This article originally appeared in WFAE’s Climate News newsletter. Sign up here for weekly climate stories straight to your inbox.
A metal staircase leads up to the finished floor of the Hannah Ferry pump station. Outside the station, a long metal plaque adorns the concrete foundation below the floor. Someone had etched what looked like the marks proud parents make on the first day of school into the plaque. The date Feb. 23, 2003, sat at knee height. April 26, 1987, had been etched near eye level. I had to crane my head back to read March 21, 2003.
“These are historic flood events at this station,” said Jason Wilson, director of Salisbury-Rowan Utilities. “You notice the most recent ones aren’t on here because they exceed the tool.”
Early this month, FEMA announced plans to cancel a suite of grants to help communities combat flooding, known as BRIC — Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities. In North Carolina, many municipalities have already invested millions to start the projects, but none have received a federal dime.
The city of Salisbury has already spent $3 million to apply for permits and develop a plan to relocate a pump station on the Yadkin River. That pump serves 53,000 customers in Rowan County. When it floods, the utility must cut power to the station.
When aluminum giant Alcoa built a dam downstream from the Hannah Ferry pump station, it slowed down the river upstream and led to more flooding at the station, according to Wilson.
He pointed to an aerial image of the pump station.
“In some cases, [we] have actually just floated over top of the fence,” Wilson said. “And this is an 8 or 10-foot-tall fence.”
FEMA awarded Salisbury a $22.5 million grant to relocate its pump station to higher ground. So far, the utility has relied on city funds and part of a matching grant from Cube Hydro, which operates the dam downstream. The fate of the matching grant remains unclear if federal funding falls through.
The city still plans to move forward with the project with patchwork grants or, at the very worst, pay out of pocket.
Federal funding dropped like a BRIC
FEMA had given the green light to more than 40 other such projects in North Carolina — all left high and dry.
The town of Duck is the only municipality in North Carolina to complete its project. The town elevated NC-12, restored wetlands and added additional stormwater control measures, costing $4.1 million to complete. The town submitted a reimbursement request last September and is counting on FEMA to recover $1.85 million. Duck Director of Community Development Jim Gould provided a written statement on the status of the funding:
“Our last correspondence from the NCDEM on April 7th indicates that the reimbursement request is currently being ‘processed' by NCDPS Finance Department.”
Even if the funds are ultimately awarded to the city of Salisbury and other municipalities, the uncertainty risks delays that will increase project costs, as the prices of materials and labor continue to rise. Some projects may pivot to state grants, but the money might not be the only hurdle they face.
“As a project lags over time, you lose a lot of the momentum to get it done,” said Michelle Lovejoy, senior manager of climate resilient coasts and watersheds for the Environmental Defense Fund.
Lovejoy said a third consideration is future disasters. Even though western North Carolina is still recovering from Helene, hurricane season is just around the corner. If another major hurricane strikes the southeast, local governments may face contractor shortages.
Lovejoy cited a study from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that found that “$1 spent on climate resilience and preparedness saves communities $13 in damages.”
“The longer we wait to do proactive mitigation, the worse the impact is going to get each year as we get more rainfall,” she said.
