The Trump administration has cancelled $18 million in federal funding for a sorely needed effort by the Imperial Irrigation District (IID) to overhaul its aging electrical grid and make it more resilient to storm damage.

The decision, handed down earlier this month, means rural Imperial Valley communities who rely on the public utility for power could continue to face prolonged outages after major storms. The withdrawn federal dollars made up half of the agency’s funding for the planned $37 million in upgrades.

Last week, IID officials tried to reassure customers, pledging to move ahead with those upgrades despite the cuts. But in a , IID Power Manager Matt Smelser admitted that the agency would need to reassess the scope of the project.

“We’ll be trimming the original plan a bit, but w

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