The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has terminated a $20 million grant for flood resilience and other improvements to the city of Hampton, VA, and the nonprofit Wetlands Watch, the groups announced in June.
The grant was going to help finance the Aberdeen Gardens Neighborhood Resilience Action Plan. The Aberdeen Gardens neighborhood in Hampton started out as one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal projects. In 1933, during the Great Depression, Roosevelt wanted subsistence homesteads built for low-income rural workers. Aberdeen Gardens was the first of those communities built by and for African Americans.
People from some of those same families still live in Aberdeen Gardens, but they now regularly experience flooding. Mold is growing in some of the original brick homes. The plan was going to add drainage infrastructure, widen nearby creeks, build a trail along a creek and create a community garden…