(The Center Square) – The federal government is withholding funding to the Washington Department of Ecology that impacts the state’s efforts to mitigate coastal hazards.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, is withholding approximately $114,000 out of $250,000 in grant awards for the department’s “Advancing an Equitable Framework for Coastal Resilience” project.
The goal of this project is to reduce environmental and health disparities by supporting local efforts to address coastal hazards.
Washington Department of Ecology Deputy Communications Director Andrew Wineke told The Center Square that the department needs to better understand the risks facing communities across more than 3,300 miles of marine coastline in Western Washington. This includes identifying hazards, such as sea level rise, coastal flooding, beach erosion and saltwater intrusion
“This grant was helping us build a community inventory to guide our hazard assistance and planning efforts – along with the science and engineering that informs those strategies,” Wineke said to The Center Square in an email.
The withholding of the grant is part of the Trump administration’s policy of terminating programs deemed unnecessary and reducing federal spending altogether.
Prior to NOAA’s decision to withhold funding, the Department of Ecology was working with a contractor to conduct outreach in coastal communities and come up with a strategic plan.
After the federal grant was pulled, the department was able to use state funding to continue to carry out some of that work. However, Wineke notes the work had to be scaled back some.
“Specifically, the technical and engineering recommendations were not able to be completed, so there are still gaps in our coastal response strategy,” Wineke said.
The loss of the NOAA grant funding was a setback on the Department of Ecology’s work, but the impacts of coastal hazards remain a priority.
“Impacts like sea level rise and ocean acidification affect coastal communities and tribes differently, and we need to understand those differences in order to invest public funds and state resources where they will do the most good,” Wineke explained.
The Center Square recently reported on Washington Attorney General Nick Brown suing the Trump administration over more than $9 million in withheld NOAA funding dedicated to mitigating climate change, including the grant funding for the coastal resilience project.
NOAA did not respond to The Center Square’s request for comment at the time of this publication.
