Sustainable Idaho is a collaboration between the Portneuf Resource Council and the ISU Sustainability Club.
on today's episode, I interviewed the City of Pocatello's Science and Environment Division Manager, Hannah Singer, about the recent grant that Pocatello has received from the United States Environmental Protection Agency for improvements along the South 5th We discussed what the City plans to use the grant for, What the grant means for Pocatello as a whole, and more.
With the EPA determining that Pocatello is a disadvantaged community that qualifies for 16. 4 million to tackle environmental and climate justice challenges, why is Pocatello considered to be a disadvantaged community in need of this money?
The federal government has a number of criteria they use to determine disadvantaged communities.
And so it's based predominantly on your income level in the area. So a lot of Pocatell's census blocks qualify as low income for the criteria they use. And then, Some of our neighborhoods have limited connections to sanitary sewer or indoor plumbing, wildfire concerns, low employment levels. So these are some of the major concerns that rose up in our area.
With Pocatello meeting multiple criteria for being a disadvantaged community, it makes sense why they received the money to tackle environmental and climate justice challenges.
In the Pocatello news release about the city being granted this money they state that the funding will go towards 57 drinking fountains, installation of sewer lines in unsewered neighborhoods along S. 5th Ave, and more. How will these different improvements tackle different environmental and climate justice challenges?
A lot of our parks don't have active drinking fountains, that's because historically the drinking fountains were connected to the same water system as the irrigation system.
So it's all connected. City drinking water, but federal law requires them to be on separate systems. And so, in order to give everybody access to a park with drinking water. So that's a big one, just helping with disadvantaged neighborhoods and making parks accessible to everybody. Particularly also if we get another COVID 19 and everybody wants to go out to parks more.
And then sewer lines in the South 5th area, we have a lot of nitrate from our septic systems are leaking into the aquifer under South 5th. And it's contaminating residential home wells in that area. And then it's also contaminating our aquifer, um, that we all drink out of. So our aquifer tests fine. You know, when you turn on the tap, it's fine.
It's totally fine to drink, but we want to have it be fine for the future. And so removing this source of contamination will protect our drinking water for the future. So that is, I'd say a really important environmental challenge to address.
Addressing these problems now is very important. Instead of waiting until they have bigger problems in the future
With the city partnering with the Portneuf Greenway Foundation, which will be the community based organization nonprofit for the project. What specifically will they do when it comes to the improvement of the South Fifth Corridor?
They're coordinating a lot of the project outreach, and so they'll be hiring a consultant to help. Engage the local community in making decisions about the greenway paths. And we have some improvements planned for constitution park and just getting the community engaged in making decisions.
This is a very short term grant. We have to have the work done in three years, which is super fast. And so they will do this outreach fairly soon and then engage the community in the project all along. We also, you know, want to have more people using our Greenway trails and so additional outreach about the trails and where they go will be a key part of this project.
Because certainly getting more people onto bike trails will improve our air quality as well.
Along with all the work that needs to be done for the project to succeed, community outreach also plays an important role in the success of the project.
Why did the City of Pocatello partner with the Portneuf Greenway Foundation?
Uh, we were required as part of this grant to have a non profit partner who would do our outreach, and they were a really great fit. We have a lot of complete streets and greenway trails as part of this project, so that seemed like the best fit for doing the community engagement. And they were willing to take it on, which was awesome.
It sounds like the portneuf greenway foundation is a very good fit and it makes sense that why the city would partner with them
With these improvements only being done in the South 5th Corridor, how will they benefit the whole city of Pocatello and the surrounding region?
So we got approval to do the drinking fountains throughout the whole city.
So we're super excited about that. And then everybody can use these trails. People from all across the community go to Century High School. And so you can, you'll be able to bike to Century High School or walk to Century High School currently, if you want to get to Century. and not in a car, you are walking in the street.
So getting everybody off the street will be a big improvement, providing additional greenway trails that people can travel on. We also have improvements for Centennial Rainy Park planned as part of this that the whole community can use. So I think you're going to see a community wide benefit of additional greenway trails, complete streets, park spaces that treat stormwater, that goes to our Portneuf River.
And so we should have improved water quality in the Portneuf River as well. More shaded parking lots that everybody uses. So we should really see a large community wide benefit. It sounds like it's going to benefit the whole city of Pocatello and the surrounding region in a positive way.
I think so you know it was nice this project we sort of focused it in this one area as part of this grant but all those benefits together are really gonna be something that everybody in the community can enjoy and use.
There's nothing that's limited to an individual neighborhood or anything, even the sewer connections that we're providing the rest of us are going to realize the benefit of improved drinking water.
It's nice how this project only focuses on one part of Pocatello, but it will benefit the whole region, showing how interconnected everything is.
With the project's plan to be finished by 2028, have they started working on it?, and is 2028 still a plausible time they will be done?
Great question. Yeah, it's really fast. I mean, we have just signed our grant agreement. The whole project is set to begin January 1 of 2025, and then we have three years to complete the work, which is super fast for this amount of work.
But we've actually just started receiving bids to do the surveying work, um, that we need for this whole corridor. So sending surveyors out to mark utility lines and all of that work. So we are moving ahead at lightning speed to get this work done. And Becky Babb and Christine Howe have been tremendous at lining everything up to get a working group together so that we can start to hire contractors.
And I expect in early January, we will have our first contractors hired and be moving forward from there.
It is a lot of work to get done in three years, but it sounds like the city of Pocatello has an amazing plan. to get the work done in time.
Yeah, I'm confident we'll be done in three years and there'll be a great complete street going down a century, a greenway trail, improvements to Constitution Park and Centennial Rainy Park, some sewer improvements and drinking fountains.
Hopefully the city of Pocatello can finish the project in three years and everyone can benefit from it.
I asked Hannah about the pathway to Century High School and if it will be maintained in the winter Like the other paths in Pocatello. And she said that the city of Pocatello still needs to figure out how the winter maintenance will work.
We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Thank you to Hannah Sanger for discussing what the city of Pocatello plans to do with the 16. 4 million grant from the EPA, and hopefully the project will begin on time and finish within the scheduled timeframe.
Funding for our Sustainable Idaho Student Hosts is provided in part by this radio station, the ISU Office for Research and the Center for Ecological Research and Education through the ISU Career Path Internship Program. Direction. Funding and additional support is provided by the Portneuf Resource Council.
