The Rio Grande is Laredo’s ONLY source of drinking water and supplies water to 6 million other people. It continues to rank as one of the 10 most endangered rivers in the world. This life-giving river is facing challenges that negatively impact in-stream flows, water quality, and wildlife habitat. The choices we make today combined with RGISC’s efforts to conserve our biodiverse ecosystem will directly benefit our health, our quality of life, and the natural world.
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Our advocacy campaigns, monthly river monitoring, and community programs focus on river restoration, habitat conservation, climate impacts, water security, and clean air. Our goal is to make our South Texas region more green, sustainable, and water secure for current and future generations to enjoy.
RGISC’s Water Security program aims to assemble information and conduct scientific research that identifies and prioritizes necessary actions to restore our watershed. By understanding the science of our river system’s hydrology, we can resolve impacts to our environment, water quality, water availability, and public health. RGISC is in the early stages of investigating and building an innovative waste-to-energy pilot project, known as a Community Water & Energy Resource Center (CWERC) to meet Laredo’s increasing need for wastewater treatment, while reducing utility costs, creating opportunities for green infrastructure, generating reusable water, and enhancing local renewable energy production.
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Our climate change initiative aims to track data on greenhouse gas emissions by installing air monitors around Laredo designed to help us understand and reduce total emissions in our city.
RGISC is committed to developing solutions to ensure that all Laredoans, regardless of income level, can benefit from cleaner air through targeted initiatives, such as enhanced tree canopy, the acquisition of public land for conservation, clean public transit, and low-emission vehicles. RGISC co-founded the
Clean Air Laredo Coalition to find solutions to our most pressing air concern: ethylene oxide.
Managing invasive species, reforesting with native species, and restoring our river’s hydrology is critical to supporting our region’s biodiversity and securing our water supply. Conservation and restoration are at the forefront of our strategy to protect our natural resources from climate impacts while using the work to inform local and regional policymakers. Current projects that we’re involved with include Monarch pollinator gardens and the Binational River Park. We are working to expand our capacity to undertake more significant restoration efforts along the river.
The Binational River Park project is the first international conservation project intended to transform our community and change the narrative around the border by focusing on Laredo's greatest asset, the Rio Grande. The Park will become a new regional and national landmark, restoring river ecology, improving safety and security, and attracting economic investment on both sides of the river while honoring our bicultural heritage and identity. The proposed 1,000-acre Park seeks to restore 6.2 river miles and significantly enhance our quality of life.
