Corvallis EPA on pins and needles after elimination threats

Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Scientific research occurring at Corvallis’ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency facility in Corvallis could be on the chopping block as the Trump administration looks to slash the agency responsible for protecting human health and the environment.

According to a news release from U.S. Sen.



Jeff Merkley’s office, reports detail the EPA’s intent to dismantle its scientific research arm, the Office of Research and Development, terminating more than 1,000 positions, including chemists, toxicologists and biologists. “This reckless decision would erode the agency’s scientific foundation to the benefit of polluting industries at the expense of working-class communities and exacerbate climate change,” a letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin from Merkley and U.S.

Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine reads. “It is a betrayal of EPA’s obligation to the American people to understand and use the best available science and a violation of the law.

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Paul Gates, administrative assistant at the Corvallis EPA who spoke with Mid-Valley Media in his personal capacity, said staffers at the local Office of Research and Development division do not know what’s going to happen. “All of us are on angry, anxious, scared, frightened pins and needles,” he said. It came as a shock that the Trump administration’s strategy is aimed at the Office of Research and Development, as it doesn’t enforce environmental laws or interface with the public, Gates said.

“The scientists here are just doing research on environmental effects, chemicals, pollutants, what it takes to preserve good water and clean air,” he said. For example, he said, the division currently is studying how tire particles are killing salmon; nanoplastics and other nanomaterials that impact everyone’s health; and biochar, a new concoction that can be added to soil to resolve toxins and poisons left behind from abandoned mines. Any impact to the EPA, he said, has impacts on water, air and soil.

In their letter, Merkley and Pingree also speak to the importance of Office of Research and Development. “For decades, ORD has been the backbone of independent, science-based policymaking at EPA,” it reads. “By dismantling ORD, you would gut the agency’s ability to conduct independent research and hand over environmental policy to industry insiders.

"This proposal is not about efficiency or improvement — it is a deliberate effort to strip away regulatory safeguards that protect ordinary Americans while boosting profits for the wealthiest polluters.” According to Gates, should the Corvallis facility close, it would mean about a $27 million annual hit to the local economy. Between the main site in Corvallis and the satellite branch in Newport, there are 150 employees composed of federal workers, contractors and graduate students.

Four workers have already been fired from the Newport branch as part of the Trump administrations' targeting of federal employees in February . “You’ve got to understand, we’re also very, very concerned for our own welfare and families,” Gates said. Right now, there are a few causes for optimism, he said.

The property is federally owned rather than leased, so it’s not subject to abrupt lease cancellations other offices are facing. Additionally, it shares the facility with a regional EPA laboratory. “Because our division is hosting a regional lab doing essential sampling work, that’s another reason to think maybe we’ll be spared,” Gates said.

It’s also home to some research that is congressionally mandated that could happen somewhere else, Gates said. But for now, Corvallis is its base. According to the letter to Zeldin, if implemented, the proposal to eliminate the ORD would violate federal law.

The Office of Research and Development is recognized as EPA’s research organization by law throughout the U.S. Code, it reads, and $758.

1 million have been appropriated for the EPA’s research initiatives in the 2025 fiscal year. “Unilaterally dismantling ORD and impounding funds appropriated for science and technology contravenes the statute and appropriations and undermines Congress’s constitutional authority over federal expenditures,” it reads. Regardless of glimmers of hope, everyone at the laboratory feels very vulnerable, Gates said.

And he believes that’s part of the Trump administration’s strategy — to keep people feeling uneasy. “Neither our director nor his bosses nor their bosses know anything, he said. “So we’re just waiting, waiting to know anything.

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