CRISFIELD, MD — The Southern Crisfield Mitigation Project is seeking a new avenue for funding following cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
FEMA announced it would terminate its Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program and cancel all BRIC applications from Fiscal Years 2020-2023, canceling a $36-million flood mitigation grant awarded to Crisfield last year.
Jennifer Merritt is Crisfield's climate resilience and project consultant.
"This project began when the city of Crisfield received a nonfinancial grant from FEMA to work with direct technical assistance," Merritt said.
This nonfinancial grant helped smaller communities like Crisfield write competitive grants and navigate the application process, which Merritt described as rigorous.
"That assistance leveled the playing field between big cities that can afford to spend hundreds of thousands in engineering and small towns that need expertise," Merritt said.
In a press release announcing the cuts, a FEMA spokesperson characterized the BRIC program as "yet another example of a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program."
The project's initial phase was designed to raise roads below Chesapeake Avenue. The city recently submitted another application for a project to address areas north of Chesapeake Avenue, aiming to create a continuous tidal barrier five feet above sea level.
Dr. Stephanie Stotts, an Associate Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, said coastal communities on Delmarva are uniquely vulnerable to flooding.
"We sort of have this perfect storm happening here where we are a low elevation, low slope, sinking land, combined with rising water," she said.
Stotts said intervention options are too expensive for many smaller communities to fund themselves.
"The adaptation options that we have aren't cheap. These communities are either going to need help or they're going to have to pick up and move," Stotts said.
Merritt said the city plans to use the same project plans to identify other avenues of funding.
"The work that resulted from the application was extremely valuable," Merritt said. "What it will take, you know, to create this flood barrier for Crisfield and because we have that valuable information, we can continue to seek funding."
Crisfield officials tell WBOC that other flood mitigation projects are underway that will not be impacted by the FEMA cuts.
The Crisfield Resilience Academy will host a community resilience day on April 26. Local, state and federal partners who have collaborated with Crisfield to build its coastal resilience will be in attendance to discuss ongoing efforts and answer questions from the community.
For more information about the event, contact BEACON’s John Hickman at jnhickman@salisbury.edu or EPA’s Jenna Hartley at hartley.jenna@epa.gov.