REGIONAL— A near blackout of public information has descended on the U.S. Forest Service as a result of orders from the Trump administration along with the staff fears of potential job losses.
The change has already led to the cancellation of the Feb. 4 virtual open house and Feb. 5 in-person open house at the Kawishiwi District office in Ely to take public input on the Fernberg forest management project. Public input is apparently still being accepted online through Feb. 14, at the project page link at https://www.fs.usda.gov/project/superior/?project=65214.
Superior National Forest Service spokesperson Joy Vandrie denied that there was a blackout ordered and said that the Forest Service opted to upload a video about the Fernberg Project “in lieu of an open house.” She said that option allows residents seeking more information about the project the ability to watch the video on their own time, outside of the set hours of an open house. She said that Forest Service offices remain open to the public and that staff “continues to respond to inquiries from area residents.”
Yet, when asked by the Timberjay on Feb. 6 if the Forest Service was canceling all future public events for the time being, Vandrie was unable to respond as of the newspaper’s Feb. 12 press time because her response needed to be cleared in Washington.
Forest Service officials are being tight-lipped about the status of the agency and employee morale in the wake of efforts by Elon Musk to prompt resignations across the federal workforce. Retired forest service officials have spoken to the Timberjay in recent days but acknowledge that even former colleagues in the service are reluctant to speak to them about the situation and their fears of imminent staff reductions.
“It’s disconcerting,” said one not for attribution. “I’ve contacted several current forest service employees and they’ve said they are afraid to make any comments even though I’ve contacted them on their personal emails or messages. They are all afraid and have been muzzled.”
Some retirees who have spoken to the Timberjay say they’re worried that Musk and his unofficial Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, could also seek to reduce or eliminate federal worker pensions. “Everything people have worked for is being threatened,” said one local forest service retiree, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “Elon Musk and his DOGE team want access to personal information on Medicare, Social Security, pensions. There is no reason to be in our personal data,” said the retiree.
He further noted that the large acreage of federal land in northeastern Minnesota makes the forest service important to the local economy. In addition to employing hundreds of workers around the region, federal lands provide hundreds of thousands of cords of timber and provide for a wide range of recreational uses that are used heavily by area residents as well as bringing large numbers of visitors to the region.