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West Oakland, a California neighborhood known for its rich history of Black activism from the Pullman Porters’ union to the Black Panthers, might not seem like the site of the country’s next great coal project.

But that’s exactly what the Trump administration is pushing for – with the injection of $75m to build a sprawling coal export terminal in the nearby port of Oakland.

Last week, Donald Trump announced he was using wartime powers to hand $700m to coal projects around the US, including the one in Oakland. The news has breathed renewed energy into a decade-long battle against the coal terminal, which Trump hopes will break ground as soon as this summer.

Anti-coal activists were already planning a gathering about the project in Berkeley this month. But Trump’s 4 June announcement “accelerated everything”, said Veronica Eady, executive director of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, a grassroots organization focused on environmental justice in West Oakland, which has a high pollution burden from the nearby port, highways and other industry. “Now there is even more urgency, particularly since President Trump said he wants it to start this summer.”

Since the president’s announcement, Bay Area organizers with the No Coal in Oakland and Keep Coal Out of the East Bay coalitions have met to discuss strategies to continue their fight against the coal terminal, which has faced years of delays and lawsuits from the city, which has tried to ban coal storage.

In a progressive city such as Oakland that has worked to remedy environmental disparities over the past decade, Trump’s investment in one of the dirtiest fossil fuels sets California up for another clash with his administration.

“By injecting millions of taxpayer dollars into a coal terminal that Oaklanders have fought for a decade to stop, this administration is sentencing West Oakland, one of the most pollution-burdened communities in California, to generational harm,” the California state assembly member Mia Bonta said in a statement. “The families who have fought the hardest to keep this terminal out of their neighborhood will bear the highest cost.”

Plans over the coal terminal took shape more than 10 years ago, after the closure of a military base located in the port. The Oakland army base closed in 1999, and the site was eventually bought by a local developer named Phil Tagami, who signed a contract with the city allowing him to build a shipping terminal there. Tagami did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Although Tagami originally said he had no interest in shipping coal out of the terminal, he pivoted in 2015 when the state of Utah approached him with a deal to ship the state’s coal to oversea markets. The following year, the city of Oakland banned coal handling and storage citywide. Although Tagami sued, the terminal’s development stalled for more than a decade as challenges played out in local courts.

Bordered by a major highway, the port of Oakland and logistics hubs, the neighborhood of West Oakland is filled with “pollutant-emitting industry and infrastructure”, according to an assessment for the Environmental Protection Agency, which cites a history of redlining and systemic racism in the area. Over the past decade, residents have fought to address issues from the toxic waste buried under their homes in the former industrial hub to childhood asthma rates caused by traffic-related air pollution.

In their battle against the coal terminal, local organizers have cited fears that trains delivering shipments will coat the neighborhood in coal dust.

After the California supreme court handed Tagami a win in September, ruling that the city of Oakland had violated his contract when it banned coal storage and handling in the city, organizers with the No Coal in Oakland and Keep Coal Out coalitions pivoted. The goal of their community meetings, including one planned for 25 June, became “to further our demand for action by state and local political and regulatory bodies”, the No Coal in Oakland coalition wrote in a blogpost. In April, organizers petitioned the Bay Area air district to impose stricter air regulations on the terminal.

“There may have been a misperception that once the city of Oakland lost, then it was over,” said Eady. “We were getting out there to let people know: Hey, it’s not over. There are all these permitting decisions.

“Not to mention that we have a new mayor,” she added, referring to Barbara Lee, the trailblazing former congresswoman.

Although Lee has not yet released a statement on Trump’s announcement, she signed a pledge agreeing not to accept money from coal interests while running for office last year. “I strongly support Oakland’s ban on coal and will continue to fight against any attempts to bring coal shipments through our city,” she said at the time.

Other California lawmakers have vowed to join in the fight, too. In an emailed statement to the Guardian, California the congresswoman Lateefah Simon said: “The Trump administration does not have West Oakland’s best interests at heart. I am committed [to] using every tool in our toolbox to stop this coal terminal and fighting on behalf of our residents. Oaklanders and our bodies should not have to pay the price for the administration’s illogical, backwards policies.”

Meanwhile, organizers say they’re uncertain how soon construction could begin, but will use the coming months to rally community opposition.

“This bad idea to build a dirty, polluting coal facility in an already overburdened community emerged more than a decade ago, and yet we still do not yet have concrete details on facility design or operations,” Colin O’Brien, deputy managing attorney of Earthjustice’s California regional office, said in an emailed statement. “The federal funding announcement is far from the final word because the project still needs dozens of permits, meaning close scrutiny by local regulators and opportunities for the public to weigh in.”

Since Trump’s announcement, Margaret Rossoff, a member of No Coal in Oakland, said the coalition’s coordinating committee and frequent collaborator, the Keep Coal Out coalition, had met to discuss tactics.

“Our main strategy is about financing,” she said, pointing to estimates that the terminal will cost close to $400m to build. “$75m is not even a quarter of that,” she said. “Some investors need to decide to sink a lot of money into this. And our goal is to prevent them from doing that, prevent anyone from doing that, by making it clear that it’s a bad idea.”

No Coal in Oakland has printed and distributed yard signs opposing the terminal in the past, “and we’re gonna distribute hundreds more”, Rossoff said. “So any potential investor who’s driving around the Bay Area is going to see evidence of the entrenched community opposition.”

When organizers host the coalitions’ next community meeting on 25 June, they’ll gather in Berkeley – with the aim of involving residents from cities across the East Bay. While the coal terminal will be located in Oakland, the trains that will transport coal to it are set to run through Martinez, Richmond, Berkeley and other East Bay cities.

“Residents have fought for years to keep this terminal from being built in their back yard,” Sarah Ranney, director of the Sierra Club’s San Francisco Bay chapter, said in a press release. “Trump is using the [Defense Production Act], which is meant to mobilize industries during a genuine emergency, to override that opposition. This isn’t national defense; it’s an end run around local democracy.”