A tribe and several conservation groups were gearing up to remove old culverts and rehabilitate 29 streams across northwest lower Michigan: shelling out for contracts with county road commissions, hiring construction crews and prepping sites. Now, more than $20 million set aside for that work has been clawed back by Congress, leaving those involved $450,000 poorer and halting the project. The Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians received the award in 2023 as part of a US Department of Agriculture program called the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, or RCPP. It was the only project in Michigan to receive money that year. A supplemental pot of money created by then-President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 was largely rescinded when President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on July 4, leaving places like northwest lower Michigan caught in the crosshairs.