Local officials sound alarm bells over proposed Forest Service cuts

Published 1:30 am Thursday, July 9, 2026

EVERETT — Local nonprofit heads, a tribal leader and elected officials gathered in Snohomish County on Wednesday to sound the alarm over proposed cuts to the United States Forest Service that could see funding to research efforts reduced and the closure of research stations around the country, including in Washington.

Under a proposed reorganization plan that the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced in March, the Forest Service could close 57 of its 77 research facilities across 31 states, The New York Times reported, consolidating them into centralized offices.

Two research facilities in Washington — one in Seattle and another in Wenatchee — are flagged for closure, according to the Forest Service.

Officials, who gathered at a South County Fire station just outside Everett city limits for a roundtable discussion hosted by Democratic U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, worried the reorganization could hamper scientific research and reduce the effectiveness of forest management across the country.

“We are seeing budgets that are decimating the Forest Service, we’re seeing good people laid off, we don’t have the personnel we need,” Murray said. “And now we have this proposal for a reorganization that, to me, is just a swipe at public lands and not about doing anything better. It’s simply going to make it a whole lot harder.”

The U.S. Forest Service has said that the research facility closures from the reorganization would not lead to the elimination of scientific research positions or reduce the agency’s national research footprint. Rather, the staff would continue their work and be “relocated into fewer facilities while maintaining research presence across the country,” the agency wrote on its website.

The head of the Forest Service, Tom Schultz, told Wyoming-based nonprofit news organization WyoFile in an interview last week that Forest Service personnel would not be reassigned until after the wildfire season. The agency has also stated that its fire and aviation management program would retain its existing structure under the reorganization plan.

“There will be no interruption or change to our field-based operational firefighters or their positions,” wrote the Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service, in a March press release.

Separate to the reorganization plan, however, President Trump’s proposed 2027 budget for the U.S. Department of Agriculture would eliminate all new funding for the agency’s Forest and Rangeland Research programs, down from $309 million in 2026 to zero in 2027. The budget plan stated that “existing carryover balances will be strategically utilized to responsibly and effectively close these programs.”

In the 2025 fiscal year, that funding went toward research into fire suppression methods and improvements in long-term wildfire risk and smoke data to reduce deaths from wildfires, according to a Forest Service budget document, as well as research into improved forest management practices.

The Seattle research center that is slated for closure is operated in partnership with the University of Washington’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. That school’s director, Dan Brown, said Wednesday that the move would bring scientific work “away from regional resources, university scientists and managers.” He added that under the current administration, the university has had difficulties with receiving federal funding.

“These moves threaten to degrade the quality and stability of the scientific enterprise in the long run, and ultimately, the quality of decisions about resource use and management,” Brown said.

The reorganization plan comes after a time of significant change at the Forest Service, which saw a reduction of about 7,000 employees in the 2025 fiscal year, according to federal employment data. In the 2026 fiscal year, the agency saw a growth of about 1,700 employees.

Jamie Loucky, the CEO of the nonprofit Washington Trails Association, said that he had already seen the impacts of the reductions in staff, including fewer trails being maintained and more federal land closures.

“Losing workers with expertise, knowledge and skills results in less work accomplished across national forest and less effective planning across the entire federal land management system,” Loucky said.

For the Tulalip Tribes, the reorganization means it is uncertain as to how it will continue working with tribal liaisons at the Forest Service’s regional offices, said The Tribes’ chair, Hazen Shopbell. He said the regional offices “have served as a critical point of coordination for the policy and development of consultation and communication across multiple forests.

“Without them, it is unclear how tribal concerns will be delivered to agency leadership on how consistent consultation will occur,” Shopbell said.

Tom O’Keefe, the senior director of policy and science at the nonprofit American Whitewater, said he worried the reorganization would lead to a loss of regional expertise and institutional knowledge.

“Science provides the basis for making sure we’re spending those dollars and allocating them effectively,” O’Keefe said. “If we want successful salmon recovery, resilient forests, sustainable recreation, high quality drinking water, we need a Forest Service science enterprise that is strong, connected to the landscape and supported by people who know these places best.”

Will Geschke: 425-339-3443; william.geschke@heraldnet.com; X: @willgeschke.