Mark W. Barker opens Cleveland for season
Mark W. Barker of The Interlake Steamship Co. became Cleveland’s first ship of the 2025 season Sunday (3/02/2025) when it arrived to load ore at Cleveland Bulk Terminal. She will be captive in Cleveland for a while running the ore shuttles from the lakefront up the Cuyahoga River to the steel mills.
Tom Habak
Trump jobs purge at NOAA hits Great Lakes staff in Michigan
ANN ARBOR, MI — Great Lakes researchers and communicators with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Michigan are the latest federal employees to be axed amid the ongoing nationwide purge of government workers.
According to Congressional Democrats, at least 15 employees at the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) in Ann Arbor were among 1,300 federal workers fired by the Trump administration this week at NOAA, an environmental research agency which generates and sends weather, water and climate data across the federal government.
The agency, which is housed under the U.S. Department of Commerce, manages the National Weather Service. The NWS lost hundreds of forecasters amid the purge of “probationary” workers Thursday that mirrors an earlier mass firing which a federal judge in California said was probably illegal.
Agency supporters condemned the cuts as Trump’s latest execution of the conservative Project 2025 blueprint, which calls for privatizing the weather service and dismantling NOAA as “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.”
They say the move threatens America’s ability to plan for and guard against severe weather, solar flares and flooding with tornado and hurricane season around the corner.
In Michigan, NOAA researchers study toxic algae blooms in Lake Erie and help the shipping industry forecast water level changes and ice cover on the Great Lakes. Their research supports lake restoration activities and undergirds emergency response.
The NOAA cuts are “cruel and dangerous,” said Mike Shriberg, a University of Michigan professor with a longtime focus on Great Lakes policy and planning. “These are the people and programs that protect the water but also protect our economy and our ability to safely use the lakes.”
In a March 1 Facebook post, GLERL science writer Brie Farina said that the lab’s ability to monitor algal blooms and ecosystems to support the Great Lakes fishery is severely reduced.
“Our terminations were not performance-based, and the decision was made by someone in D.C. who has no idea what we do,” Farina wrote. “We were fired (illegally, I might add) simply because it’s easier to fire newer employees and employees who were recently promoted.” The extent of NOAA cuts in Michigan isn’t immediately clear.
The agency has a field station in Muskegon focused on Lake Michigan research which also helps state and federal efforts restore the ecological health of Muskegon Lake.
NOAA also operates a system of National Marine Sanctuaries, which function as underwater parks in unique coastal areas. The system includes the Thunder Bay sanctuary in Lake Huron at Alpena, the Lake Ontario sanctuary off upstate New York and the Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast sanctuary in Lake Michigan.
Democrats in Congress condemned the NOAA cuts and representatives from Great Lakes states sent letters demanding more information on the Ann Arbor lab cuts.
“We have heard directly from those who were terminated, and they are distraught about what this means for the future of the lab and for the Great Lakes in general,” wrote U.S. Reps. Debbie Dingell of Michigan and Marcy Kaptur of Ohio.
The GLERL research plays an essential role in planning and preparing for the effects of severe weather, pollution, invasive species and other ecosystem threats, the two Congress members wrote. Lab innovations help safeguard water resources, inform sustainable practices and drive regional conservation efforts.
“The recent layoffs jeopardize the continuity and depth of this work and could have long-term repercussions for the future of the Great Lakes and the communities that depend on them,” Kaptur and Dingell wrote.
Former NOAA officials joined Democrats on a call with reporters Friday to condemn the agency cuts, saying the mass firings will delay or undermine emergency response at a time when extreme weather is becoming more frequent and severe.
Rick Spinrad, NOAA administrator during the Biden administration, said the agency supplies data used by everyone from farmers making spring planting decisions to drivers who rely on global positioning satellites being safe from space debris.
Spinrad said the agency’s Office of Space Commerce helps keep the objects in the increasingly dense field of satellites orbiting the Earth from colliding with one another. The “indiscriminate” firings this week cut 30 percent of that office staff despite a Project 2025 recommendation that the office be “elevated.”
“We fought every year to get additional people,” Spinrad said. “If anything, the agency needs more highly-qualified employees, not less.”
The NOAA cuts are part of a drastic downsizing effort across the federal government led by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Probationary worker layoffs preceded larger-scale reductions in the civil service which are being set in motion by the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which directed federal agencies this week to submit plans for extensive reductions in force and restructuring. Trump has has described the federal workforce as bloated and an impediment to his agenda.
In the Great Lakes, NOAA has been sonar-mapping the lakebeds recently to modernize nautical charts which, in some heavy-use areas, haven’t been updated since the 1940s.
“Is that just going to end?” asked David Ruck, a Muskegon videographer and filmmaker who was trained as a diver by NOAA while working at the agency during the Obama administration. “It takes governments to do these things.”
The 12,000-person agency isn’t a bloated, wasteful bureaucracy, Ruck argued. It functions as a backbone for public safety on a nationwide scale.
The U.S. Coast Guard calls NOAA and asks for current modeling when a freighter spills diesel fuel next to a heavily-used beach — which happened in 2023 off Manistee — or when a swimmer goes missing and they need a search-and-rescue grid, Ruck said.
“Is that something that’s waste, fraud and abuse?” he asked.
“By breaking up this agency, demoralizing its workforce and casting them as deep state bureaucrats, you’re demonizing people who have dedicated their lives and careers to protecting life and property for all Americans,” Ruck said. “Wildfires, hurricanes, floods, tidal surges — this isn’t all climate related. The trends are, but the basics of just alerting people to a significant atmospheric event is the bread and butter of public safety on a large scale.”
Garret Ellison | gellison@mlive.com
Enter Duluth’s 42nd Annual First Ship Contest
Birds chirping. Snow thawing. Groundhogs emerging. There are many signs of spring across the country. In Duluth, it’s when the season’s first oceangoing vessel, known as a “saltie,” enters the city’s harbor. Begone ice! The ships are coming in.
To celebrate the occasion, the Duluth Seaway Port Authority and Visit Duluth are partnering for the 42nd Annual First Ship Contest. Correctly guess when the season’s first saltie sails into our seaport and you could win an epic prize package of Duluth goods and experiences. The second-place winner will also receive a prize package.
Here’s the link: https://visitduluth.com/first-ship/
