The largest office of the U.S. Geological Survey’s New England Water Science Center is a modest, single-floor building in Northborough with offices, a warehouse and a lab. It looks like any other building you might find in an office park.
But the data that emerges from that building — and other sister sites around New England — is critical to the daily lives of everyone in the region. Staff are warning that Trump administration’s cuts to jobs, lab space, offices and funding may put that data in jeopardy.
The New England Water Science Center maintains hundreds of sensors and gauges that monitor ground and surface water, including drinking water supplies. The devices warn when a stream is about to flood, when water overtops a dam, when a drought emerges, and when something seeps or spills into a drinking water supply.
The data is used by state and local officials, emergency responders, water system operators, road and building designers, construction companies, city planners, wildlife biologists, town conservation commissions and many others. State and local governments pay for part of the services, and the data is made available to the public.
USGS data is “the gold standard,” said David Boutt, a hydrogeologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “The communities, the first responders, the people that use this data know that you can trust this.”
In an email obtained by WBUR, center staff warned it will be “almost impossible” to continue monitoring water supplies as usual if federal funding cuts continue as planned.
The message, dated Feb. 28 from the center’s director, Johnathan Bumgarner, to the state’s director of water policy, Vandana Rao, said about a third of the center’s 180-person staff will likely be lost to layoffs, buyouts and rescinded job offers.
Bumgarner also noted that federal restrictions have resulted in “limited to no use” of government credit cards, which staffers use to buy equipment and safety gear, and to pay for travel to fix field equipment.
In addition to these disruptions, Bumgarner indicated the leases for the center’s largest offices in New Hampshire and Massachusetts will be terminated at the end of the summer.
“Given the short notice,” wrote Bumgarner, “we need to pull staff from assigned scientific duties to begin preparing the offices to vacate. If we lose these two offices then it will be almost impossible to provide our current level of services that protect life and property (flooding, drought, water quality, etc…) to not only the States where those offices are located, but the other 4 New England States as well.”
He added: “I am afraid it is only a matter of time before we fall behind on some of our commitments and, worse yet, need to stop providing some services altogether.”
A spokesperson at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs verified the email, but did not provide additional comment. The New England Water Science Center forwarded WBUR’s questions and interview request to USGS, which did not respond.
Local water experts who work closely with the USGS expressed dismay and confusion over the potential loss of critical staff and data.
The information collected is “just so fundamental,” said Boutt at UMass. “There’s decades and decades of infrastructure and the know-how to manage these systems that would just, you know, fall apart.”
He said USGS data is used in so many fields that “going without this information just doesn’t seem realistic.”
David Kaplan, watershed manager for the Cambridge Water Department, said he relies on the USGS sensors for real-time updates on the city’s drinking water supply.
He noted that strategically located sensors alert him quickly to problems like a sewage overflow or a hazardous materials spill on the highway. Losing the data wouldn’t cause immediate danger to public health, he said, but would hinder his ability to respond.
If the USGS data disappears, he said, it’s unclear who could pick up the slack.
“ It’s just a massive undertaking that a small water department like us wouldn’t be able to do,” Kaplan said. “ We probably just have to find another contractor to do it, and I’m very skeptical that we could do it in a way that’s as cost effective as what USGS does.”
Jennifer Pederson, executive director of the Massachusetts Water Works Association, an industry group, said the USGS also provides critical drought information, which allows drinking water suppliers to determine how much water they can pull out of rivers and underground aquifers. She said ensuring accurate data collection requires a lot of field work, like technicians drilling holes in ice to make sure stream gauges are functioning properly.
If those hundreds of devices aren’t working, Pedersen said, “then we are not operating with the information we need.”
Pedersen said she doesn’t foresee cutoffs to drinking water supplies, but losing the data would make the work of water suppliers “much more challenging.”
The USGS is not the only federal agency facing financial and job cuts in New England. The Trump administration has announced far-reaching cuts to the EPA, NOAA and other agencies, and frozen federal dollars for local organizations.
“We’re watching the structure around us get torn down,” said one USGS employee who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation. “ We are waiting to see whether we are rebuilding from the studs out, or from the foundation up, or from scorched earth.”
This article was originally published on WBUR.org. It was shared as part of the New England News Collaborative.
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