After weeks of speculation, the news was released in a terrifying form:

“Dear EPA Grant recipient,” reads an official government email. “The attachment is your reward for terminating the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.”

That's how hundreds of organizations find out they've officially lost funds for EPA grants, many cuts in the environmental program the Trump administration calls for.

These include the Community Water Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing safe, clean drinking water to rural California communities. Their $20 million award has been designated as a major project to merge water systems in low-income central coast communities in Pajaro, Sunny Mesa and Sunny Mesa and Springfield, which have long relied on domestic wells and small water systems that have been higher than legal restrictions.

The program has been around for more than five years and is now in trouble, with President Trump and EPA Chief Executive Lee Zeldin Slash providing grants for more than 780 grants, awarded by President Biden.

“It’s a huge disappointment – ​​this grant will fund safe drinking water and I think everyone agrees that residents across the United States need to have safe drinking water,” said Susana de Anda, executive director of the Community Water Center. “Safe water is not political.”

Nearly two months after reaching the EPA and the president’s unofficial government efficiency department on May 1, the notice first announced that they would terminate more than 400 environmental grants, totaling $1.7 billion, what Serding said was “suppressing wasteful federal spending.” The Times reviewed leak list shows at least 62 California grants in the chopping block.

However, court documents filed last week show that the actual number of environmental grant cancellations in the United States is close to 800. The discovery is part of a lawsuit by nonprofits, challenging the government's efforts to freeze funds granted under Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, as well as the first report by The Washington Post, which was granted by Biden's Inflation Reduction Act and bipartisan infrastructure laws. The EPA legal statement has stated that 377 grantees have received formal termination notices and will soon notice about 404.

It is unclear how many California organizations will lose federal funds. EPA officials declined to provide a list of affected organizations and said the agency did not comment on the pending legislation.

But a few groups in the state have confirmed they are within the cuts. These include the Los Angeles Neighborhood Trust, which lost $500,000 in grants designed to help program the equitable development project along the Los Angeles River, and the food library at Contra Costa and Solano, which lost a lost grant that lost $155,000 in grants, providing a program with food for Vallejo’s needs.

Cade Cannedy, director of the Palo Alto-based nonprofit climate resilient community program, said the organization lost $500,000 in grants that would provide air purifiers for children with asthma and children with disabilities in East Palo Alto. Cannedy said that communities have suffered higher attacks on respiratory problems due to decades of red lines, segregation and zoning practices that concentrated pollution activities in the area, including hazardous waste processing facilities and vehicle emissions from nearby highways.

"It's a huge loss for our communities, but I think the other thing is almost for these communities, it's just a promise of a series of losses over decades, and it's just another broken promise," he said.

He said the termination of emails was the first communication the group received from the EPA since Trump took office. This is a major blow for the small nonprofit, which has hired two new employees to help implement the project and shipped air purifiers to about 400 families and possibly some schools and senior centers.

“We never had great cash flow in small community organizations like us – it’s not like we sit a million dollars at any point in time,” Cannedy said. “We depend on these grants and the reimbursement process that makes things work.”

The cancellation of grants is the latest in a series of actions by the Trump administration, with advocates saying it is harmful to the environment, including relaxing air and water quality regulations; laying off scientists and researchers; increasing coal production; opening up forests nationwide for industrial logging; narrowing protection of endangered species and refuting hundreds of scientists in the National Climate Report, as well as many other scientists.

Democratic lawmakers, including California Senator Adam Schiff and Senator Alex Padilla, have condemned the administration's grant cancellation, which they say is an illegal paw of Congress' appropriation funds.

"The EPA's illegal, arbitrary and capricious termination (environmental justice) grant program eliminates common sense, nonpartisan federal programs that clean up air and water and protect Americans from natural disasters," the Senator wrote in a letter to Selding in March.

EPA may face tight wallets. Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 will cut $5 billion from the agency, responsible for protecting the health and environment of the U.S., the largest cut in EPA’s history, accounting for about 55% of its 2025 budget.

According to the nonprofit environmental protection network, the reduction will require massive layoffs and effectively undermine the core functions of the EPA, a DC-based regulatory body group composed of more than 600 former EPA workers.

"This is a reckless and short-sighted proposal that will lead to higher toxic pollution in the air we breathe and drink water nationwide," said a statement from EPN executive director Michelle Roos. "This is a ball-destroying approach that will carry out the front line of defense in the United States to protect people's health and the environment."

Loss of grant funds will have lasting real-life effects, said José Franco García, executive director of the San Diego County-based nonprofit Environmental Sanitation Alliance. He said the group lost $500,000 in grants to allocate funds in many initiatives in the Barrio Logan community, a major low-income community that suffered from pollution, poor air quality and other environmental problems due to its proximity to ports, industrial facilities and interstates.

Garcia said the projects include a long-awaited park along Boston Avenue, a green shuttle system, and efforts to improve area housing through electrification, solar and lead emission reduction. He said the grant will also fund air filters in the homes of children with asthma.

"These are the exact things that EPA money should do," Garcia said. "What the current version of EPA is doing is not what it means, what it can protect and what it means to serve."

García noted that grant cancellations also put nonprofits in time and potential work at a cost as they scramble to keep up with rapidly changing conditions. The grant was approved last summer and the team spent months preparing to start the work.

“Just as we expect to reach any contract terms, we think the federal government will be, too,” he said.

De Anda of the Community Water Center is also concerned about the public health impact of the termination of grants.

She said Monterey County communities have been struggling with water quality issues for years, with 81% of home wells testing there one or more hazardous pollutants, including nitrates, 123-TCP, 123-TCP, ARSENIC and CHROMIUM 6. The EPA believes that these chemicals can cause serious adverse health effects such as reproductive problems, infant blood conditions and cancer.

The $20 million grant from the Community Water Center will fund the first phase of critical infrastructure efforts, including the construction of pipelines to physically integrate the community into a single water system owned and operated by the Pajaro/Sunny Mesa Community Service Area, which will serve approximately 5,500 people and a primary school.

Deanda said the Community Water Center is exploring all avenues to keep the work moving forward, and she hopes state officials can step in to fill the gap left by the EPA.

“Our community should have reliable infrastructure to provide safe drinking water,” she said. “Stop projects are not an option.”

Maria Angelica Rodriguez, 49, a resident of the area, said she currently has to rely on bottled water for drinking, cooking and other basic needs. Each Thursday, an area bottled water program offers five gallons to each of her three family members, including Rodriguez, her mother and sister.

But she also fears that her 7-month-old grandson, who spent the whole week, would get sick from the contaminated water in the area.

Rodriguez said through an interpreter that she hopes Trump stops and thinks about children who need water and farm workers in the area.

She said the project brought hope to the community and its cancellation made her feel very sad.

She said, "Water is life." "Water is life."