Emergency system grant on hold as DOGE reviews FEMA funding, work stops as reimbursement is up in air.
"SARANAC LAKE — North Country Public Radio has been upgrading its emergency alert equipment this year, making sure the system is prepared for disasters, but that work stopped last month as it’s unclear what’s going on with the federal money promised to the local NPR station.
'The North Country’s ability to receive timely and reliable alerts about flash floods, blizzards, tornadoes and other emergencies is in jeopardy,' NCPR Station Manager Mitch Teich said in a statement this week.
Last summer, NCPR was awarded a Next Generation Warning System grant for almost $110,000 through a competitive grant application which prioritized stations with rural audiences. NCPR would spend the money, and then get reimbursed by the federal government.
The station has spent around $52,000 so far, opening a new tower in remote Ellenburg and installing new emergency alert equipment in Canton, Saranac Lake, Lake Placid, Peru/Plattsburgh and Gouverneur.
'None of those funds have been reimbursed, and the station now has no idea if it will be reimbursed at all,' Teich said.
The money was appropriated by the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency and distributed by the nonprofit Corporation for Public Broadcasting. On Feb. 19, NCPR got a 'stop work' notice from the CPB, saying it does not have access to the grant funds and had not received any formal communication from FEMA. Other NPR member stations in places like Alaska or the Catskills who were pledged this money got similar notices.
'We didn’t know to expect it, but given the current climate, we weren’t completely surprised,' Teich said.
The news outlet Current, which reports on public media, reports that a review of NGWS grants is underway at FEMA. The newly created Department of Government Efficiency is cutting probationary employees and doing reviews of grant programs at FEMA. DOGE is overseen by Elon Musk, the richest man on Earth.
With the reimbursement no longer guaranteed, CPB told recipients to stop working. This reimbursement could be reinstated after the review. Or it could be cut.
'This is a huge concern for us,' Teich said. 'Most of all, it hinders our ability to perform the most important role we fill — serving people in an emergency situation with timely, potentially life-saving information. We provide this vital information free of charge, without concern for people’s background, financial situation, political persuasion or age.'
The upgrades the grant is supposed to fund are 'unsexy things,' Teich said — new transmitters, uninterrupted power supplies or generators — but they’re important.
NPR manages a satellite system that sends emergency alerts from FEMA directly to local public radio stations. NCPR issues dozens of weather-related alerts each year.
The emergency alert is an attention-grabbing event. The broadcast abruptly cuts out and three harsh, scratching chirps of static are heard before a long two-tone signal of 853 Hz and 960 Hz. Then emergency-specific information is shared. The three scratching chirps are encoded data with the text information for the alert.
Teich said they’re used during events like the 1998 ice storm or the flash flooding in Long Lake and Vermont last summer. It’s hard to know the impact of these alerts, because their biggest benefit is stopping things from happening.
When there’s a tornado, flash flood, blizzard, amber alert or other emergency, NCPR will broadcast an alert to all of its stations, usually with an announcer adding context. This requires an active receiver and transmitter at each transmitter site. NCPR has 34 transmitters and reaches an estimated half-million people across an area the size of Switzerland.
The transmitters are remote to begin with — usually placed on top of mountains or buildings — and are more difficult to access during emergencies.
'Because we don’t have staff and an engineer at each of those sites, it’s really important for us to be able to access them remotely – especially during an emergency,' Teich said.
The newer technology allows NCPR Chief Engineer Kurt Lanning to get alerted when there’s an outage at a station. He can log in remotely, diagnose the problem — potentially fix it remotely — and get it online faster. These new systems are more easily repairable and more reliable, he said. They are more durable in harsh weather like heavy ice.
Lanning said the grant spawned the expansion into Ellenburg with WELN 88.9 FM in November, serving parts of Clinton and Franklin counties which previously received 'little or no terrestrial radio coverage by U.S.-based broadcasters,' according to NCPR.
The grant has also allowed NCPR to replace 25- to 30-year-old transmitters at its “feeder stations” like Saranac Lake and Lake Placid. Lanning said the company that manufactured the Lake Placid transmitter doesn’t exist anymore.
The Saranac Lake station feeds Lake Placid and Peru. In turn, these stations feed smaller stations 'downstream.' For example, the Lake Placid station feeds Keene.
The grant is also supposed to fund NCPR’s purchase of new generators to keep its stations online in the case of a widespread power outage. Lanning said these are especially important at the Saranac Lake and Gouverneur hubs, and the station studio in Canton 'If the studio goes out, every station is silent,' Lanning said.
NCPR hasn’t purchased these generators yet.
'There are a lot of places in the region where we’re the only radio station people can get,' Teich said.
And there’s a lot of places that don’t have great cell reception. If the internet and electricity go down, battery-operated radio is one of the few ways to still get information, like during the power outages that hit the Paul Smiths area earlier this week.
On Sunday, in Waddington where Lanning lives, there was a three-hour villagewide outage. He said NCPR Operations Manager Shelly Pike was on the air giving people details, entertainment and an estimated time of restoration.
Teich said NCPR has money on hand to pay for the work they’ve already done, but there’s a lot of other things they expected to use this $52,000 for. If they don’t get the grant reimbursement, and if they want to make the emergency system upgrades they were planning on, it would create a budget gap. They’d have to go to donors and corporate sponsors to ask for more money. That’s “not fair” to their donors, Teich said.
'As stewards of our supporters’ money, we budget extremely deliberately,' he said. 'Losing this funding that was granted to us would keep us from accomplishing other priorities that our donors value.'
Teich said they still haven’t heard anything from either CPB or FEMA about the future of the NGWS grant program. NPR is asking questions on their behalf. Teich said they’re calling New York and Vermont U.S. senators, asking them to go to bat for them.
Last week, Rep. Dale Strong, R-Alabama, introduced a bill seeking to stop federal funding from going to NPR. NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher is set to testify before a DOGE subcommittee sometime this month after being requested by Chair Majorie Taylor Greene, who has accused the network of being 'Democrat propaganda.'
Teich said while he sees public radio as an independent voice and a source of information, entertainment and education not influenced by politics, business or special interests, people who don’t should be able to realize that things like the NGWS grant are beyond politics.
'Even people who are in elected office that might have a problem with National Public Radio, talk generally supportively of local stations,' Teich said.
Public media has been threatened by funding cuts many times in the past. Teich said they are concerned by these latest efforts, but said they have loyal and generous listeners.
For NCPR, 12% of their total budget comes from federal and state grants. Donors and business underwriters supply the rest. NCPR received around $300,000 from the CPB this year.
If public funding goes away, Teich said they’ll have to consider their priorities, but they’d plan to keep doing what they’ve always done.
NCPR celebrated 57 years on the airwaves yesterday."
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