Newsletter of the College of Architecture at Texas A&M University
The state’s environmental agency has recognized a partnership between the Center for Housing and Urban Development at Texas A&M’s College of Architecture and the Texas Engineering Experiment Station for its role in bringing electricity to residents of colonias near Laredo.
The Texas Commission of Environmental Quality tapped the project, in which 40 Laredo high school students built and installed wind turbines with assistance from CHUD and TEES, as a finalist in its Texas Environmental Excellence Awards competition.
One turbine powers an electric marquee in front of Cigarroa High School in Laredo and the other provides lighting for part of the Webb County Self-Help Center, where colonias residents can borrow tools.
CHUD and TEES also collaborated to provide 12 residences in La Presa, a Laredo-area colonia, with electricity from a biodiesel generator as part of a microgrid project, the first phase of an effort that will eventually supply power to the entire La Presa community.
CHUD’s Colonias Program in the Center for Housing and Urban Development implements solutions that reduce the isolation of the impoverished residents of colonias developments along the Texas-Mexico border and helps them become full participants in the U.S. economy and society.
- Posted: April 23, 2009 -
