"Federal earmark freeze chills local funding requests: Pajaro Valley water agency seeks to tap new federal funding source"

"Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency leaders are waiting for a $13.6 million federal reimbursement for construction of a wastewater treatment plant. The check is not in the mail - and it may never come.
The funding, authorized by Congress but not appropriated, is hung up in the federal spending debate. Millions of dollars for other Santa Cruz County projects - from Pajaro River levee improvements and rail line repairs to a Dominican Hospital program aimed at at-risk births and a wetlands education program based at Pajaro Valley High School - are also in jeopardy due to a freeze on the controversial appropriation system known as earmarks."

The Mercury News has more here.