Federal cuts hit volunteers, flood prevention and more

Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate, energy and the environment. From Palm Springs, California, I'm Janet Wilson.

Broad-scale efforts by President Donald Trump and billionaire advisor Elon Musk to slash the size of federal government are hitting home across the U.S., from national park bathrooms to abruptly discontinued climate research programs.

Worried about the weekend forecast? It might be harder to find out what's in store. The National Weather Service has seen staff reductions of up to 40% at some offices, limiting forecasting ability, reports USA Today's Dinah Voyles Pulver.

Americorps, a decades-old national volunteer program, was hit hard, Paste BN reports. Thousands of young workers assigned to disaster response, conservation projects and other community service programs across the United States were sent home.

In Wisconsin, one young crew was due to arrive to clear trails and clean up damaged houses. Others were set to be counselors at a summer camp that reunites siblings separated by the foster care system. But as of April 15, they're not coming anymore, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

"It's very devastating," said Eshalon Mayer, executive director of Belong Wisconsin, which depends on volunteer counselors, aged 18 to 26, to mentor kids at its August "sibling camp" for children sent to different foster homes. Nonprofits like hers who have long depended on energetic, free help are now scrambling to find replacements.

AmeriCorps has struggled internally even before this week's cuts. The agency provides young people who complete their service with money for education expenses or loans. The education awards are the agency's largest liability, now at $287 million. It has also not successfully completed auditable financial statements for eight years.

The fate of BRIC: Local governments are set to lose millions for major disaster prevention, as the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, or BRIC, has been defunded.

Kentucky officials learned from a state grants manager that they would lose millions, even as deadly flood waters pounded portions of the state, per the Louisville Courier Journal's Conner Giffin.

In New Jersey, one town with a history of severe floods spent three years designing a badly needed stormwater management system, and won a $16 million BRIC grant to install storm basins, new drains and pump stations with generators. Now those funds are gone too, reports Amanda Oglesby with the Asbury Park Press. U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. said BRIC funded carefully thought out prevention measures.

"Every dollar invested in disaster resilience saves us $6 in disaster recovery," he said.

But U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who oversees FEMA, said eliminating the $882 million program was part of an effort to eliminate fraud and abuse of taxpayer money.

Soil from garbage. Environmental Protection Agency officials have been busy too. Restrictions on harm of endangered species were loosened, per Reuters.

In Rhode Island, a $19 million EPA dollar grant was meant to help businesses, schools and food banks build composting facilities. The program would divert large amounts of food waste from nearly full landfills, and set up a system of composting pickups for thousands of households. But like all EPA climate justice grants, it has been targeted by the Trump administration, writes the Providence Journal's Alex Kuffner, and the funding has been paused.

Earth(y) Day. You can compost your own food waste too. Kuffner interviews a local expert who explains why and how it works, not only creating beautiful garden soil, but reducing landfill methane emissions that fuel climate change.

Want other tips for Earth Day, which falls Tuesday, April 22? Erich Murphy with the Pontiac Daily Leader offers six suggestions, from planting a tree to capture emissions, to taking a hike to using less oil, gas and other fossil fuels however you can. That last one is most critical, scientists say.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is taking nationally known climate change assessments and research in a sharply different direction, as Paste BN's Dinah Voyles Pulver explores. And the President also signed executive orders to bring back the coal industry. Coal-fired power is a leading cause of atmospheric global warming, as well as being linked to lung cancer and other serious health diseases.

Advocates are concerned the orders will increase climate change and put residents' health at risk from excess air and water pollution.

Life abounds in darkness. When an iceberg the size of Chicago broke off from a massive floating glacier in Antarctica in January, an international team of scientists working nearby quickly steered their ship to see what was revealed on a seabed that had been covered by almost 500 feet of ice for centuries. What they found amazed them, Paste BN's Elizabeth Weise reports.

“We didn’t expect to find such a beautiful, thriving ecosystem. Based on the size of the animals, the communities we observed have been there for decades, maybe even hundreds of years," said Patricia Esquete with the University of Aveiro, Portugal.

Read on for more, including why the Mississippi River was named the most endangered in the U.S. And no, it's not related to water quality. Some stories may require a subscription. If someone forwarded you this email and you'd like to receive Climate Point in your inbox once a week, sign up here.