The Delaware Center for Inland Bays faces an uncertain future with the looming threat of federal funding cuts.
The Center is finishing projects it already began, including the South Delaware Coastal Resilience Program that launched in December. That program is continuing for now as planned, in part thanks to a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
But executive director Christophe Tulou said staff can’t make any promises going forward.
It received about $1.7 million in funding from the Environmental Protection Agency each year, which Tulou said accounts for about 80 to 85 percent of its budget for staff and projects. The Center’s projects include various resiliency efforts, educational opportunities, research and advocacy.
“We're very afraid,” Tulou said. “We don't know how to plan. We don't know what our prospects as staff are. We don't know how to communicate with our partners, and we're a partnership business.”
Tulou said the center’s work is vital to Delaware, from planting trees to building living shorelines and protecting habitats and human communities.
The Delaware General Assembly established the nonprofit in 1994 and is one of 28 national estuaries. The Center’s mission is to preserve, protect and restore the inland bays and their watershed.
“We're having to scale back our ambitions, mostly because we don't have that clear window of two, three or four years of funding that we could anticipate,” Tulou said.
With a murky sense of the future, the Center’s staff are unsure how they will be able to develop alternative funding sources.
“We are what people who are focused on government efficiency would create if it wasn't already in existence,’ Tulou said. “So for example, for every dollar of federal funding that our national estuary programs – and that's the 28 programs around the country – receive, on average, we bring in 17 additional dollars to leverage those funds to do the incredible work that we do.”
The Center helps Delaware and its residents adapt to a changing climate and landscape, Tulou said.
“We're continuing full speed ahead until we're told that we can't.”
The center still plans to host its Coast Forward Summit and open house May 1 at the CHEER Center in Georgetown. The workshop will run from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and allow residents to hear from experts on coastal resilience.
