University of Iowa program housing Iowa Flood Center reports $35M on hold from feds

IOWA CITY — As part of sweeping cuts across a broad swath of U.S. departments and agencies, $35 million in federal grants and contracts headed to the University of Iowa’s 105-year-old IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering center have been placed on hold.

“We have a number of grants that had been submitted, they'd been reviewed, and either we had indication they were going to be awarded or were already in the contracting process, but not completed contracts yet, that have been put on hold,” IIHR Director Larry Weber told The Gazette.

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The $35 million in held-up funds are connected with five grants spanning three to five years that — generally speaking — relate to climate research, renewable energy, and the impact of airborne and water-born pollutants on public health.

“In some cases, this would be a continuation of ongoing work,” Weber said of the affected grants and the research they support. “In other cases, these were new efforts that we were doing. Carbon sequestration, as it relates to climate change, that was an entirely new project. The public health and renewable energy work was continuing work that was either funded directly in the same program or a series of projects that we’ve been working on for decades.”

The UI-based IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering center — staffed by about 38 faculty and 45 research engineers and scientists — is among a growing crop of campus entities in Iowa affected by cuts and directives from federal funding agencies.

Iowa State University last week said it was rescinding some admission offers to graduate students, and the UI International Writing Program earlier this month announced deep programmatic reductions following word the U.S. Department of State was terminating its nearly $1 million in grants.

IIHR studies examine flood risk in Iowa, chemicals’ effect on health

Although the IIHR — with a typical annual budget of about $20 million — does receive about $2 million annually in state appropriations, the remaining $18 million comes via contract support, partnerships with small communities, and the federal government.

“Typically that remaining $18 million might be 65 to 70 percent federally funded,” Weber said, highlighting its diverse portfolio of federal funding agencies.

The dozens of grants that support its broad research come from the Department of Defense, Office of Naval Research, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Federal Emergency Management Agency — along with the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, among others.

Much of its work involves cross-campus collaboration — integrating faculty from public health, engineering, chemistry, and UI Health Care, among other entities, divisions, and colleges.

One project — funded by the NIH for nearly two decades — studies how human-made chemicals known as PCBs linger in the environment and affect human health.

Another statewide “Iowa Watershed Approach” — funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — is focused on decreasing flood risk and improving water quality for nine watersheds in Iowa.

And the center’s popular Iowa Flood Information System — debuted in 2011, three years after the 2008 floods — provides real-time information on watersheds, precipitation, and stream levels for more than 1,000 Iowa communities. The tool has proved imperative for emergency managers and other decision-makers in threats of flooding.

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“For all of the existing work we're doing, everything is continuing,” Weber said. “So we're continuing to work hard in almost everything that we had funded.”

It’s the $35 million in upcoming funding that’s in limbo — putting the IIHR in a holding pattern, not just in the research but in staffing graduate students to do it.

“This is the season for recruiting graduate students that would join our program in the fall. So we’re being very conservative and cautious about sending out letters of offer or invitations to join our graduate program,” he said. “We’re on hold on most of those.”

Although the IIHR hasn’t had to rescind any graduate student offer letters, Weber said, the center is at 20 percent of its normal offer pool — which typically hovers at about 20 new graduate students in the fall.

“I think we have two or three offers out right now,” he said.

State funding to Flood Center has not increased in 8 years

Looking to lawmakers for help in the wake of possible cuts, representatives from the Iowa Flood Center and Iowa Geological Survey visited the Capitol earlier this week to share details and stories about their work and its impact.

“We have not made an official request to the Legislature,” Weber said.

Neither has the Board of Regents of behalf of the IIHR.

“But we were certainly there sharing with them and advocating that supporting our program is important,” Weber said of the trip to Des Moines. “Especially as things have changed in the last month, that support is useful.”

For the upcoming 2026 budget year, regents in September sought flat funding for both the Flood Center — which hasn’t seen its annual $1.2 million appropriation increase since 2017 — and the Geological Survey, which hasn’t had its nearly $700,000 appropriation upped since 2014.

“In one case, eight years, another case 11 years,” Weber said. “Both the Flood Center and the Geological Survey work hard for the State of Iowa and work hard to bring in other sources of funds, in particular federal funds.”

The Flood Center has generated more than $200 million in federal funds to support programs across Iowa.

“Having that federal support obviously expands the breadth and depth of the work that we do in Iowa,” Weber said. “But with some of those programs being paused, it's uncertain whether we would be able to deliver the same level of flood work to Iowa.”

That’s where state support could help.

“If you look at the 14 nearest neighboring states, the average funding for the geological survey in each state is about $4 million,” Weber said. “In Iowa it’s $695,000.”

To the question of whether IIHR would have to scale down its work or make meaningful changes should federal funds dry up significantly, Weber said — essentially — the program will find a way.

“The IIHR is now 105 years old,” he said, recounting the loss of other water-related programs in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. “But the IIHR program has adapted to the changing societal needs and state, federal, and industry funding. And I'm confident that we'll continue to adapt and find ways to fund our program.

“But these changes certainly don't make it easy for us. They certainly don't build on the incredible strength that has been developed here in Iowa.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com