It hurts': Federal cuts affect Forest Service workers, more in Walla Walla

Credit: Greg Lehman, Walla Walla Union Bulletin

At the promise of a job as an environmental protection specialist for the Umatilla National Forest, Nathan Morga uprooted his life, moving his family to Walla Walla in April of last year.

“'I’ve always tried to get into the Forest Service. It’s a lot harder than some of the other places,” he said. “It’s about caring for the land, caring for the people.”

He saw the position as a way to get back into helping people after a military career that deeply affected him and his family. Morga, 39, is a disabled Air Force and California National Guard veteran who has held several federal jobs since his service ended with a back injury in 2019.

He took the job at the Walla Walla Ranger district after stints at the National Weather Service and NOAA Fisheries, with contracting work between. His family bought a house, his kids enrolled in school and activities: swim team, soccer, jiu jitsu, music lessons.

As for Morga, he found unmatched support at the local Veterans Affairs.

Then, he was fired on Sunday, Feb. 16, less than two months before his probationary period ended.

The termination was shocking and frustrating, and it brought uncertainty for his family’s future in Walla Walla, he said.

“I thought with my service to the country, this would not be a position I would be in,” Morga said. “It hurts.”

Bailey Langley, 23, a public affairs specialist at the Umatilla National Forest Headquarters in Pendleton, was fired two days earlier, on Friday, Feb. 14, also just shy of the end of her probationary period.

On Friday, Feb. 14, the day she was fired, Bailey Langley asked her colleague to take a photo of her standing with the Umatilla National Forest Headquarters sign in Pendleton, Ore. Langley was one of many who lost her job because of federal job cuts under the Trump administration.

Her family lives in southern Oregon and she was raised in Portland. After graduating from Oregon State University, she moved to Pendleton for an internship as an engagement specialist for the Blue Mountains Forest Plan Revision. She was then hired onto the Forest Service in April 2024.

“I immediately fell in love with the Forest Service,” Langley said. “I believe, and did believe at that time, too, that my work had a purpose.”

Morga and Langley are among the thousands of federal workers dismissed in broad cuts to employees across federal agencies under President Donald Trump’s administration and the Department of Government Efficiency.

In eastern Washington and Oregon, the firings have hit the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Veterans Affairs and the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife, among other federal agencies.

DOGE and billionaire business owner Elon Musk have said the dismissals are meant to cut costs and increase efficiency.

But industry groups that work alongside federal agencies say people with critical experience and expertise are being pushed out; and recently fired federal employees, including Morga and Langley are frustrated by what they call wrongful — or unlawful — terminations.

Local impact

It’s difficult to track how many people have been fired, locally and overall.

Much of the information is coming from federal workers and those who have recently been fired. Probationary employees have been dismissed from agencies in the Walla Walla Valley, but the exact number of people let go in the region is difficult to pin down.

Morga said he was one of five dismissed from the Umatilla National Forest’s Walla Walla Ranger District, which is responsible for federal forest lands from Dayton to Meacham, Ore.

District Ranger Johnny Collin referred all questions to the Pacific Northwest Region Press Desk. A response from the National Press Desk said 2,000 probationary, non-firefighting employees were terminated in the Forest Service nationally.

Langley said her public outreach team of five at the Umatilla’s main office in Pendleton was cut down to two.

“That, in itself, in our public affairs team, is going to have a major impact on our ability to connect and provide resources to the public,” she said.

A public affairs specialist from the VA’s Los Angeles Regional Office of Public Affairs confirmed that a “small number of probationary staff” was dismissed from Walla Walla’s Jonathan M. Wainwright Memorial VA Medical Center, which provides health, support and facility services for veterans across 16 counties.

Asked to confirm the number of employees dismissed, Linda Wondra, public affairs officer for the Walla Walla VA, said the regional spokesperson’s statement was the official response.

A Navy veteran and current employee, who asked to remain anonymous because of job safety concerns, said nine employees were terminated from the Walla Walla VA.

Bruce Barga, president of the Blue Mountain Audubon Society, said in an email statement that two employees were dismissed from the McNary National Wildlife Refuge in Burbank, though that wasn’t confirmed by the agency. Steve Kahl, project leader with the Mid-Columbia River National Wildlife Refuges, referred the Union-Bulletin to a regional PIO with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service who did not respond.

And in a news conference Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray said terminations have left the Hanford nuclear cleanup site near Richland understaffed. She added that forest rangers, Veterans Affairs employees and workers at the Bonneville Power Administration had been fired.

It’s unknown whether employees were dismissed from other federal agencies serving the Walla Walla Valley, including the National Weather Service office in Pendleton; Farm Service Agency service centers in Walla Walla and Dayton; or the Bureau of Reclamation office in the Columbia Basin.

Local agency leaders were unable to confirm terminations, and regional or national press offices for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, USDA, and Bureau of Reclamation did not respond to requests for information ahead of publication.

Dylan Peters, public affairs specialist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Walla Walla District, said the district has not had changes in workforce nor direction from higher-ups about probationary employees as of Monday, Feb. 24.

The Corps and VA are two of the largest employers in Walla Walla County, according to economic data from the Port of Walla Walla. Peters said the Walla Walla District employs 950 full-time employees with roughly half of those employees working in the Walla Walla area directly.

Performance

Nathan Morga and Bailey Langley pushed back on the assertion by the USDA that they were dismissed because of their job performance at the Forest Service.

They were both within their first year of their current roles and were therefore considered probationary employees.

Nathan Morga recounts his experience being fired from the Umatilla National Forest Walla Walla Ranger District. Jake Bertram Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

Federal jobs tend to be secure because of strong worker protections. For that reason, workers in new positions, even those who may have been promoted into it, have a probationary period. This allows them to be more easily terminated if they do not meet expectations.

The letter dismissing Morga from service — standard across the terminations — read: “The agency finds, based on your performance, that you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the agency would be in the public interest.”

Yet both Morga and Langley said they had recent evaluations that stated they were meeting or exceeding expectations.

Morga’s evaluation, which he and district ranger Collin signed in October 2024, showed he was “fully successful” in all objectives outlined.

“I had already gotten my feedback saying that I was going to stay with them and be a permanent employee — I got my performance report for that,” Morga said.

Langley said the statement about her performance in the dismissal letter has made it difficult to access resources like unemployment since being fired. She said she has had to provide documentation to assert that although she was fired for poor performance, she was in good standing with the agency. These obstacles mean she is not yet receiving unemployment.

“The way that the administration has carried out these mass terminations for working class people is inherently instilling obstacles in the process of seeking services, and that's one of the hardest parts, I think," Langley said.

Bailey Langley talks about obstacles she's faced since losing her job with the Umatilla National Forest in Pendleton. Jake Bertram Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

And while neither was hired for the primary job of firefighting, both had red cards, the certification for wildland firefighters, and would have been expected to go help if there was a fire in the Umatilla National Forest.

Over the summer, Langley spent 16 days serving as a public information officer for the Battle Mountain Complex, a series of fires affecting more than 180,000 acres in Ukiah, Oregon.

The United States Forest Service Walla Walla Ranger Station on West Rose Street on Tuesday, Feb. 25.

Impact

Like Morga, Langley also uprooted her life to work at Umatilla National Forest.

“I moved my entire life over here, and have finally started to settle into the community, and all of a sudden that's just going to be ripped away,” she said.

Now that she is being abruptly told to leave, the work that was so important to her is also at risk, she said.

While official statements from the USDA said services will remain uninterrupted, those leaving the Forest Service see the cuts as loss of experience and expertise that will affect work outcomes.

Having fewer people doing public outreach, fewer people maintaining trails, fewer wildlife biologists, fewer people supervising timber production or cultivating habitats for huckleberries will impact the forests and the people that rely on them for recreation and so much more, Langley said.

“It’s almost indescribable the impact that it can have, not only on our rural communities that live alongside the forest, but across the state and our nation, really,” she said. “It's going to have a real impact on people's ability to enjoy and to use our public lands on the Umatilla.”

Morga, in his role, was responsible for writing reports demonstrating that the projects on the Umatilla followed legal requirements, from the Endangered Species Act to the National Forest Management Act.

He echoed many of the challenges Langley mentioned and emphasized that what the Walla Walla Ranger District is losing from the cuts is expertise.

“The office culture was great. Everyone was so knowledgeable. Every time they spoke, I got smarter,” Morga said. “It's just a bunch of experts who really loved what they were doing. These people really care about the forest, and it hurts them, too, to see our team broken apart … It’s a brain drain.”

Bruce Barga, president of the Blue Mountain Audubon Society, said the dismissals at McNary National Wildlife Refuge in Burbank leaves the office without any biologists to study the effects of an ongoing floodplain restoration project that would reconnect the Walla Walla River to its historic flood plain.

Barga said the project will benefit waterfowl, salmon, songbirds and visitors.

“BMAS recognizes that the delay of a river restoration project is minor compared to the personal loss experienced by the biologists who were fired,” he said in a statement. “This forced staff reduction threatens the ability of the McNary Refuge to complete its mission as one of the most important refuges in the Pacific Flyway for migratory birds.”

What’s next?

Morga was fired on a Sunday, the day before Presidents Day.

“To leave me two days without resources, that put me in a really hard spot,” he said.

Since then, he has found support from veteran services in the city, county and state.

The Veterans Service Office, Workforce and the Washington State Department of Veteran Affairs have been assisting him with food, bills and job search, and his plan is to keep his kids in Walla Walla schools through the end of the school year at least.

As for his connections at the VA, he doesn’t want to lose those.

“Specifically, I was getting really good care here,” he said. “The Walla Walla VA was remarkable once I got into it, and if I end up moving, I'm going to lose that resource.”

Morga said he has also found support from the National Federation of Federal Employees and the National Association of Forest Service Retirees.

The day after Presidents Day — the first business day after many federal workers were dismissed — the Washington State Employment Security Department saw an increase in unemployment claims from federal employees: 63.

The Employment Security Department is one resource helping federal employees affected by the cuts to apply for unemployment and get back to work.

Langley said her first call after her termination was to her union representative. She wanted to make sure she positioned herself well for the opportunity that she might be reinstated or to join a civil lawsuit for affected federal employees.

She said her biggest recommendation for employees who were terminated would be to reach out to people they trust.

“It's been an extremely isolating and heartbreaking experience just to lose everything, your job, your community, a sense of your identity in a matter of a few days, and it's extremely important to just take care of themselves and find that community again,” she said.

This article contains reporting by Yakima Herald-Republic’s Jasper Kenzo Sundeen.

Kate Smith, Walla Walla Union Bulletin can be reached at katesmith@wwub.com or 509-577-7709.