HOOPERS ISLAND, Md. - Tens of millions of dollars in federal funding that was set aside to repair the crumbling Hoopers Island Causeway in Dorchester County has been rescinded, county officials said Wednesday.
Dorchester County Council President Lenny Pfeffer said the county received a letter from the Federal Emergency Management Agency informing them that funding programs had been canceled, following a recent executive order by former President Donald Trump. The decision puts a halt to long-awaited repairs to the deteriorating causeway.
“So all the work we have done has kinda gone away now,” Pfeffer said.
For years, the county has sought federal assistance to support a full-scale overhaul of the causeway, which has been plagued by ongoing erosion. Until now, officials say they’ve only been able to make temporary fixes.
Pfeffer said the funding was expected through FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program.
“From the BRIC program, the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program. So it took a while, but we got approved, and we have a three-year contract that we had agreed to do with them, where they would bring out technical assistance and push us in the direction of funding for projects that help with flood mitigation and disaster verification,” Pfeffer said.
County officials estimate the loss of funding to be around $25 million. Pfeffer warned the lack of investment could leave the causeway vulnerable to future weather events.
“We're really concerned that one major storm is going to take the causeway out,” he said.
That concern is shared by residents and commuters who rely on the road daily, including Jacob Motley and Devin Tibbs.
“There’s a lot of potholes you got to be dodging. It’ll knock your front end out,” said Motley.
“That’s gonna hurt a lot of people down here, especially the locals who drive it every day,” Tibbs added.
Despite the setback, Dorchester County Council says it plans to continue seeking out alternative assistance programs to fund the repairs.
One of the other issues the county was discussing with FEMA involved the bermed infiltration ponds.
“Which are in the form of septic systems that some of the smaller communities have in the southern part of the county,” Pfeffer said. “So they were looking at ways to help us either connect them to a septic system, such as Cambridge, or we’re looking at other alternative methods. Plus they were trying to help us find ways to decommission the ponds that we aren’t going to be able to put into the Cambridge system.”