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A “transformational” federal grant that would have addressed flooding and stormwater challenges in Washington may be canceled if the Trump administration succeeds in court to terminate for 781 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grants that were available under the Inflation Reduction Act during President Joe Biden’s term. 

According to a court document filed on April 23, “EPA leadership conducted an individualized, grant-by-grant review to determine which grants should continue, which should be modified, and which should be terminated based on alignment with Administration priorities or the purposes for which the Federal award was made. EPA began this process for the Administration in January 2025.”  

Many grants have already been canceled or rescinded. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin with assistance from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) terminated funding for the grants in an effort to eliminate “wasteful DEI and environmental justice initiatives,” the EPA’s website shares.

Under the Inflation Reduction Act, the EPA received $3 billion to fund environmental and climate justice projects that benefit disadvantaged communities, according to the EPA’s website. 

Of the total amount, $2 billion went to Community Change Grants. 

On Nov. 12, Sound Rivers, Mid-East Commission and the City of Washington submitted an application for a Community Change Grant to improve Jack’s Creek. 

Heather Deck, executive director of Sound Rivers,  described the grant as “transformational,” because it would have implemented flood mitigation measures like natural stone and grass found in coastal areas, dredged Jack’s Creek and added an automated trash screen system to an existing Jack’s Creek pumping station. In addition, the grant would have provided money for community engagement and environmental education programs. 

The entirety of the Jack’s Creek watershed is situated in Washington spanning 1.8 miles, approximately.  According to data from Sound Rivers, an estimated 8,600 residents live in the Jack’s Creek watershed and 93 commercial businesses have been identified in the watershed. Most of this area was labeled high risk to very high risk flooding areas. 

The natural stone and grass not only would have reduced flooding, but would have improved the water quality of Jack’s Creek because documented pollutants (nitrogen, phosphorus and e. coli bacteria) would have been filtered through because the grass and stone mimics a filtration process that occurs naturally. “The idea is that you absorb water, you filter it through the ground, that takes out pollutants and nutrients and those nutrients grow grass or wetland plants,” Deck said. 

Dredging of Jack’s Creek would have added an estimated six to eight feet of depth to the creek which would increase its capacity during flooding and/or major weather events. 

“Jacks Creek has been impounded since the late 1950’s when the city constructed flood gates and pumps. The pumps are a critical asset to the city and extensive loss of property would occur without them as they serve to protect against heavy rainfall events and storm surge, limiting water rise from the Pamlico River. Waterways, however, that have structures that restrict the normal flow of water will eventually fill with sediment, reducing stream depth and thereby reducing stormwater capacity and detention. The creek has never been dredged and it is currently estimated that the creek bed is 6-8 ft shallower than the pre 1950’s stream bed,” Hope Woolard, director of public works for the City of Washington explained. 

Woolard added that automated bar screens are needed at the pump station to remove debris like tires and limbs that can damage the pumps. Currently, manual labor is required which can be dangerous if debris removal is needed during a major weather event. Plans to add automated bar screens were proposed in 2010; however, they were not added due “limited funding.” 

 “This proactive measure aimed to prevent damage to the stormwater pumps by eliminating or reducing the need for human intervention to remove debris, like tires or limbs, that can damage and shut down the storm water pumps and cause significant flooding of homes, roads, and prevent emergency medical services from being provided in the area…Currently, the City relies on manual removal of accumulated debris from the existing bar screens by City personnel. This manual maintenance is carried out on a routine basis, as well as during and after significant storm events. This poses significant risk to employees that may have to respond during a severe weather event. A delay in response to remove debris due to storm conditions, like lighting or heavy wind/rain, impacts the functionality of pumps to pump off flood water,” Woolard said. 

All of these projects would have been fully funded if Sound Rivers, Mid-East Commission and the City of Washington’s application was approved. Deck said the grant was “unique,” because it offered small, rural communities like Washington a chance to request large amounts of money (up to $20 million) without a grant match. 

From November to January, Sound Rivers, Mid-East Commission and the City of Washington received communication from representatives of the Community Change Grant. Beginning in January, communication with the federal government ended abruptly and any attempts to contact representatives were unsuccessful – including getting a return email saying the one email address they had for Community Change Grant representatives no longer exists. This left the three entities without any information on whether their application for a Community Change Grant would be accepted or rejected. The aforementioned court document does state that the “EPA is in the process of sending out the formal termination/cancellation notices to all of the impacted grantees. EPA has already sent out formal notices to approximately 377 grantees. For the remaining approximately 404 grantees, EPA plans to issue notices within the next two weeks.” That would have been May 7; however, as of publication, no one from Sound Rivers, Mid-East Commission or the City of Washington has not been contacted by the federal government. 

“We received an email that there were many applications received and that review would continue into the spring. The grant website is still active and states that you can email for a status update on your application. The project team emailed to check on the application on May 5, 2025 and received a bounce back saying the message couldn’t be delivered because the email address does not exist. A lot of up front work was put into preparing the application. While a grant application is never guaranteed funding, it would certainly be disappointing for the grant to be cancelled without the second round of awards being made,” Jamie Heath, a planner with Mid-East Commission said. 

Earlier this year, Washington Park leaders experienced the same disappointment when they were notified that the EPA’s Closing America’s Wastewater Gap initiative lost funding. The initiative would have helped Washington Park improve its sewer system with the consideration of tying into the City of Washington’s wastewater treatment plant. 

A second organization feeling the effects of federal budget cuts is Eagle’s Wings in Washington. The food pantry was notified earlier this year that its main food supplier, Food Bank of the Albemarle, would receive less funding from the Emergency Food Assistance Program and the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement (LFPA) both of which are under the US Department of Agriculture. 

Also, Pamlico Rose Institute announced earlier this month that funding to its Health Corps program was cut on April 25 by the national AmeriCorps office. The Health Corps program aimed to provide fresh produce, promote health eating and active living. The Health Corps recently constructed a community produce garden in Aurora at S.W. Snowden Elementary.