A U.S. Geological Survey river gage on the Chattahoochee River near Paces Ferry Road in Vinings. (Marisa Mecke/WABE)
The federal government plans to cancel the lease of the U.S. Geological Survey’s office in Norcross potentially by the end of 2025. Still, it’s unclear what the fate of the office’s programs will be, causing major confusion for organizations working on water management in the metro Atlanta area.
The office, located at 1770 Corporate Drive, was listed on the Department of Government Efficiency’s “Wall of Savings,” a site showing leases, properties, contracts and other listings that DOGE said it would save the government money by canceling.
The USGS and the General Services Administration, which oversees the office lease, wouldn’t confirm whether the lease will be canceled as the DOGE website says. The building owner, CIP Real Estate, couldn’t say either.
There’s no indication that the employees at this facility are being terminated, leaving partners who work with the USGS concerned about how the agency will continue to fulfill its programs without its office.
What is this office?
This office houses the South Atlantic Water Science Research Center (SAWSC), which covers Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. Employees monitor and maintain river gages, which document water levels and flooding, pollution and dam releases from Buford Dam. But, it also operates the BacteriAlert program, a partnership between USGS and the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper and National Park Service that provides real-time estimates of e. Coli contamination in the river that’s publicly available online.
In addition to those programs, the staff at SAWSC performs a massive amount of data crunching. The employees collect and analyze data related to river flows, groundwater, reservoirs and lakes, pollution, droughts and floods, saltwater intrusion, climate change and more.
On-site, SAWSC stores equipment, vehicles and boats, as well as lab equipment.
A sign next a USGS gage in Vinings explains the BacteriAlert partnership. (Marisa Mecke/WABE)
Concerns about the lease cancellation
Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock sent a letter on April 10 to Doug Burgum, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior, which oversees USGS. They stated that the office is critical to ensuring drinking water safety and to all aspects of managing the metro-area drinking sources of Lake Lanier and the Chattahoochee River.
They also requested answers regarding whether the staff from Norcross will be relocated, whether any staff will be terminated, whether there will be any interruption of service and more.
Pamela Burnett, the executive director of the Georgia Association of Water Professionals, said public employees working on drinking water, wastewater and stormwater rely on the USGS’s data for planning.
“You really can’t manage for the future without knowing how things actually work,” Burnett said.
GAWP’s membership includes public sector employees and other water professionals, who use USGS data on flooding, water flow during droughts, sewage pollution in the river and more in their day-to-day work. Burnett said all that data is collected by USGS gages.
And she said over time, more and more of those USGS gages have been decommissioned.
“We’re at a point where we have as little information as we can really get by with. I think it’s pretty critical to keep that, keep those the gages we have going, and oftentimes we would like to have more, but we’re doing what we can,” Burnett said.
Other organizations that use the USGS’s gages say critical programs could be harmed by the office closing.
Chattahoochee Riverkeeper executive director Jason Ulseth says his organization worries that the USGS’s inability to maintain river gages properly will affect their joint work on BacteriAlert.
“It’s the only project of its kind that provides real-time information to river users about recreational safety,” Ulseth said. “It’s the program that will tell you if you should or should not go and contact the Chattahoochee River that particular day.”
He said that his facility isn’t just an office, and that these employees can’t just pick up and work remotely since the USGS Norcross facility houses labs and a parking lot for vehicles and boats. The organization and other partners still can’t clearly understand what would happen with this office closure. And for now, they’re stuck in a holding pattern.
“It’s really just a ball of chaos,” Ulseth added. “Nobody knows what is happening, what the plans are for the future, and that’s not allowing anybody to plan for any types of changes or adapting, so everybody’s just kind of sitting waiting and seeing what happens.”
