Some Cincinnati-based federal employees at the Environmental Protection Agency say they are demoralized, and their work is stymied by the recent flurry of directives by the Trump administration.
In his first month in office, President Trump made an offer to federal employees to resign now and get paid through September in an attempt to downsize the government. He also froze Biden-era climate and infrastructure funds; started to dismantle the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights; mandated workers return to the office; and notified probationary employees that they could be fired at any time.
Trump said Feb. 11 such attempts to remake the federal workforce will make it more efficient and effective.
Michael Ottlinger is president of the National Treasury Employees Union, Chapter 279, representing EPA employees in Cincinnati. He says the slew of orders is disrupting the organization.
“Career leadership is wrapped around the axle, trying to figure out day by day, minute to minute, what the latest marching orders are,” Ottlinger said. “Who are they coming from? What do they mean? What am I supposed to do?”
Nearly 1,000 EPA employees work in Cincinnati, doing research on drinking water, landfills, and homeland security. They’re working on such projects as getting “forever chemicals,” also known as PFAS, out of water, and technologies to identify lead service lines.
When Trump paused the disbursement of funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, some of those local research initiatives had to stop.
One federal worker at the Cincinnati EPA offices, who spoke to WVXU anonymously for fear of retaliation, says some technical work helping communities is being cancelled or paused too.
“I worry what this is going to do for our mission, our environment, our ability to clean up contaminated sites, identify and remove lead service lines,” the worker said.
The impacts are also personal, they said.
“It’s chaotic and paralyzing. It’s hard to think about your plan for the year because you don’t know if you’ll still be around,” the worker said.
Probationary employees fired, fear ripples
The EPA fired nearly 400 employees on Friday. Many were probationary, meaning they were recently hired or moved into a new position and had fewer protections, according to reporting from NPR. A "probationary" period typically lasts one or two years, though it can be longer at some agencies.
Brooke Gray was an environmental engineer in Cincinnati, working on research into PFAS mitigation in drinking water, until she was fired last week.
"I felt like what I was doing was important enough that it wouldn't take this hit," Gray said. "So, definitely shocking and very sad. I felt like I put in a lot of time at the EPA, and just having it happen so suddenly was really hard."
Gray worked at the agency as a grantee for four and a half years before becoming a federal employee in August.
Another newly hired researcher with the EPA — who also spoke to WVXU anonymously for fear of retaliation — said they spent Friday night switching between LinkedIn, seeing local coworkers who’d been let go, and email, checking to make sure they were still employed.
“I have done everything right — I went to school, went back to school, took multiple jobs. I saved too much, I ate too little, I didn’t celebrate things. I devoted everything to get this job,” the researcher said. “It’s going to feel really bad and really terrible if I lose this job. And there won’t be anything I can do about it.”
The researcher went into work Tuesday, but worries whether they’ll still have a job by the end of the week.
What’s next?
Cincinnati EPA employees WVXU spoke with say they’re continuing with the work they can do, while anticipating the next federal directives and more workforce cuts.
“We just don't know what's going to happen, but we have no reason to think that after this business is over, that that's going to be the end,” Ottlinger said.
The National Treasury Employees Union filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging several executive actions. It asks the judge to declare the mass firing of probationary employees unlawful.
Several other lawsuits challenging the legality of Trump’s efforts to reshape the government have also been filed, according to the Federal News Network.
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