The state of Maine is suing a federal agency over its decision to cancel a $9 million grant for coastal habitat restoration projects in two Down East towns.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration awarded the funding to the state Department of Marine Resources in August 2024 to “restore tidal salt marsh habitat and protect coastal infrastructure from flooding in an underserved region,” according to the lawsuit filed on Tuesday in federal court in the District of Maine.
The money was to be used in the Washington County towns of Addison and Columbia to replace a failing road crossing on the West Branch Pleasant River, elevate the road, and relocate water and septic systems at the crossing, which blocks fish passage and tidal flow and is vulnerable to flooding, according to the lawsuit.
The crossing was identified as “one of DMR’s highest priority restoration projects in Downeast Maine.” The agency also noted that Addison and Columbia were ranked as “most vulnerable” in the Nature Conservancy’s Coastal Risk Explorer, which shows social vulnerability to sea level rise in coastal communities.
On April 9, NOAA terminated the grant citing “efforts to streamline and reduce the cost and size of the federal government” and align spending with the priorities of the administration.
In a letter to the Maine DMR, Timothy Carrigan, acting director of NOAA’s grants management division, said the activities of the program “are no longer aligned with effectuating these undertakings, nor relevant to the current focus of the administration’s objectives.”
Specifically, Carrigan called the initial planning and design for the project “an overuse of taxpayer dollars.”
In court documents, the state accused NOAA of withholding the funding as part of the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to punish Maine for allowing transgender girls and women to compete in female sports.
“The absence of any reasoned explanation for NOAA’s funding decision, the timing of the decision, and the fact that the project grant is the only salt marsh restoration grant to be terminated strongly suggest that NOAA’s decision is a punitive or coercive salvo in this ongoing dispute, entirely unrelated to salt marsh restoration or NOAA priorities,” the state said in the lawsuit.
Funding for the grant dates to the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, from which NOAA created the Transformational Habitat Restoration and Coastal Resilience grant program and awarded the $9 million grant to the Maine DMR.
The state accused NOAA of redefining its priorities “in a way that is inconsistent with the congressional appropriation under which the project grant was awarded.”
