These Arizona national parks have been hit hardest by federal firings
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Lake Mead, a national recreation area that spans the Arizona-Nevada border, was particularly hard hit by federal firings. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
More than four dozen U.S. national park workers in Arizona have been fired amid the Trump administration's purge of federal workers, per an unofficial tally shared with Axios by a park ranger.
Why it matters: The firings have left fewer workers to do critical jobs ahead of the busy summer travel season, including for lifesaving search-and-rescue missions.
Driving the news: The hardest hit in Arizona so far are Lake Mead National Recreation Area (13 workers, a 7% staff reduction), Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (12, 9%), Grand Canyon National Park (10, 2%) and Petrified Forest National Park (5, 10%), per the tally.
- Among the Lake Mead firings was an aquatic ecologist named Riley Rackliffe who told a Las Vegas TV station he moved cross-country 11 months ago to take the position.
- Part of Rackliffe's charge was addressing the highly invasive quagga mussel in the lake, which spans parts of Arizona and Nevada.
- He told FOX 5 his former coworkers will absorb his duties, "but more likely some of it's just not going to be done."
Zoom in: The Sunset Crater Volcano (2% of total workforce), Casa Grande Ruins (10%) and Pipe Spring (7%) national monuments each lost one employee and the Organ Pipe Cactus (6%) and Chiricahua (4%) national monuments and Saguaro National Park (3%) each lost two.
- The Sonoran Desert Inventory and Monitoring Network, which oversees 11 parks across Arizona and New Mexico, saw two firings, and the Intermountain Regional Office, which supports all Mountain West parks, lost 11 employees.
- The most recent National Park Service (NPS) data does not include the total number of employees who worked at these regional offices.
Zoom out: More than 750 park employees have been laid off nationwide, including big hits at nearby vacation destinations like Rocky Mountain and Zion national parks.
How it works: The numbers are according to a spreadsheet shared with Axios by a park ranger who requested anonymity to protect their job and employment prospects.
- The spreadsheet is based on reports from hundreds of rangers and other park workers in multiple online groups.
Reality check: Because it's a crowdsourced effort, the document is likely incomplete and undercounts the full breadth of the firings.
- The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), an independent advocacy group, says more than 1,000 staffers were fired on Feb. 14.
- The National Park Service (NPS) did not provide an official count of firings by park and did not comment on the tally in the spreadsheet.
What they're saying: NPS "is hiring seasonal workers to continue enhancing the visitor experience as we embrace new opportunities for optimization and innovation in workforce management," a spokesperson said in a statement.
- "We are focused on ensuring that every visitor has the chance to explore and connect with the incredible, iconic spaces of our national parks."
What's next: The Trump administration also plans to terminate nearly three dozen NPS leases in the next two years, which will result in closures of visitor centers, maintenance facilities and other buildings, according to the NPCA.
- Five Arizona leases are slated for cancellation including a Flagstaff headquarters that oversees multiple nearby parks, such as Sunset Crater and Walnut Canyon, per the NPCA.
What we're watching: Unions and advocacy groups are suing the Trump administration over the mass firings.
- In response, the White House yesterday changed its guidance to allow each federal agency to make final firing decisions.
- It's not yet known how or if this will lead to the re-hiring of already-terminated employees.