Millions of pounds of squid is landed in Rhode Island each year. A longfin squid is shown. (Photo by National Undersea Research Center/ University of Connecticut)
The head of squid research at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Narragansett Bay facility is among the hundreds of agency employees nationwide who are no longer on the job, according to one of NOAA’s former administrators.
Former National Marine Fisheries Service Administrator Janet Coit said Monday that about 20 employees from NOAA’s Rhode Island office and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts were recently dismissed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Coit shared the revelation during a roundtable discussion hosted by U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.) at Save the Bay’s headquarters near the Port of Providence.
Coit, who directed the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) from 2011 to 2021, called the firings “sudden, irrational and indiscriminate.”
“The circumstances are dire,” she said. “The impact will be felt in a cascading and ripple effect across many different coastal communities.”
NOAA began firing employees Feb. 27 as part of the latest wave of cuts from DOGE to shrink the federal workforce. NOAA employs some 12,000 people nationally — 94 of whom work in Rhode Island, according to the latest figures available from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
NOAA was a specific target in Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for the second Trump term. The document contained a call to “break up NOAA,” criticizing the agency as “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.” DOGE plans to eliminate up to 50% of the agency’s staff, according to Magaziner, who is a member of the House Natural Resources Committee.
“As the Ocean State, it is a direct attack on our character and our quality of life,” Magaziner said. “And we need to fight back.”
NOAA spokesperson Scott Smullen did not immediately respond to request for comment on the proposed cuts.
The circumstances are dire. The impact will be felt in a cascading and ripple effect across many different coastal communities.
– Janet Coit, former administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service, a branch of NOAA, on significant budget cuts imposed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency
NOAA’s Narragansett Bay facility has 41 employees currently listed on its website.
Rhode Island also houses two flagship federal research vessels, based out of the Newport Naval Station and the U.S. Maritime Resource Center in Middletown: the 209-foot fisheries vessel Henry B. Bigelow and the 224-foot Okeanos Explorer, which conducts research and operations including seafloor mapping. NOAA is also in the midst of opening a $150 million marine research base in Newport.
The agency also plays a role in removing marine debris from Rhode Island’s waterways, such as the rusty steel barge taken out of the Providence River on Feb. 5.
“We really value the ability to collaborate with experts at the federal level to look at the challenges that happen right here in Rhode Island,” DEM Director Terry Gray said.
The initial layoffs led by DOGE have primarily targeted probationary employees — those with a year or less on the job. But Coit said the term “probationary” can be a bit of a misnomer since it can include staffers who were recently promoted or briefly worked somewhere else before returning to the federal workforce.
That includes the founder of the “Squid Squad,” Coit said, along with the people who run the Narragansett Bay facility.
“You can’t really run a lab if you don’t have the folks,” she said.
NOAA also provides oversight of the National Weather Service, which has a station in Norton, Massachusetts, and a staff of 21 people, according to its website.
A meteorologist at the Norton office declined to comment whether any layoffs had occurred. Nor did NWS spokesperson Susan Buchanan, who said the agency does not discuss internal personnel matters.
“NOAA remains dedicated to its mission, providing timely information, research, and resources that serve the American public and ensure our nation’s environmental and economic resilience,” Buchanan said in an emailed statement. “We continue to provide weather information, forecasts and warnings pursuant to our public safety mission.”
Fred Mattera — a retired fisherman who is the president of the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation — said he relied heavily on federal weather data to keep his crews safe during his 40 years working on the sea.
“To lose that — it’s not realistic, it’s not common sense,” he said.
Mattera also spoke of the importance of NOAA-funded research and maps of sea populations – particularly squid, which he said have changed their seasonal movement patterns in recent years. Should the Trump administration move forward with its planned cuts, there won’t be as much squid coming into Rhode Island — whether it’s to use as bait to catch tuna or to turn into calamari.
“We lose our squid, Point Judith is a ghost town,” Mattera said.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.