of action that involves the community like Scott Brand, the current President of the Environmental Law Society of UND, the focus isn’t competition but their community. The Environmental Law Society of UND recently received an Eco-Leadership grant to conduct a riparian restoration project inside the Grand Forks Greenway from Fulbright-Canada.

Brand feels they stood out from groups due to their detail to the community. “I can’t say how other people wrote their grant. But we sat down and diligently planned out every detail as much could to let them know exactly what we were going to do. I think they enjoyed fact that we reached out to the community as a whole. We got the city of Grand Forks involved, we got a local tree nursery involved, we got some local businesses involved, and we’re educating the youth as well. I mean, anyone can really plant a tree but when you can you make it a community event I think that’s what stuck out in their mind,” Brand said.

This committee from the Fulbright Canada Eco-Leadership program had 13 submissions from Canada, the United States, and Mexico, but it was in Grand Forks, North Dakota’s Environmental Law Society at UND who was the recipient of the $3,700 grant. Prospective recipients of this grant must submit proposals that include project descriptions and budgets. A committee then evaluates the submissions on projects that will have a lasting beneficial impact on their local environments.

With the grant the Environmental Law Society is going to be able to purchase and plant around 90 native trees, shrubs, and bushes along the Red River in order to provide a carbon sink, provide habitat for bird and mammal species, and filter runoff pollution into the Red River.  In accordance with their submission to the Eco-Leadership Grant, the Law Society intends to make this a community event on Aug. 26, 2011. “We’re going to have 4th graders come out help us plant trees. At the same time we’re teach them about the benefits of riparian restoration and the good the trees are going to do long after the environment,” Brand said.

The Environmental Law Society had a goal to address their community and have a positive effect on the environment when they began writing their grant. “We got together, thought ‘how you going to earn this grant? The Greenway is a big open area.’” The Greenway is a land area in Grand Forks that acts as a device for flood mitigation. After the Red River Flood of 1997, the North Dakota Congressional Delegation proposed the Greenway concept as a preventative measure, while Brand and the Environmental Law Society wanted to address the Greenway’s 2,200 acres of natural open space.

“The Greenway is a big open area. We should plant some trees and shrubs that are native to North Dakota and plant them in there so they can cause a positive environmental impact. Taking CO2 out of the air, reducing run off pollution, and providing for temp saturation for birds and mammals,” the Environmental Law Society said. Even though this project targets the environment, it does have aesthetic value for residents of the Red River Valley. “Regardless of what your views are on environmentalism, you can always enjoy taking a run through a nicely shooed area of trees and shrubs,” Brand adds.

The Environmental Law Society, along with the 4th graders at Lake Agassi Elementary School, will be on site teaching students about the environment preceding the planting of the trees at the Grand Forks Greenway on August 26 at 1 p.m., but the entire community is welcome to participate.

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