RICHMOND, Va. — A local non-profit that works to conserve and enhance the James River Park System is feeling the impact of a federal pause on grant funding.
President Donald Trump tasked the Department of Government Efficiency with reducing federal spending, and local efforts to remove invasive plants harming the James River Park System may be impacted.
“They compete with the native plants that live here and, in the case of English ivy, work to choke off the tree canopy so they kill the local native trees we love so much that make up our natural forest around the river,” said Josh Stutz, Executive Director of Friends of the James River Park, about those invasive plants. “If we don’t manage the invasive plant problem right now we will firmly lose chunks of our tree canopy in 15 to 20 years.”
Stutz said his non-profit has volunteers to clear the invasive plants, but the work is endless and a federal grant allows them to pay folks to help.
“They’re very technical, really well trained, and have skills that volunteers don’t necessarily have and we can guarantee their work on a weekly basis,” Stutz said.
Two pieces of legislation passed by Congress under the Biden administration, the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, allowed Friends of the James River Park to apply for and receive about $350,000 in federal grant money.
The money is being used to hire people to remove invasive plant species and work with a consultant to build a long-term management plan for the park.
“You go into this with the best of intentions, and with the full faith and credit of the federal government you believe that is going to be backing this grant, and you invest in people and projects and get things up and moving and you start to build a culture and build systems, and to find out that it can so quickly be taken away,” Stutz said.
He said the way the grants work is the non-profit will pay for the work out of its pocket, and then apply for reimbursement through the Virginia Department of Forestry, which administers the grants.
The state then verifies the work that was done and releases the money back to Friends of the James River Park.
“Now we have these staff that, as of Friday, we’ve been asked to cease all work related to those grants, and we were told the reimbursements for the last quarter would be on hold until further notice,” Stutz said. “It’s disappointing."
Stutz said his team will do everything they can to make it work, but he wants folks to know about the local impact of what is happening in D.C.
“We’re just trying to make a better James River Park system,” Stutz said.
Stutz said the non-profit is committed to keeping its invasive plant removal staff.
To do that, he said they plan to do more fundraising.
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