The sudden termination of a $9 million federal grant has paused efforts to rebuild a flood ravaged road Down East and improve water flow to a nearby salt marsh.
At least one supporter sees a political motive behind the move. President Donald Trump's administration has frozen and cancelled specific funding to Maine during a months long dispute with Governor Janet Mills over trans athletes.
The termination "isn't consistent and is clearly retaliation in our estimation," said Dwyane Shaw, executive director of the Downeast Salmon Federation.
Addison Road in Columbia regularly floods where it crosses Bells Brook, a tributary of the Pleasant River.
The problem has grown worse as climate change prompts rising oceans and drives fiercer storms and more precipitation.
"It's always unnerving when these storms have increased so much and with frequencies that it's just going to wash it more out, and then it's not going to be passable at all," said Rep. Tiffany Strout, R-Harrington, who represents nearby towns in the Maine State House.
The Maine Department of Marine Resources received an award through the Transformational Habitat Restoration and Coastal Resilience grant program from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The funding would pay to widen the roadway and raise it six feet, enough to handle current and future flooding. The project also included installing much larger culverts underneath and supported relocating nearby private water wells and septic systems affected by saltwater intrusion.
Flooding can prevent emergency vehicles and school buses from using the road and force them to long detours, said Sean Ledwin, director of the department's Bureau of Sea Run Fisheries and Habitat.
"It will help the town with public safety and emergency management and just build, build the road up for the future, if there's changes to precipitation or sea level rise and other things," Ledwin said.
The national transformational habitat program, funded through laws passed during the Biden administration has steered at least $485 million to projects across the country.
Maine received its award last August and was in the process of selecting a contractor for the final design.
So it was surprising to suddenly receive news of its cancellation "out of the blue," Lewdin said.
In an April 9 letter, NOAA grants management division acting director Timothy Carrigan said the grant had been terminated as part of an effort to streamline and reduce the cost and size of the federal government.
NOAA was reprioritizing staff and funding to support only activities directly related to its current programmatic goals and mission priorities, Carrigan said.
Maine's funded activities "are no longer aligned with effectuating these undertakings, nor relevant to the current focus of the Administration’s objectives," Carrigan added.
The initial planning and design of the project is "an overuse of taxpayer dollars" and its stated goal and description - salt marsh restoration and related effects "fall outside of the current direction NOAA is taking regarding habitat restoration at this time," Carrigan said.
The project may be better suited for state funding or money from another agency the Carrigan added.
Coastal wetlands, including salt marshes, are highlighted as a valuable resource through NOAA's office of habitat conservation website.
And multiple other awards from the transformational habitat restoration and coastal resilience program were focused on salt marsh restoration.
Shaw, from the Downeast Salmon Federation, said so far no organization has been stripped of its funding from the program.
"To our knowledge not a single other project has been canceled across the entire U.S.," Shaw said.
State officials said they will continue looking for other sources of funding to move the project forward. Rep. Strout and state Sen. Marianne Moore have written to U.S. Sen. Susan Collins requesting she intervene to restore the funding.
NOAA did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
