Great Lakes scientists among latest round of Trump cuts in Michigan

• Scientists and communications staff in an Ann Arbor research lab were among hundreds of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration workers fired as the Trump administration carries out a government-wide purge
• Great Lakes advocates and industry officials fear setbacks for research that helps keep the water clean and keep freighters safe
• Trump contends the federal workforce is too large, but his efforts to slash the workforce face legal headwinds

Scientists and communicators tasked with tracking Great Lakes ice cover, keeping tabs on fish populations and protecting the region’s drinking water from toxic algae lost their jobs Thursday in the latest round of mass firings by the administration of President Donald Trump.

The staffers in the Ann Arbor-based Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory were among hundreds of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employees targeted in the federal job slashing effort directed by billionaire Elon Musk at Trump’s behest.

The president has tasked Musk with shrinking the federal workforce, which he has described as a wasteful bureaucracy that’s driving up the national debt. 

So far, thousands have been fired nationally across a broad swath of agencies, from the departments of Education and Veterans Affairs to a host of environment and public lands agencies. The administration has focused primarily on probationary employees, who lack job protections because they were recently hired or promoted.

That includes dozens to hundreds of workers in Michigan — people tasked with protecting the Great Lakes from endangered species, providing medical care for veterans, putting out forest fires and maintaining public parks and hiking trails.

Nicole Rice, a communications specialist, was among the about 10 employees in Ann Arbor — 20% of the staff — who received pink slips Thursday. Rice told Bridge Michigan she had been bracing for bad news for weeks when her phone started ringing Thursday afternoon as she left a doctor’s appointment.

“My heart stopped,” she said, and she immediately checked her email inbox.

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There, a termination letter from Vice Admiral Nancy Hann, NOAA’s national deputy undersecretary of operations, stated that “your ability, knowledge and/or skills do not fit the Agency’s current needs.”

Apparently auto-generated, the email misstated Rice’s job title.

Among those fired, according to Rice, were scientists who work on Great Lakes environmental issues along with the entire communications team, leaving nobody to operate the lab’s social media feeds or fulfill a legal mandate to make its research publicly accessible.

“This isn’t a shift in operations,” Rice said. “This is, we’re going to take an ax to this and we don’t care who’s in the way. It’s slash and burn.”

A ‘setback’ for Great Lakes science

According to NOAA’s website, it had 12,000 employees nationally before Thursday. National news outlets are estimating some 800 have since been terminated. 

While the toll in Michigan is not yet clear, Rice said roughly 10 have been dismissed from her unit of about 50 people split between offices in Ann Arbor and Muskegon. The agency has other staff throughout the state, including at the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in Alpena and National Weather Service stations in both peninsulas. 

Benjamin Mahan, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 933 — the union representing federal employees — said Friday that workers impacted by the recent firings and those who remain in government positions “are scared, they’re afraid, they don’t know what to do.” 

Mahan said it’s not yet clear how many people were affected by the recent layoffs, calling the situation “a twilight zone” that is stripping talented employees from the workforce.

“​​It's like a fisherman going out to catch tuna — you're not looking for the dolphins,” he told reporters during a rally in front of the John Dingell VA Medical Center in Detroit. “You caught a whole bunch of dang dolphins here.” 

The firings came despite a California judge ruling Thursday that the Trump administration’s mass-firing of probationary employees is likely illegal, and ordering the administration to rescind directives for a host of federal agencies to fire probationary employees.

Litigation and congressional pressure have in some ways tempered the Trump administration’s rapid reduction of the federal workforce, but not fast enough for many federal workers in Michigan and elsewhere who have lost their jobs or fear they will soon, US Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, told Bridge. 

“Resisting that way or demanding transparency that way, and pushing back against some of the illegal actions is … slowing them down, at least,” she said. “But I know I want it done quicker. I want it to stop. Many of my residents have called to make it stop. This is too much all at once.”

Fired workers, industry officials and Great Lakes advocates expressed concerns that the NOAA firings will interrupt research that protects one of the world’s most important water resources. The Great Lakes contain 21% of the world’s surface fresh water, supplying drinking water to more than 42 million people while underpinning millions of jobs in shipping, fishing, tourism and other industries.

“It is a very important natural resource, it is a very important source of recreation and it is a vital source of commerce to this nation,” said Paul Gross, a longtime meteorologist who routinely relied on NOAA data during decades in Detroit-area TV news. “Degrading the ability to monitor and research these Great Lakes can have no positive benefit to this nation.”

The International Association for Great Lakes research, a binational organization with representatives from the US and Canada, condemned the firings.

"A setback in Great Lakes restoration today will require years of additional effort to recover," said Jérôme Marty, the group’s executive director. "We cannot afford to undo decades of scientific progress and the resulting restoration, risking the loss of healthy waters and ecosystems that millions of people depend on.”

And a spokesperson for the Lake Carriers’ Association, which represents the US-based Great Lakes shipping fleet, said the group’s officials are left wondering whether the cuts will hobble NOAA’s ability to monitor ice cover and operate water-level gauges and weather buoys — all of which are “critical to navigation safety,” said Eric Peace, the group’s spokesperson.

“We’re just trying to figure out what services could be impacted,” said Peace. “I don’t know yet. But a degradation of the services that we currently get for navigation safety would be detrimental.”

Rumors of deeper cuts

Those involved in Great Lakes science and advocacy efforts say they fear more cuts could be coming. 

Beyond its direct staff presence in Michigan, NOAA is a major funder of science organizations such as the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research, the Michigan Sea Grant and Great Lakes Integrated Science and Assessments.

Because workers in those programs aren’t federal employees, the Trump administration can’t fire them. But workers there fear they could be targeted in the administration’s broader attacks on climate and science funding.

Concern is also building about the future of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a federal program that has devoted some $3.7 billion to contaminated site cleanups, habitat restoration and other efforts to revive the region’s most polluted waterways. 

During his first term, Trump repeatedly proposed dramatic funding reductions for the initiative. Those cuts failed to make it through Congress amid outcry from bipartisan Great Lakes lawmakers, and Trump has made no public statements about his intentions for the GLRI moving forward. 

Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn, blasted the firings Friday. 

“We have witnessed unprecedented disasters due to weather events in recent years, devastating communities across America. These events underscore the critical need to support, not slash, the hard-working employees at the NOAA,” Dingell said in a statement. “Firing hundreds of experts and scientists at NOAA will endanger American lives going forward.”

Some Republican lawmakers have defended the administration’s firing spree, including Michigan’s Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Bruce Township.

"Democrats are soliciting sob stories from bloated bureaucrats with six-figure salaries," McClain said Tuesday in televised comments. "Give me a break."

Rice, the fired communications staffer in Ann Arbor, vowed to appeal her firing. Despite 13 years as a federal employee, a recent promotion made her a probationary worker.

Because her firing was effective immediately, she had no opportunity to clean out her desk, or train someone else to use NOAA communications programs that only she knows how to operate.

“My institutional knowledge literally walked out the door,” she said. 

Rice’s job was just one facet of a life that revolves closely around public service. In her free time, she serves as an elected city councilor in the Ann Arbor suburb of Saline. Her partner is a retired military service member. 

If she can’t get her job back, she said, she hopes to find other work involving Great Lakes science and conservation. She’s been offered more pay in the private sector, she said, but “the mission is so important.” 

“I don’t want to walk away from that. However, I have health care needs. I have financial needs. So there are going to be some quick decisions.”