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Democrats have spent a lot of time calculating the scale of the damage President Donald Trump has inflicted through cuts in federal agencies.
The Department of Government Efficiency, run by car-and-rocket billionaire Elon Musk, has fired about 10,000 government employees. Those cuts might soon be felt locally.
In an essay in The New York Times opinion pages last week, author Jacques Leslie examined how cuts could affect the Klamath River Basin in Southern Oregon. (The piece features photography by Jordan Gale, a frequent contributor to WW.)
The removal of dams from the Klamath is a saga that local media have watched closely, as Indigenous tribes have fought alongside other advocates to restore the salmon runs that had all but vanished. But Leslie raises a concern:
“In the past month, however, the Trump administration suspended funding authorized in the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and other Biden-era legislation for the wetlands restoration and other Klamath projects, and laid off U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employees who facilitated those projects,” he writes.
It’s not clear how many people working on the Klamath restoration lost their jobs in recent weeks, or how the river might suffer. DOGE has fired at least 500 probationary employees from NOAA, some of whom were based in Oregon.
On Friday, the seven Democratic Party members of Oregon’s congressional delegation sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, who oversees NOAA, saying that job losses in that agency threaten the warning systems that protect Oregonians from wildfires and tsunamis.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) decried the cuts and their effects along the Klamath.
“The restoration of the Klamath River Basin is not just important for protecting fish, wildfire, and tribal resources,” Wyden said in a statement to WW. “It also ensures that agricultural producers have the certainty and federal support they need to continue feeding the nation.”
He adds: “It’s clear as Crater Lake that the Trump administration doesn’t understand any of that when it unconstitutionally suspends these congressionally approved resources for habitat restoration and agricultural production, and illegally fires these federal employees helping Oregon communities.”
Read the essay here.