Furloughed feds pick up Seattle beach trash to keep serving the public

Furloughed federal employees were out in the rain picking up cigarette butts, bottle caps, and other trash at Seattle’s Golden Gardens Park on Friday.

Their sodden volunteerism was part of a national week of service for civil servants prevented from doing their jobs by the federal government shutdown.

Rather than professional skills, officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration used tongs to keep pollution from entering Puget Sound and harming things like salmon and orcas, which their agency is responsible for protecting.

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Other members of International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers Local 8a, a union that represents NOAA employees, volunteered at the Seattle ReCreative facility in Georgetown to sort used art supplies and keep them out of landfills.

“As federal workers, we signed up to serve the American people and to serve the public, and while we're on furlough and we can't do that as part of our jobs, we want to find other ways to give back to our local communities,” said one employee who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation.

She said a lot of scientific research on oceans and the atmosphere has ground to a halt with the shutdown, now in its fourth week.

“A lot of stuff that people wouldn't necessarily see day to day but is really important for the long-term health of our oceans and the health of our commercial and recreational fisheries is not getting done right now,” she said.

Prior to the shutdown, the Trump administration had fired or incentivized the resignation of about one-fourth of NOAA’s staff, the employee said.

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Another NOAA employee estimated that 80% of the agency’s remaining fisheries employees in Seattle are furloughed—out of work and going unpaid—with most of the 20% who are still allowed to work also not getting paid.

Nationwide, about 1.4 million U.S. government employees are going without pay, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington, D.C., think tank. Roughly half are working without pay and half are furloughed.

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The Trump administration has said it is pursuing mass firings across the federal government as part of its commitment to slash waste, fraud, and abuse.

Republicans who control Congress and their Democratic opposition have been unable to find a compromise to keep the federal government running.

The ongoing government shutdown is currently the second-longest in U.S. history.

Only a five-week shutdown in 2018-2019, during the first Trump Administration, was longer. That impasse cost the U.S. about $3 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.