New Rain Garden and Butterfly Garden at Gulfstream Academy

Between Tuesday and Wednesday this week the Hallandale Beach Police Athletics League, Hallandale High School Key Club, Kiwanis Club, Broward County NatureScape, Humanity First USA, Gulfstream Academy Latinos in Action, Broward County Farm Bureau, the City, and volunteers transformed the entrance to Gulfstream Academy. The entrance of the school is now home to a brand new butterfly garden and rain garden!

Volunteers planted a large variety of native plants including firebush, coontie, swamp lily, beautyberry, and wild coffee. The goal of the rain garden is to capture the rainwater from the school's roof and filter it through the layers of plant roots and rocks on its way back to our aquifer. Rain gardens can help reduce flooding, support wildlife, and be a beautiful place for students to observe and learn from nature. The butterfly garden is expected to attract our state butterfly, the Zebra Longwing, in addition to the Atala butterfly and Monarch butterflies. 

We are grateful to all the great partners & sponsors of this project who made this beautification a possibility. 

These gardens are a Broward County Certified Naturescape. Learn more about NatureScape here. Each certified yard or garden helps the City in its mission to become a Certified Wildlife Habitat. Certify your yard/garden today!

City Commission Approves Hybrids and EVs for Police Vehicle Replacements

This week the City Commission approved the purchase of 13 Electric Vehicles and 38 Hybrid vehicles to replace some aged Police vehicles needing replacement. Once in operation, these vehicles are estimated to reduce City Operations greenhouse gas emissions by 6.24% and save the City ~$50,000 per year in fuel savings. The vehicles will be arriving in approximately 4-6 months. 

King Tides

We're just about halfway through King Tide Season. Please remember the dates below and plan accordingly.  King Tide Flooding is expected on the following dates:

• November 3 – 9
• December 2 - 7

 
During these dates, if you live in or need to visit a low-lying tidally influenced part of the City, try to plan your trips to avoid high tide times. You can check high tide times here. During King Tide events, be careful driving through or walking through flood water as hazards can be hiding where you can’t see them. If you MUST drive through flood water (we highly recommend against it), please be mindful of your vehicle’s wake and its impact on neighboring homes and/or pedestrians. If you see King Tide flooding, please take pictures (ideally with location information) and send them to sustainability@cohb.org.
 
As the sea level rises, the frequency of tidal flooding is expected to increase to nearly 50 times per year by 2030 and over 200 times per year by 2045. It's not too late to make changes in your life and our City to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to reduce these future impacts. 

Countdown to COP26

With ~10 days between now and the beginning of COP26 we want to make sure our community is aware of the importance of this event.

COP26 is the United Nations 2021 Climate Change Conference. It will be held in Glasgow, Scotland between October 31 and November 12th. "COP" stands for "Conference of Parties". This meeting brings together 197 members of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change with the intention to discuss and ideally take action, much like what happened six years ago with the Paris Agreement. This year, those 197 members are expected to agree on a set of guidelines for the implementation of the Paris Agreement. These will include rules on how to measure and report each country's emissions and how to increase ambition over time.

What Climate Actions can you take?

Following the adoption of the City's Climate Action Plan, we put together a helpful short handout listing different ways residents can help us implement our Climate Action Plan. Check it out today and identify some actions you'd like to take at www.cohb.org/MyClimateAction. As always, feel free to reach out with suggestions you'd like to see added to the list. 

Get in touch or involved with Sustainability & Resiliency

If you're interested in learning more about Green Initiatives or if you want to get more involved, please reach out to our Sustainability & Resiliency Officer Alyssa Jones Wood at ajoneswood@cohb.org and visit cohb.org/green.