1,000 EPA Employees Could Be Fired 'Immediately': What Does That Mean For The Water Industry?
Last week, more than a thousand employees at the U.S. EPA received a worrying email: “As a probationary/trial period employee, the agency has the right to immediately terminate you.” The email, obtained by CNN, was primarily sent to employees who had been with the agency for less than a year.
Beyond the scope of what this would mean for individual employees, how would it affect the various environmental projects that so many of these employees work on closely? And how would this translate to the water industry?
Nicole Cantello from the American Federation of Government Employees told The Hill, “These people work on things like getting the lead out of pipes or enforcing environmental laws like the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. They work on things like Brownfields, which turn contaminated land into usable land. They work on Superfund sites, which cleans up toxic pollution.”
The leaked EPA email comes after a determined effort from the Trump administration to downsize the government. The administration has hit the ground running in pursuing the overhauls outlined during Trump’s campaign.
“American people will really suffer if we don’t keep these people on the clock,” Cantello told The Hill.
No employees who received the email have been terminated thus far, and it remains to be seen how many will actually be targeted for cuts. “Ultimately, the goal is to create a more effective and efficient federal government that serves all Americans,” Molly Vaseliou, EPA Office of Public Affairs Associate Administrator, told The New York Times.
In 2024, the EPA made several great strides in confronting two issues that have been at the forefront of the water industry’s efforts: lead pipes and PFAS. In April, the first-ever national drinking water standard to address PFAS was finalized. In October, the final Lead and Copper Rule Improvements (LCRI) were issued, requiring that drinking water systems identify and replace lead pipes within the next 10 years.
But with more than a thousand employees potentially being let go, there is an air of concern that the EPA’s progress in protecting our water and environment could stall. Time will tell just how many cuts at the EPA will be made, and how that will affect the critical projects and initiatives that protect our water.