Congratulations to the Lower Sioux Indian Community, C̣aƞṡayapi, who was selected as an awardee of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grant (CPRG) under the Tribal and territories competition! The Lower Sioux Indian Community’s CPRG grant award complements the Tribe’s recent opening of its new hempcrete processing facility, which opened last month. Hempcrete is a renewable, lightweight and insulating natural material made from hemp and lime. The new facility allows the Tribe to expand production and processing into the winter season, making the operation a year-round opportunity. The new facility not only processes the hemp that the Tribe grows, but also processes it into hempcrete (hemp stem, water and a lime binder) blocks, spray-applied or wall panels to be used as insulation. As a renewable, non-toxic material, this innovative use of hemp opens up the door to transition away from traditional fossil fuel based insulation that often contains harmful chemicals.
Lower Sioux’s CPRG grant, just under $5 million, will support the Tribe in conducting residential energy audits to assess the conditions of homes on the reservation as well as conduct pre-weatherization and weatherization activities to just over half of the Tribe’s residential homes. The Tribe will use hempcrete to insulate Tribal residential homes. As part of the residential energy efficiency upgrades, the grant will also support the installation of 70 residential cold climate air-source heat pumps to reduce the Tribe’s residential propane use by more than 60%!
Accompanying Lower Sioux’s residential energy efficiency upgrades, the CPRG grant will support the creation of a governmental and commercial energy efficiency improvement fund to support cost-effective energy efficiency upgrades throughout Tribal buildings. Hempcrete will also be used to insulate Tribal buildings. Finally, the CPRG grant will allow the Tribe to hire several additional staff members to support the grant and bolster hempcrete insulation operations.
Deb Dirlam, who is the Director of Environmental Programs for the Lower Sioux’s Office of the Environment, understood the Tribe's unique position leading innovative climate solutions to leverage the unprecedented federal funding opportunities to advance the Community’s goals for climate resiliency and pollution reduction. The Tribe’s decision to apply for the CPRG funding was largely based on the flexibility in the activities that could be performed to implement energy efficient activities. Pre-weatherization activities, for example, are often not supported by many funding opportunities. Grant opportunities like CPRG are also rare because they often require a funding match, which many applicants cannot support.
Deb worked closely with the Great Lakes TCTAC over a couple of months to develop the application. Clean energy expert, Dr. Gabe Chan, co-director of the Center for Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy (CSTEP) at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, provided calculations on greenhouse gas emission reductions, and connections with weatherization specialists to finalize a project design. In addition, TCTAC grants navigator, Urszula Parfieniuk, supported budget development, on-going planning, and review of the application before it was submitted.
It is estimated that the total activities in Lower Sioux’s CPRG grant will have an estimated greenhouse gas reduction of 1,400 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MTCO2e) between 2025-2030 and an estimated greenhouse gas reduction of 7,300 MTCO2e between 2025-2050! The greenhouse gas reduction activities in Lower Sioux’s grant will also lower utility costs for Tribal homeowners and improve indoor air quality. We are proud to have partnered with the Lower Sioux Indian Community on this grant application to continue to bring innovative solutions to the climate forefront!
To see a video of and read more about Lower Sioux Indian Community's hempcrete facility, click here.
Combined, all seven Midwest CPRG Tribal awards will have estimated greenhouse gas reductions of 42,400 MTCO2e between 2025-2030 and estimated greenhouse gas reductions of 233,100 MTCO2e between 2025-2050!
To see all the selected awardees of the EPA CPRG Tribal and territories competition, click here.