The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has cancelled nearly 800 grants set for addressing environmental concerns in communities large and small across the country, including in Montana.
Glendive, one of the largest towns in Eastern Montana, is built on the banks of the Yellowstone River. With broken irrigation pipes, crumbling concrete and depleted river access sites. Glendive has an erosion problem.
Mayor Deb Dion says a lot of erosion is from ice scouring “when the river goes out and the ice just comes along and just scours the bank.”
Dion says one place where the erosion is especially bad is Penninger Park, a nearly 6-acre riverside park with trails, a playground and a couple of athletic courts.
From her car, Dion points out a basketball court where the Yellowstone River is eating a ledge into the concrete.
“Right here there’s just almost nothing left of it and these powerlines all had to be moved,” said Dion.
Up until recently, city staff had been expecting nearly $190,000 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency through the Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program to study long term solutions for the erosion that threatens the public park and the row of houses next to it.
At the beginning of May, Dion learned the program, which funds environmental impact projects in cash-strapped communities, had been terminated. Glendive would not be receiving the funding.
“We just don’t have the money for these big projects, and so we do rely on grants, because you can’t put everything on the back of the taxpayers here,” said the mayor.
The regional EPA grantmaker, Mountain and Plains Environmental Justice Grants Hub, says on its website it received a termination letter from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on May 2. The Hub declined an interview for this story.
At a public meeting, erosion problems were top-of-mind for some residents, like Chris Dantic.
“For kids playing in that park, it is a hazard right now. Especially if you get too close to that bank,” he said. “There’s no stabilization. They could just fall right into the river.”
Now, with the loss of the grant, both city staff and residents like Dantic are wondering what it’s going to take to find a permanent fix.
“It’s definitely a priority on their list, but funding for it? Who knows when that’s going to take place.”
