Trump Administration cuts to Great Lakes science would harm the quality of life, the multibillion-dollar economies built around the lakes, and emergency preparedness, a group of environmental advocacy officials, academics and local government representatives said Wednesday.
In fact, the science cuts already made under Trump have already had negative impacts, they said.
With others concerned about budget cuts around him, Bentley Johnson, the federal government affairs director of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, talks during a press conference at the Wilcox Lake Hines Park Recreation Area in Plymouth on Thursday, September 24, 2025 about the Trump administration’s federal budget cuts for Great Lakes conservation and research efforts.
The coalition of concerned groups and individuals gathered at Hines Park in Plymouth on Wilcox Lake, an impaired water body in the Rouge River watershed improved in recent years through millions in restoration funding for the watershed through the federal Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.
“We’ve already seen impacts from budget cuts, from grant freezes to staff layoffs at critical federal agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, and at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,” said Bentley Johnson, federal government affairs director for the environmental nonprofit Michigan League of Conservation Voters.
“The Trump Administration’s federal budget for this coming year had drastic and massive cuts for these agencies, including things like zeroing out and eliminating climate change research and other critical research here in the Great Lakes − as well as basically slashing the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget in half.”
Nicole Rice, a former communications specialist with NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) in Ann Arbor, was fired earlier this year in the Trump Administration cuts. She said the workforce at the laboratory has been reduced by 35%, and the proposed Trump budget for the next fiscal year would eliminate the laboratory altogether.
“GLERL is NOAA’s only dedicated freshwater research lab,” she said.
Among the lab’s functions cited by Rice:
Tracking harmful algal blooms whose toxins can contaminate drinking water supplies, endanger swimmers and kill pets.
Providing forecasts for winds, waves, currents and lake levels that support boating, fishing, shipping and search-and-rescue operations.
Conducting ecological monitoring that informs the management of a $6 billion Great Lakes fishery.
Improving flood, weather and lake-effect snow forecasts.
It’s “protecting both lives and property,” Rice said, adding the lab’s data, models and other work “protects our economy and ensures decision-making is based on facts, not guesswork.”
Mike Shriberg, director of the University of Michigan Water Center and a faculty member in the university’s School for Environment and Sustainability, said multiple coalitions the university works with that rely upon federal Great Lakes science funding are in jeopardy.
“At the water center I direct, we were just made aware of further cuts in our funding because of recessions at NOAA,” he said. “This is money that had already been appropriated by Congress that is no longer being given out by the agency.”
Among the agencies that would be zeroed out under the proposed Trump budget:
The Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research, CIGLR, a research institute and consortium involving NOAA, regional universities, nonprofits and businesses working “to achieve environmental, economic, and social sustainability in the Great Lakes,” with a focus on problems such as harmful algal blooms, invasive species and ecosystem restoration.
Michigan Sea Grant, a collaboration started in 1969 between NOAA, the University of Michigan and Michigan State University that “funds research, education, and outreach projects designed to foster science-based decisions about the use and conservation of Great Lakes resources.”
Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments, GLISA, another collaboration between NOAA, Michigan and Michigan State to work with communities on climate adaptation.
“It adds up to a diminished ability to do what there is broad consensus should be done: protecting and restoring the Great Lakes and the biological and human communities that live in and around them,” Shriberg said.
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According to a late August report at Science.org, the digital arm of the peer-reviewed scientific journal Science, the Trump Administration is set to spend nearly $100 million less on the research arm of NOAA this year, 14% less than the amount earmarked by Congress, in anticipation of eliminating it entirely in its fiscal year 2026 budget.
Other reported cuts include a $53 million, or 25% reduction in climate research and related grants; a nearly 20% cut to weather labs and institutes; and a $3 million ocean institute. Science.org also reported that next-generation geostationary weather satellites approved during the Biden Administration are also on the chopping block.
The Trump Administration, in its Fiscal Year 2026 budget proposal released in May, stated that the cuts “save taxpayers $163 billion in wasteful spending,” particularly targeting what it called “radical environmental justice work, woke climate research, and skewed, overly-precautionary modeling.”
Coalition members Wednesday noted that many of the items the Trump Administration is looking to slash are retained in budget versions under consideration in both the U.S. House and Senate — but some previously cut funds are not restored.
Beth Gibbons, director of Washtenaw County’s resiliency office, said her county updated its stormwater management plan in 2017 using NOAA’s then-recently created Atlas 14 dataset, the agency’s latest update on storm data to guide the intensity, duration and frequency of storms in given areas.
“We should be going through another update right now,” Gibbons said. “But the next version of storm data intensity, duration, and frequency curves, Atlas 15, has been put on pause. This critical data directly informs how we build infrastructure in our communities, and it’s being held up due to budget cuts and constraints.”
Wayne County Commissioner Melissa Daub, whose district includes Canton Township, the city of Plymouth and a portion of Plymouth Township, noted extensive flooding in Plymouth last April and tornadoes that touched down in Canton Township two summers ago.
“The proposed cuts to NOAA and the EPA would place a tremendous burden on county governments, leaving us without accurate information or recovery funding,” she said. “I urge Congress to protect this vital funding, to protect Michigan businesses, homes and families.”
Contact Keith Matheny: kmatheny@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Trump’s proposed Great Lakes science cuts would harm, group says