Local climate and sustainability nonprofit Eco-Action Partners and environmental conservation nonprofit Sheep Mountain Alliance are among many organizations across the country left wondering about the status of their federal funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eco-Action Partners and Sheep Mountain Alliance received a $150,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency last year. It was the first federal grant either organization had received. The three-year grant is through the EPA\u2019s Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving Program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Locally, the grant funds initiatives aimed at removing existing barriers to climate resiliency programming and increasing public health and environmental resiliency among underserved populations in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Emma Gerona, executive director of Eco-Action Partners, described the current status of their grant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe first lost access to our grant back when the original memo was put out in late January, and there was no communication about the status of the grant,\u201d Gerona said. \u201cThere\u2019s been very little communication from our contacts at the EPA around what\u2019s actually happening. The way we\u2019ve been checking is every day seeing our grant portal and whether or not we can access our account.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The grant, Gerona said, is reimbursement-based, with funds drawn from a federal account each month once the work is completed. After President Donald Trump ordered a federal funding freeze, confusion arose over what was happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA couple weeks later, the grant came back\u2014we were able to access it again for about a week,\u201d Gerona said. \u201cAnd then it went away again, and then it came back, and then it went away again. So it\u2019s just been this really confusing back-and-forth of being able to access this grant and tracking down whether or not it is available because we don\u2019t have any communication from the EPA themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eco-Action Partners and Sheep Mountain Alliance work together on programming that includes workshops on drought resilience, wildfire preparedness, and equity in the outdoors. Typically, they are paired with an EPA project officer to assist them with technical questions, but right now, there is no one to contact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been very little to no communication,\u201d Gerona said. \u201cUnfortunately, our project officer, who is the point person for our grant with the EPA, was part of the recent layoffs. So we\u2019re kind of in between contact people right now, so that also hasn\u2019t helped with reaching out and asking questions. They\u2019ve been given the direction to not communicate when a lot of these things are in the air. So it\u2019s been a lot of us reaching out and trying to set meetings, trying to get more information from email, and not really hearing anything back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the status of the funding freeze remains unclear, both organizations say they remain committed to continuing their work in the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of conversations about what it looks like to continue working on our projects and serving our community,\u201d said Ruthie Boyd, program director for Sheep Mountain Alliance. \u201cAnd that isn\u2019t something we want to stop depending on whether our account is frozen or not, which leaves us in an interesting place. As Emma mentioned, we have to do the work first and get paid for it later. So right now, we\u2019re feeling committed to continuing to do the work and figuring out what that looks like moving forward\u2014even if this grant never comes back, which we can\u2019t really count on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gerona said they have been discussing ways to diversify funding sources and leaning on individual donors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been spending a lot of our time over the last two months just trying to address the uncertainty and figure out what\u2019s going on,\u201d Gerona said. \u201cI think we\u2019re all kind of at the point where we\u2019re shifting our mentality to getting back to programming and getting our heads back into the work. Trying to figure out the funding still and hoping that\u2019ll come into place a little bit, because I think a big piece of this tactic is trying to distract people from that work that\u2019s trying to get done and just create chaos so that people are spending their time writing back and forth with their point people or lawyers and not actually getting the work done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really trying to get back to the programming and get our heads back to the community, like Ruthie mentioned, because that\u2019s what really matters in this work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two weeks ago, the EPA released a statement saying it had canceled more than $1.7 billion in federal grant funding for more than 400 grants, a majority of which came through President Joe Biden\u2019s Inflation Reduction Act.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Eco-Action Partners and Sheep Mountain Alliance face uncertainty as an EPA funding freeze disrupts their federal grant. With little communication from the agency, the nonprofits are struggling to continue climate resilience work while seeking alternative funding.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":3653,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-category":[542],"news-tag":[302,384,404,444,477],"class_list":["post-3651","news","type-news","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-category-rural-news","news-tag-community","news-tag-local","news-tag-news","news-tag-sanmiguelcounty","news-tag-telluride"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n