Moves by the Trump administration earlier this year to freeze federal grants, loans and aid and to slash workers across government agencies have impacted thousands of workers and organizations nationwide, including groups on the peninsula.
District Manager Kyra Wagner said the Homer Soil and Water Conservation District is among the agencies feeling the effects of the freeze. Programs related to invasive species, habitat and trails, native plants and agriculture have all been negatively impacted.
Soil and water conservation districts are local units of government, legal subdivisions of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources and authorized under Alaska State Statute 41.10 to develop, manage and direct natural resource programs within communities. Homer’s district is one of 13 in Alaska. Its responsibilities stretch past Ninilchik and across the bay to communities like Port Graham, Nanwalek and Seldovia.
Wagner said in an interview Friday that Homer Soil and Water Conservation — which has been 100% grant-funded for the last 10 years, despite being a state agency — had 10 of their 25 grants frozen earlier this year. Despite several court rulings — including one as recently as this month — issuing injunctions on the federal funding freeze, the district has yet to see funding restored to many of its programs.
“All of my staff are on reduced hours because at least some of the grants for each program are still frozen or not reimbursing, and we don’t know why,” said Wagner. “But the bottom line is that we’re not getting our funding. There’s just so much confusion about everything.”
The district’s programs provide a number of services to the Homer community. Agricultural staff work on soil test recommendations, give support on the technical side answering questions, run the Know Your Land lecture series and discussions at the campus, lead farm tours and classes and experiments over the summer season.
Invasive species program staff collaborate with agencies and landowners around the peninsula to treat invasive species, preventing the spread of invasives through weed-free certified products and through education and outreach.
Native plant program staff develop propagation protocols for a variety of native plants, and network with growers interested in growing native plants and consumers who need those plant materials. They also collect seeds and salvage plants from construction sites.
Habitat and trails staff work on moose habitat enhancement around the southern peninsula and salmon habitat restoration and water sampling on the Anchor River. They also spend time trail building, redirecting and improving trails for habitat protection.
Wagner said the USDA grant that funds the agricultural program at Homer Soil and Water has been the most inaccessible because it’s a “pass-through grant,” meaning that it must go through several different agencies to reach the local conservation district. When the federal source of income stops that flow, it makes intermediary agencies hesitant to reimburse, because they don’t want to commit to paying what they haven’t already received.
“The fact that they’re waiting means that I can’t pay my staff,” Wagner said. “That particular grant funds probably at least 50%, if not maybe 70%, of the work that we do.”
Wagner says because of this, her agricultural program staff has been “on holiday” for the last pay period and a half. Since all staff at Homer Soil and Water Conservation District are now on reduced hours, they’re eligible to file for unemployment.
Additionally, some services that the agency usually provides for low or no cost will be going up in pricing for the public, since the services are no longer being subsidized by the federal government.
“People will see their prices almost double for soil samples,” she said. “But God bless them, we’ve had a whole bunch of people bring in soil samples this week, in solidarity. How often do you say ‘our prices are going to rise’ and then all of a sudden, a whole bunch of people bring in soil samples for you?”
Funding has also stalled an invasive species project that was set to begin this summer in the Chugach National Forest.
The conservation district is collaborating peninsula-wide with various agencies and the U.S. Forest Service to mitigate elodea, an invasive aquatic plant that was recently discovered on Crescent Lake, a remote floatplane destination in the Chugach National Forest. Wagner said floatplanes are common vectors for these kinds of invasive species, which are known for choking out waterways and impacting native plants and animals, including salmon.
“It just grows prolifically,” she said. “It’s not native, so nothing keeps it held back here, because nothing is used to it.”
When it comes to the management of invasive species like elodea on public lands, Wagner said that working in coordination with state, federal, tribal and local entities, can greatly increase response efficiency. According to her, “early detection, rapid response” is vital to ensuring invasive species don’t grow to a level where they are adversely affecting the habitat around them.
Of the seven federal workers assigned to address the outbreak at Crescent Creek, five were fired during widescale layoffs of federal workers in probationary periods. Now the Chugach National Forest crew has no one certified to use the herbicide needed for the elodea mitigation project on the peninsula.
“It’s gutted a program,” she said. “None of these people were fired for their merit. The person who was coming up with the herbicide recommendations and prescriptions was fired because she was on a probationary period, which just means that she’s a new hire. But she was a very high-level hire. She was one of the most experienced people on the whole team. Did they look at her resume before they fired her? No. It just kind of pulls the rug out from under you.”
Wagner pointed out that while these employees have since been reinstated to their positions in response to recent court orders, they have been brought back under “administrative leave.” This means that while these federal employees are being paid their regular wages, they are not allowed to return to their work.
Visit your local Soil and Water Conservation District online at homerswcd.org to learn more. Their office in the Frontier Building on Pioneer is currently closed, due to the federal funding freeze.
If you have been affected by the recent federal layoffs or funding freezes, please reach out to reporter Chloe Pleznac at chloe.pleznac@homernews.com.
