Geological Survey to Fire 500 Workers : Downsizing: Biggest reduction in history of agency is expected to affect research related to earthquakes. Staff at Pasadena office is not trimmed.

The U.S. Geological Survey on Monday notified 500 of the 2,190 employees in its geologic division, which includes its earthquake and volcano monitors and researchers, that they are being fired effective in 60 days.

The cut in staff of more than 20% for budgetary reasons--by far the most severe in the agency’s 116-year history--included 158 of the 750 division employees at the western regional headquarters in Menlo Park, but none of the 14 in its Southern California outpost in Pasadena.

Walter Mooney, the agency’s chief of seismology in the five states bordering on the Pacific, said that key functions such as locating earthquakes, determining their magnitude and stating quake probabilities to the public will remain intact.

But Mooney added: “A lot of potential research that we are just embarking on, these kinds of efforts, will be hampered.”

Full implementation of efforts to provide very fast computerized information on California earthquakes will be delayed for as long as 10 years. And the earthquake prediction experiment on the San Andreas Fault near Parkfield might be shortened, he said.

Gordon Eaton, national director of the agency, said: “Given the present, past and future budget picture for the programs of the geologic division, the division is forced to reduce the size of its work force by about 500 people.

“For too many years, salaries, benefits and other obligated costs have continued to grow while our appropriated funds have remained essentially level. The resulting pinch has eroded the funds available to carry out the field and laboratory work so vital to the basic mission of the geologic division.”

Aides said that calls in Congress for the abolition of the Geological Survey have faded, but in the next budget the agency’s spending related to earthquakes may still take a 10% cut, about $4.5 million out of the $48.9 million it has received.

Not affected by Monday’s firings were the agency’s water resources and mapping divisions.

In a repeat of the scene caused by so many government and private company downsizings of recent years, those to be terminated Oct. 15 were summoned to supervisors’ offices Monday to get the bad news. Another 200 staff members were reassigned to less desirable positions, with some veterans being given a choice of being demoted or terminated.

Geological Survey officials declined to identify any of those fired or reassigned, explaining that privacy laws forbade making the names public.

In the case of one ranking official in Menlo Park, a spokeswoman hinted something had happened to him but would not say what. Calls to his personal number went unanswered.

P. Patrick Leahy, the survey’s chief geologist, called the day’s events “an unfortunate circumstance that’s related to many years of erosion of funds.”

As salaries went up, there was less money for research, and, he said, “it’s essential for us to conduct field and laboratory work.”

But an important official outside the agency in earthquake research said he feared that research would be cut back as well.

Tom Henyey, executive director of the Southern California Earthquake Center at USC, said, “If you save the seismic networks [that locate and measure quakes], if you protect our center [administratively], then you cut off all research.”

“My sense is that because a very large proportion of the earthquake research dollars are spent in California, it means that California is going to suffer a major hit in its ability to move forward with earthquake hazard assessment,” he said, adding that a decline in support for academic research also would hurt the training of younger professionals in the field.

At the agency, Mooney, the chief of Pacific regional seismology, was the man even high officials deferred to Monday for an assessment of the consequences of the cutbacks, and he took a slightly less dire view than Henyey.

In key areas such as earthquake prediction, Mooney said research will go on.

But asked if California will be less safe from earthquakes as a result of a downsized agency, he responded: “It will be less safe than we would like it to be. It will be less safe than it could be if we were able to continue our long-term program. Progress is going to be slower, and some trimming of activities is going to be necessary.”

But, he added, it is difficult to know exactly what will be cut.

Joining Mooney in the interview by conference call was David Oppenheimer, chief of the Northern California Seismic Network.

He noted that in addition to Monday’s firings, a large number of people at the agency had taken earlier voluntary buyouts.

“A large body of talent has left this organization,” he said. “This gets down to its ability to perform basic research.”

As for the seismic network, much of its monitoring equipment dates back to the 1970s, he said, and now, even though the network continues, it is not going to be enhanced. But functions viewed as essential to public safety would be continued, he said.

Jim Mori, scientist in charge of the Pasadena field office, said he feared that the firings “will hurt the survey in terms of getting its job done, but priorities were set.”

He mentioned there were some cuts in the volcano monitoring program, but mostly at the Denver office, not out in the field, where personnel have been busy monitoring such volcanoes as Mt. Rainier in Washington state and Mammoth Mountain in California.