The scope of mass firings at U.S. Forest Service offices around Southeast Alaska is becoming clearer as former and current employees confirm the numbers.
The agency’s public information offices have not provided any details of the dismissals.
Nearly all U.S. Forest Service employees at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center in Juneau have been fired in the large-scale, ongoing purge of the federal government workforce undertaken by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, according to officials and former employees.
In Petersburg, as of Feb. 16, at least nine Forest Service probationary employees had been terminated. Most of those were early-career professionals hired through an Alaska-preference program within the past two years.
On Feb. 19, the Thorne Bay Ranger District on Prince of Wales Island announced that with approximately a third of the district’s employees terminated, the office would be closed to the public indefinitely.
As of Feb. 17, eight Forest Service jobs in Sitka had been eliminated, two employees who weren’t terminated told the Sitka Sentinel on condition of anonymity. The first Forest Service position lost in Sitka was a tribal liaison. Then came the wave of firings that eliminated the ranger district’s entire cabins and trails crew and the district’s customer service representative.
The Forest Service nationwide has seen the most firings of probationary employees — about 3,400 — of any federal agency, according to The New York Times, although the newspaper noted its tally is changing rapidly as additional firings become known. That total represents nearly 10% of Forest Service staff.
More than 100 employees in the Tongass National Forest were among those fired, with an additional 30 to 40 firings in the Chugach National Forest.
“At this point, 80% of all USFS visitor staff at the Mendenhall Glacier are no longer there — only two staff remain,” Liz Perry, president of Travel Juneau, wrote in a Feb. 20 email to members of the community’s tourism bureau.
The Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center is of particular concern to Juneau officials since the glacier is the city’s most visited attraction, with about 700,000 visitors a year. The first cruise ships are scheduled to arrive in less than two months.
In Sitka, one of the Forest Service workers who spoke to the Sitka Sentinel said the cuts are deep enough that people who spend time in the Tongass will notice changes this summer.
“The bigger projects that were planned for the year would be affected or just stopped altogether,” said the employee. Funding for projects like the Lake Redoubt weir, cabin maintenance, trail reconstruction, and up to 70 various projects planned across the ranger district is uncertain.
Redoubt, which is having record runs of sockeye salmon, is a case in point.
“If we’ve got nobody out there counting fish, we can’t prove how many are coming in, then limits would be lower,” the employee said. While the daily limit for subsistence dipnetting of sockeye salmon at Redoubt has in recent years climbed into the 20s and higher, that number, without weir technicians, may drop to 10, the staffer said.
The initial wave of terminations targeted probationary employees who had served less than one year, or two years if they were hired under a program intended to promote the hiring of Alaskans.
“These aren’t just jobs being lost,” said Alyssa Eden, a Forest Service fishery technician in Petersburg who received her termination notice on Feb. 16. “They’re tearing apart people’s entire lives and the communities they’re intertwined with.”
Eden, who was pursuing a fisheries science degree while working for the Forest Service, said her termination letter cited poor performance despite positive reviews from her supervisor.
“I was implementing new projects, including environmental education programs with local schools,” she said. “My supervisor had nothing negative to say about my work.”
Tiare Simbahon, a 2019 Petersburg High School graduate, was hired in 2023. “Many of us hires saw futures within the Forest Service and even went as far as joking about taking over the programs we were hired into once our supervisors moved on because we loved it,” Simbahon said.
She had purchased a home in Petersburg last month.
Nathan Ajax, formerly a commercial fisherman and wildlands firefighter, was notified Feb. 16 of the termination of his fisheries technician job in Petersburg. He and his wife, Jane Fuqua, who was born and raised in Petersburg, recently bought a home and just had a baby.
Like others, Eden’s termination letter stated her termination was “based on your performance,” a characterization which she said is untrue. “My performance review was glowing.” After receiving the letter, she was called by a supervisor in the district who explained they did not want to let her go and, if it was up to the local staff, it would not be happening.
The letter distorting the reason for termination “is adding insult to injury,” said Eden. “On top of being disappointed that I no longer get to do this amazing job ... if I were to apply for another federal job on paper it would state that I got fired for unsatisfactory work. ... So it is hindering my employment opportunities.”
Reader Comments(0)