The Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary will get $17 million for infrastructure improvements at its beachfront visitor center in Kihei, federal officials announced Tuesday.

Those dollars will come from the $3.3 billion Inflation Reduction Act, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It was passed into law last year to help the nation better respond to climate change impacts.

The Maui funding aims to better protect the sanctuary visitor center from sea level rise impacts such as sand inundation. It’s part of a larger, $50 million investment toward climate change resiliency that NOAA announced Tuesday for marine sanctuary facilities across the country.

Besides sand inundation, the Kihei facility is also susceptible to upland flooding and heavy storms, NOAA officials said. The agency’s press release didn’t specify how the funding would be used to make the buildings more resilient against those threats, but it did say that the dollars would also support construction of a new boathouse for the sanctuary’s 38-foot boat Kohala.

That boat is used for research and whale-entanglement responses, according to NOAA.

The Kihei visitor center opened in 1996 and was among the first in the nation’s marine sanctuary system, according to NOAA. The Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary opened in 1992.