SAN DIEGO CENTER FOR CIVIC ENGAGEMENT AND U.S. EPA AWARD $45,000 IN GRANTS FOR NEW PARK SPACE

WASHINGTON -- The following information was released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency:

The San Diego Center for Civic Engagement's Opening the Outdoors initiative and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) U.S.-Mexico Border 2020 Program this month awarded $45,000 to the nonprofit group 4Walls International for the construction of a bi-national park space that will use trash pulled from the Tijuana River Valley and tributary canyons as building materials.

The re-purposed trash might have otherwise entered the Tijuana River, negatively impacting the fragile ecosystem of the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve in San Diego. This unique bi-national collaboration will create a gateway to the rich shared cultural and natural resources of the U.S.-Mexico Border.

Approximately half of the funds will be used by 4Walls to create park space and a nature reserve in a canyon in Tijuana just south of the border fence known...