(Photo: NPS/Lake Mead National Recreation Area/Andrew Cattoir)
More than a dozen federal workers at Lake Mead National Recreation Area were among those fired last week as part of the Trump administration’s move to terminate all recent hires across federal agencies.
Park rangers, engineers, ecologists, maintenance workers, and cultural resource staff were among at least 13 federal workers terminated from the Lake Mead National Recreation Area during the three-day Presidents’ Day weekend.
On the eve of that weekend, the Trump administration fired thousands of federal workers who started their positions in the last one to two years. They had been probationary federal workers who don’t have the same job protections as employees who have been in their roles for longer.
There is no official estimate of the number of federal workers fired in Nevada following the Trump administration’s push to slash the federal workforce, or what job they performed. The effects on other key government agencies also remains uncertain.
Lake Mead National Recreation Area was the ninth most-visited recreation park in the National Park Service in 2023, with about 5.8 million visitors. The recreation area produced an estimated $358 million in economic impact that year.
Now the heavily visited lake has lost at least 13 National Park Service employees who provided vital services for the public, a move by the White House that could threaten public health, visitor safety, and recreation access, while curtailing economic activity.
Nevada’s federal workers perform crucial jobs, many of which are not being done now because of the firings. Several roles impacted by the indiscriminate mass-firings of government employees can’t be easily replaced or picked up by remaining employees.
Riley Rackliffe, an aquatic ecologist, was part of a two-person team that monitored bacteria, water-borne illnesses, toxic algae, and economically destructive invasive species for the Lake Mead National Recreation Area before he was abruptly terminated.
On Feb. 14, Rackliffe opened an email telling him he was out of a job, alongside other workers still in their probationary period. On a personal level, Rackliffe lost his dream job. Professionally, Rackliffe said the news could have major ramifications for the recreation area.
Lake Mead requires testing for potentially lethal toxins produced by blue-green algae, which grows on the lake nearly every summer. Without monitoring, visitors could unknowingly swim where the algae is most concentrated.
“I was the guy that took those samples and measured the toxin loads. I was out there once a week monitoring that as it progressed to Lake Mohave. We actually just lifted the health advisory last week. The day before I got fired, we lifted that health advisory,” Rackliffe said, adding there’s only one technician to perform that work now.
The week Rackliffe was fired, he secured a $20,000 grant from the Western National Parks Association to study fecal bacteria at the popular Arizona Hot Springs, which has repeatedly exceeded what’s considered safe in recent years.
“I had just purchased the water test kits to do the study. In all likelihood, the $3,000 of kits will get stuck in a closet while they expire,” Rackliffe said.
“Who knows what will happen to that money? It just feels so wasteful. If they had given me a little notice, a week, a few days? I could have helped transition projects on to the remaining staff. Instead, they yanked the plug in the middle and destroyed months of planning,” he continued.
The National Park Service and the Lake Mead Recreation Area did not respond to questions about how many people were fired, or respond to questions about public safety.
“Federal employees in Nevada help keep our communities safe, welcome visitors to our public lands and parks, and deliver services to our veterans – firing these critical workers will not make Nevada safer or lower costs,” said Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto in response to the terminations.
“The Trump Administration has offered zero transparency during their chaotic first month, and I’m going to continue calling on them to provide Nevadans with real answers,” the senator said.
Cortez Masto and Sen. Jacky Rosen have both sent multiple letters to federal departments seeking data on how many Nevadans have been fired and from what jobs, but with little response from Trump administration officials.
The Lake Mead Recreation Area was also planning to start multiple projects in June to extend boat launch ramps across the park, as lower lake levels threaten boating access. But after the recently hired engineers slated to work on the projects were fired, that work will likely be halted, said Rackliffe.
Rackliffe said the Lake Mead Recreation Area was instructed not to award any contracts over $50,000 through September, a move that will likely stall any large park improvement projects for the year.
“If we could extend those launch ramps, we could keep them open, but we just lost our engineers. We had money to extend those boat ramps. We had the money. We had the engineers. Now we’ve lost it,” Rackliffe said.
Rackliffe taught biology at Purdue University in Indiana before uprooting his family across the country to join the National Park Service 11 months ago. He was 25 days away from completing his one year probationary period to become a permanent staff member, a simple title shift that could have spared him.
“The wording was that my skills, knowledge and attributes didn’t match the needs of the department,” Rackliffe said.
“It’s kind of insulting. Why couldn’t they say they were firing us because they needed to balance the budget? Or they were trying to save money, or because priorities have shifted in Washington? All of those would be more honest,” Rackliffe continued.
Nevada’s Great Basin National Park also lost 20% of its staff on Valentine’s Day, when five recently hired park rangers were terminated.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty there, where you’re like ‘Are they just going to fire everybody?’ We still don’t know. There’s a lot of rumors about more fires coming, but we don’t know,” Rackliffe said.
Public losing access to nation’s history
Emily Elizabeth Moran, a Henderson resident who worked as an archivist for the National Park Service, got her termination letter at 4pm on Friday Feb. 14. She was one of several probationary cultural resource staff terminated in Nevada.
“There’s no way to get around the immense financial and emotional impact this has taken on me,” Moran said.
Moran supported archive work for 12 National Park Service sites, including the Death Valley National Park, the Great Basin National Park, the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, and Tule Springs Fossil Bed.
Federal archivists preserve museum collections, historical photos, videos, and records that the public can access for everything from documentaries to drought and medical research.
“That’s where our credible sources and our evidence comes from. Without those, everything is just hearsay. Archives are necessary for democracy,” Moran said.
Prior to being hired as permanent staff 10 months ago, Moran worked with the National Park Service on a contractual basis. But with hiring freezes, funding freezes, and staff cuts, it’s unclear who will pick up her work, if anyone.
“This idea that we can take shortcuts for things as important as our nation’s records is unacceptable. It was unacceptable before these cuts, and it’s only going to get worse,” Moran said.
“We’ve got really fragile materials that need attention. I mean, we already needed better funding and housing for audio and visual materials. A lot of the museum objects we have are very fragile, and we’re afraid of losing those,” Moran said.
Some research data and archival records housed with the National Park Service can be found nowhere else.
“I’m concerned that years and years of research data is going to be lost, and that we’re going to lose our parks,” she continued. “What’s happening to this staff right now is unprecedented.”
Cortez Masto’s office said the senator is encouraging Nevadans impacted by the federal funding freeze and federal firings to reach out directly to her office.