USGS staff install a microsampler in a Milwaukee creek. (Photo by Peter C. Van Metre/USGS)

A field office of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Rice Lake that serves as part of an expansive national network monitoring water data is set to close next year as part of a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) effort to terminate the leases of the agency’s offices. 

The Rice Lake office and an office in Mounds View, Minn., are both operated by the USGS Upper Midwest Water Science Center. They are among the more than two dozen offices across the country DOGE has targeted for closure, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. 

USGS staff and environmental policy workers across Wisconsin say closing  the office in Rice Lake could harm the quality and quantity of the data available in the state — making it harder for local, county and state governments, as well as private citizens and businesses, to make plans and policies in a region that will be at more risk of both drought and extreme weather events as climate change intensifies. 

The USGS water science centers operate thousands of streamgages across the country, gathering data on stream flows and water quality. That data can be used to help design plans for infrastructure such as bridges and dams; inform research on pollutants such as nitrates and pesticides; help farmers set irrigation plans during droughts; give homeowners information on flood plains and support recreational industries such as whitewater rafting. 

“The Rice Lake office is just a very important but small piece of what they do, and what they do is so fundamental to what so many other people are trying to do across so many sectors in the state of Wisconsin,” says Erin O’Brien, a spokesperson for the Wisconsin Wetlands Association. “They support state agencies and local communities and others doing not just land and water conservation work, but development and transportation planning and all these other sectors.” 

The agency has been operating streamgages in the United States since the 1880s. One of the first 120 gages the agency installed was in Wisconsin in 1899, according to USGS data. That longevity gives scientists an essential resource for tracking Wisconsin’s bodies of water. It’s easier to understand the effect of a 100-year flood when you’re working with more than a century of data. 

Each individual streamgage increases the value of the entire network, and every additional year of data further improves the data. Many practical uses of the data to understand how rivers and watersheds are functioning require 20 years of measurements, according to a 2021 report on the USGS streamgage network by the Congressional Research Service. 

At a field office such as the one in Rice Lake, the staff is responsible for maintaining and repairing the gages. The risk of closing an office is that the staff won’t be close enough to do that work, resulting in lower quality data, according to Paul LaLiberte, who serves as the chair of Wisconsin Green Fire’s Environmental Rules and Water Resources Work Group. LaLiberte worked on water quality issues for 36 years at the state Department of Natural Resources. 

“This flow data is continually recording, and [the field offices are] the ones that install the equipment, maintain the equipment, and, importantly, go out and calibrate it on a schedule and even in response to events,” says LaLiberte, who worked with staff in the Rice Lake office when he was based in Eau Claire with the DNR. 

“By closing the field offices, that’s going to make it a whole lot harder to do this calibration and maintenance and even run as many stations as they do,” he said. “The consequences will probably be some combination of dropping some stations or having the data be less accurate, because due to travel times, they just can’t send the crews out there to recalibrate the stations. So if the data is less accurate, then the predictions are going to be less accurate, and the infrastructure designs associated with that are going to be less accurate.”

One USGS staff member who works outside of Wisconsin, granted anonymity because agency employees have not been authorized to speak to the media, says staff members across the country weren’t aware their offices were being shut down until the General Services Administration told their landlords the leases would not be renewed. 

The staffer says the terminations are “shocking” because these offices are filled with lab equipment that is difficult to move and there are still not yet plans for alternatives. The result is that the data won’t be collected. 

“I guess maybe this is apparent, but leaving these leases was not a strategy for efficiency,” the staffer says. “There’s no plan in place to leave these facilities and find other alternatives. And it’s a huge effort to now create a plan to find alternatives for these facilities when you know these facilities are in full use, and we don’t see any other options. We will not be able to collect the data that we need to fulfill our mission, because we will be reassigning resources to deal with moving that we don’t have.” 

A USGS spokesperson said in a statement the terminated leases will not harm the agency’s mission. 

“USGS remains committed to its congressional mandate as the science arm of the Department of the Interior,” the spokesperson said. “We are actively working with GSA to ensure that every facility and asset is utilized effectively, and where necessary, identifying alternative solutions that strengthen our mission. These efforts reflect our broader commitment to streamlining government operations while ensuring that scientific endeavors remain strong, effective, and impactful. This process is ongoing, and we will provide updates as more information becomes available.”

The Rice Lake office’s lease is set to end July 31, 2026.