REHOBOTH BEACH — With more than 60% of its program funds and 85% of its staff support coming from federal sources, the Delaware Center for the Inland Bays may be facing hardship.
Its director, Christophe Tulou, said the agency wouldn’t survive the loss of U.S. financing.
“We would be obliged to close the doors and find something else to do,” he explained. “We’d be left with basically one or two people who would then figure out how to shutter everything.”
The center is one of 28 estuaries of national significance identified by Congress during the 1980s. It is part of the Clean Water Act and a member of the National Estuary Program.
It’s also where some magic happens.
“Just in our little 400-square-mile, tiny watershed, we generate about $4.5 billion a year in economic activity,” Mr. Tulou said. “So, what we do is to try to protect, preserve and restore this watershed so that the goose that has been laying golden eggs for all these years will continue to do so.”
He added that more than half the U.S. gross domestic product is generated in this and similar watersheds found nationwide.
Plus, economic magic isn’t the only kind in the Delaware watershed.
The estuary brings saltwater and freshwater together, creating unique opportunities for species, Mr. Tulou explained.
“These species have become very important recreational and economic commercial products for us historically, like oysters,” he continued. “We are working hard to make sure that they can make a comeback, both in the wild and through the aquaculture industry.”
Then, there’s horseshoe crabs, which have been breeding along the coast for millions of years and attracting migratory shorebirds like red knots, which depend on them for food.
The center spends most of its time forming partnerships to protect the landscape, reinforce the shorelines and organize people, the director said. And funding cuts would remove such teamwork.
Because he’s faced a zeroed-out budget line in the past and has experience with federal programs, he also explained why it’s different this time.
During the first Trump administration, in exchange for meeting requirements under the Clean Water Act, and reporting on such, the Environmental Protection Agency would pay the center about $850,000 — a number that has grown over time, Mr. Tulou said. It gets about $900,000 from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, as well.
While the executive preparing the EPA budget might not include inland bays funding, the request would be reviewed by Congress, which could reinstate the line item.
“They (would) say, ‘We’ve got a lot of people in Mississippi, Florida, Texas and Delaware who love these programs, so we are going to restore that funding,’” he explained.
However, now, “what we are seeing around us — in programs left, right and down the middle — is folks in the executive branch are making their own determinations and cutting off funding without any consultation with Congress. And it can happen overnight,” Mr. Tulou said.
But his program is worth it, he continued.
“I want my dollar to go to the program that is going to return $17 for every one of my dollars I put on the table,” he said. “That’s what we, as an estuary program, and all of our partners in the national programs represent.”
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