Federal funding cuts and regulatory failure are harming New Hampshire. You can still act locally.
White House Senior Adviser to the President, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk arrives for a meeting with Senate Republicans at the U.S. Capitol on March 5, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by)
As the spring earth thaws and rains drench New Hampshire, our infamous mud season has arrived. And, blowing in like a lion along with it is Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), whose mission includes defunding essential environmental agencies.
Federal funding has been frozen for New Hampshire farmers' U.S. Department of Agriculture grants, like the rural energy programs designed to support farmers making efficiency improvements. Other programs that provide technical and financial assistance to those who prioritize soil health, wildlife habitat, and water and air quality in their agricultural practices or are transitioning to renewable energy systems are also facing stalled funding.
The New Hampshire Food Bank recently lost nearly $1 million in federal funding for its NH Feeding NH program, which purchases fresh produce in bulk from local farmers and assists partner agencies with buying culturally preferred foods for New Americans.
The U.S. House has also proposed $12 billion in cuts to school meal programs, affecting 12 million students in 24,000 schools nationwide. As Dorothy McAuliffe, the former first lady of Virginia, once lamented, 'Kids can't be hungry for knowledge if they're just plain hungry.'
Drastic cuts in EPA funding have escalated the 'forever chemical' crisis. Mark Ruffalo, actor and activist, has pleaded with Congress to stop PFAS at the source, knowing that exposure to the forever chemicals has been linked to health risks such as cancer, birth defects, reproductive and developmental disorders, and weakened immune systems.
In his testimony he cites Manchester as an example 'where a wastewater treatment plant burns sewage sludge just steps from homes, an elementary school, a baseball field, and the Merrimack River.' This plant, he said, 'is the only facility in the state with a sludge incinerator, and in 2018 alone, it burned more than 4,000 dry metric tons of it. That's happening just two miles from neighborhoods already struggling with high levels of toxic air pollution.'
Ruffalo points to the solution: a Clean Water Act permit protecting waters from pollution, specifically, renewing Manchester's permit with stronger regulations to curb PFAS from entering the wastewater facility from upstream industries. Remarkably, Ruffalo notes, the current draft permit contains no such requirement. After 'treatment' this toxic stew is spread as fertilizer over farmers' fields where it leaches into the groundwater supply.
Pristine waterways will undoubtedly suffer severe environmental degradation as wetlands eventually lose their primary function to purify water, prevent flooding, and protect critical wildlife habitat. The EPA is currently ordered to scale back wetland regulations and oversight in favor of state and industry control. Tom Irwin of the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) warns that newly filed bills in the New Hampshire Legislature supported by the fossil fuel industry would, if passed, greatly weaken renewable energy programs by boosting oil and gas production over solar and wind energy.
A recent 'Saturday Night Live' spoof featured the character Debbie Downer complaining to actor Robert De Niro that 'we're all walking landfills.' De Niro replied that the world 'is like living in a full diaper.' In the soil of this morass we're growing 'natural' seeds coated with EPA approved radioactive waste. Despite these odds a unique seed variety persists, immutable and treatment resistant, one honored by the contemporary poet Dinos Christianopoulos in his couplet, 'what didn't you do to bury me / but you forgot that I was a seed.'
His acknowledgement of resilience and resistance serves as a call to action. Just like borrowing a book, you can sign out seeds for your garden from your local library or join the Surfrider Foundation's cleanups of New Hampshire beaches or become a citizen scientist conducting water monitoring tests for the Nashua River Watershed Association. You can join Sy Montgomery's team of turtle rescuers and rehabilitators described in her book 'Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell.'
You can even volunteer with UNH's rescue program, Nature Groupie. As thousands of amphibians migrate each spring to vernal pools and other wetlands to breed, the group organizes salamander crossing brigades at amphibian road crossings to help move them by hand (and keep count) during one or more 'Big Nights.'
Saving small creatures brings the following parable inspired by Loren Eiseley to mind. A man walking along a beach noticed a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. When asked what he was doing, the boy replied, 'Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The tide is going out and if I don't throw them back, they'll die.' The man replied, 'Son, don't you realize there's miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish. You can't possibly make a difference.' Bending down to throw another starfish into the surf, the boy said with a smile, 'I made a difference for that one.'
Though we're facing the erosion of environmental safeguards due to funding freezes, there are many ways we can remain steadfast, connected, and involved.
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