IT WAS SUPPOSED to be a big year for the cities of Everett and Chelsea, with construction of a $120 million flood resilience project set to begin at the end of 2026 on the Island End River, a tributary to the Mystic River that sits between the two Gateway Cities and generates dramatic flooding during severe coastal storms.

But instead of breaking ground on the 4,460 linear-foot storm surge barrier and 3,000 square-foot underground storm surge control facility, project managers like Emily Granoff, Chelsea’s deputy director of housing and community development, are back at square one.

One year ago in April, the Trump administration abruptly announced its intent to shut down the bipartisan Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) initiative that has allocated billions of dollars in federal grants to pre-disaster mitigation efforts in communities across the country since 2020. The move halted $3.6 billion in approved funding that was not yet allocated and cut $882 million in grants for the following fiscal year.

Applying for the federal grant was an onerous process, Granoff said, requiring hours of staff time and even consultants to help compile the relevant data and documents.

“You don’t do it unless you really need it,” she said.

Granoff’s team spent months working with property owners and stakeholders, compiling letters of support, calculating cost estimates, generating maps and project models, writing and signing agreements, establishing a project schedule, conducting a cost-benefit analysis, and more. The cities spent around $70,000 on consultants who aided in the project modeling and economic analysis required for the application.

“We don’t know when the next huge coastal storm is going to happen,” Granoff said. “But we know that we need to be ready. We know it’s coming, and we know the risk is getting higher.”

The project, like many others across the country, was put on pause while the fate of the BRIC program was challenged in the federal courts. But one year later, uncertainty remains.

A federal judge has issued two court orders requiring FEMA to restart the program. For Granoff’s team, that news isn’t as good as it seems. At the time of the cuts, Everett and Chelsea lost out on a $50 million BRIC grant that was in progress. They subsequently lost $20 million in additional funds from the state that would have matched the federal grant. Because the Island End River project was selected for further review but not yet awarded with a signed contract, restoring the program won’t necessarily make the $50 million reappear.

“We went from being relatively close to being able to fund construction to having no money,” Granoff said.

One year after the axe fell on BRIC, projects like the one on the Island End River remain stuck in limbo despite the federal court’s order to restart the program. The project, which was close to construction, has now been delayed by two to three years, with no guarantee that funding will be restored. It’s time that Granoff and other climate resilience advocates say they don’t have as flood events become more frequent and severe, and construction costs rise. Now, local planners are trying to piece together funding from other sources so the project can continue, even partially.

“We know that the state has a lot of additional financial needs and pressures right now, because we’re not the only ones who have lost federal money,” Granoff said. “We just need to be creative about figuring out how to make it work.”

In response to the termination of the BRIC program, a coalition of more than 20 states with money on the line, including Massachusetts, immediately filed a lawsuit arguing that the administration had “no lawful authority to unilaterally refuse to spend funds appropriated by Congress.” In December, a federal judge agreed and ordered FEMA to restore the program’s funding. For nearly three months, no action was taken, and projects remained in limbo with the status of BRIC unknown. Some accused FEMA of taking a “wait and see” approach.

On March 6, the judge issued a court order enforcing the December judgment. The order also requires FEMA to communicate the status of current BRIC projects to the states, file status reports with the federal court outlining its plan to comply with the order, and issue a fiscal year 2024 notice of funding opportunity for the BRIC program within 21 days so that states can again apply for funds.

On March 25, FEMA republished the funding opportunity for fiscal years 2024 and 2025 (since the agency rescinded last year’s opportunity) and made $1 billion in federal funding available to states. Individual awards will now be capped at $20 million for national competition projects. Phased projects will no longer be eligible, and construction readiness will be prioritized.

FEMA now has to move forward with projects that were already obligated and had a grant agreement in place. But the agency will have to make grant-by-grant decisions on projects that were not yet obligated, according to Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office. The judge’s original order did not specifically require BRIC funding to be restored to the awards that were in progress last year.

Without the federal grant, Granoff’s team has been considering a phased approach that would break the project up in pieces – most likely starting with the storm surge control facility, which prevents water in the culvert from flowing back up from the river onto the street. Those individual pieces, while alone are not enough to thoroughly prevent coastal flooding, come at a smaller price tag and are easier to fund. They also ensure that the project keeps moving forward, even just small steps.

Coastal storms and high tide events have already disrupted businesses, streets, and traffic along the Island End River floodplain.

In January 2024, around 1.5 feet of water overtopped the Newburyport/Rockport commuter rail line during a high tide event, along with floods that disrupted traffic on Spring Street, Behen Street, and Market Street in Everett. During a 2021 storm, severe flooding along 3rd Street in Everett reached an industrial facility and storage garage, leaving the site impassable. And during a 2018 event, flooding hit Beacham Street and Market Street in Chelsea, submerging a United States Postal Service facility’s side and rear lots. Vehicles were also submerged in water.

“If we do get the money back, which would still be the best-case scenario for the project, we will have at least a year of paperwork to complete and new bureaucratic hurdles caused by our work over the last year,” Granoff said. “We didn’t stay on the timeline we were on with FEMA because we’ve been trying to figure out what a pivot to a project without FEMA support would look like.”

Granoff said if the awards that were in progress are not restored, her team will have to contemplate reapplying for a BRIC grant.

“There has just been so much uncertainty in this process. I could see us deciding to proceed with a phased approach even though applying for BRIC again is an option, just to be able to have a little more confidence in the security of awards and a more stable timeline,” Granoff said. “Not to mention applying to BRIC is an enormous undertaking that takes a lot of time and funds.”

Cuts to BRIC were part of the Trump administration’s efforts to transfer more responsibility for disasters to state and local governments. The administration is also pursuing a massive federal overhaul of FEMA.

Granoff said cities like Everett and Chelsea – which have been working on the Island End River project for nearly 10 years – already play a sizeable, active role in promoting resilience and sustainability.

“We think about this all the time. It’s not a question of engagement or leadership, but a question of resources. That’s what we can’t replace when the federal government doesn’t have it to offer,” Granoff said.

The BRIC pause was not a unique case. Trump’s first year back in office was marked by unprecedented federal funding cuts that have continuously been met with lawsuits. The BRIC program originally launched in 2020 during the first Trump administration, although most of its funding came from the Biden-era Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Many argued that reducing BRIC funding in the interest of shrinking government spending would cut the other way. If a major flood disaster were to occur and cause damage, FEMA would bear a significant portion of the cost.

In order to receive BRIC funding, mitigation projects like the one on the Island End River must first go through a cost-benefit analysis to compare the upsides to what it would cost to build. Once complete, the project in Everett and Chelsea would have generated an estimated $30 in protection for every $1 spent on construction.

“We’re hoping that common sense prevails here,” said Sen. Sal DiDomenico, a Democrat representing the two cities. “We’ll get a critical storm and flooding in the area, and people will regret not investing $100 million, because there will be billions of dollars in losses, not just in economic activity and property, but also in the human side of this.”

Within the flood risk zone sits Chelsea High School, a community health center, a grocery store, Route 1, Route 16, freight rail tracks, a commuter rail line, and the New England Produce Center, which distributes produce to 8 million people across the Northeast and experienced significant flooding in 2018. It is also a critical corridor for trucking in the region.

“The whole purpose of this project is to prevent damage, to prevent displacement of people and critical industry, and to prevent the food insecurity that could result from the New England Produce Center being deeply affected by a storm,” Granoff said. “Every year we don’t build this, we risk those consequences.”

Flooding typically happens between October and March when the coast is hit with nor’easters. Those storms push water from the ocean into tidal rivers and low-lying land areas. As that water pools over a period of time, it could sync up with high tides.

Even when it isn’t storming, the Island End River already floods often during high tide. The flooding is expected to increase in frequency and severity – almost weekly by 2030 and twice per day by 2050. Part of the low-lying area was a former industrial zone, meaning significant floods could release petrochemicals and other hazardous materials stored there.

“That’s what the cities of Chelsea and Everett are trying to get ahead of,” said Nasser Brahim, director of climate resilience at the Mystic River Watershed Association. “Anytime we get one of these nor’easters that happens to sync up with high tides – where that storm surge happens to be a couple feet at the time of a high tide – we get flooding.”

By 2081, the kind of 1-in-100-year storm surge events equivalent to Hurricane Sandy could be annual occurrences, according to a 2022 study from the Woodwell Climate Research Center.

“When this does happen – and it will happen at some point – the loss is going to be astronomical. You can’t even put a dollar figure on it,” DiDomenico said.

In addition to the storm surge barrier and storm surge control facility, the flood prevention project on the Island End River would have included wetland restoration and protected an estimated $3.6 billion of high-risk assets.

Brahim said after minor or major flood events, a lot of the pain is suffered by municipalities. Homes are flooded, streets are blocked off, vehicles are damaged, and residents are left trapped in their communities.

“Even that little bit of salt water that comes up onto the roads in a minor flood situation degrades the asphalt,” he said. “If you see a bunch of cracks in the pavement in a low-lying area, it’s probably because it floods. Communities have to replace that road asphalt more frequently. Or they don’t, and it just impacts people’s vehicles.”

Brahim recalled a number of back-to-back flood events that occurred along the Mystic River in 2018, which required a response from EMS staff, the Army National Guard, and search and rescue crews.

“The response cost is high, and the slow degradation of property and infrastructure is a significant long-term cost that will continue to rise,” he said.

With the rollback of federal funds, state leaders and local planners have now been forced to piece together new money for the project at a time when municipal budgets continue to be stretched thin and the state faces sizeable budget pressures. Chelsea’s contribution to the $120 million price tag was originally set to be $5 million over three years, which was a big ask, Granoff said. The city can no longer commit to that amount. Everett had also committed $5 million.

While replacing the $50 million grant likely isn’t feasible, DiDomenico said he is working to secure $20 million for the project in Gov. Maura Healey’s environmental bond bill, which totals nearly $3 billion and outlines the administration’s climate priorities. Items secured in the bond bill are not direct appropriations. The bill simply authorizes the spending, and the governor decides whether and when to spend the money.

If the $20 million is not included, DiDomenico said he plans to file an amendment for the funding.

“The federal government has created so many holes in so many different areas that the state can’t possibly backfill all the deficits that are created by this president. We are not in a position where we can put all that money back,” he said. “This is one of many things that are being cut, and we’re in a tough situation.”

Granoff’s team is turning to more nonprofit and philanthropic organizations for funding and trying to establish which parts of the project might have workable price tags. And, if they decide to pursue a phased approach – although a timeline has yet to be established – they will look for state funding.

“There’s no world in which Chelsea and Everett together could come up with that money … compared to the federal government, we have no capacity to fund these kinds of improvements,” she said. “Even if it is, theoretically, a $30 million price tag instead of $120 million, that’s still not achievable for us.”

Since the BRIC cuts last year, Granoff said they are lucky not to have had any flood events like the ones they have faced in recent years, which shut down several streets. But since 2018, they have seen storms of that level about once a year.

“I’m still kind of wondering if something is going to happen in the next couple of months,” she said. “A number of those storms have been in the spring.”

Despite the uncertainty, Granoff’s team has no choice but to remain optimistic. Healey’s environmental bond bill already includes $200 million to fund priorities outlined in the Office of Coastal Zone Management’s ResilientCoasts initiative. The Island End River was highlighted in that plan, meaning Everett and Chelsea could potentially see some of that money in the future.

“We are a source of continuing hope,” Granoff said.