When the fuming and rumbling at Mount Spurr, a giant volcano northwest of Anchorage, started picking up in October, Alaska’s volcano monitoring agency raised its alert level to ensure that nearby communities and passing airplanes would have ample warning of any eruption.
The Trump administration’s cost-cutting campaign has put this work in jeopardy.
The credit cards that employees at the United States Geological Survey’s volcano observatory in Alaska use to pay for travel and other expenses have been frozen, according to two people who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak with the news media.
Crucially, those expenses include the telecommunications services that the observatory relies on to transmit data from its monitoring systems on the volcanoes, the people said. If spending continues to be restricted, these services could be shut off. That might mean a loss of real-time information about volcanic activity, the people said.
And, if employees can’t pay for travel, then they won’t be able to go into the field by helicopter and boat to repair and maintain their monitoring equipment. Much of this gear sits in remote, rugged environments, where it is vulnerable to damage from storms and extreme winter conditions.
Losing volcano monitoring data from the region would be a “complete disaster,” said Jeff Freymueller, a professor of geophysics at Michigan State University who previously worked as the Alaska Volcano Observatory’s coordinating scientist. Thousands of people and vast amounts of cargo travel every day over the Aleutian Islands, which hold most of Alaska’s volcanoes, while crossing the Pacific.
“We know what happens when a plane flies through an ash cloud,” Dr. Freymueller said. “It’s a disaster. And it cannot happen again.”
Representatives for the U.S. Geological Survey, which is part of the Interior Department, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has moved swiftly to enact cost cuts and layoffs across federal agencies. An executive order signed by President Trump on Wednesday further empowered the Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, to scrutinize federal employees’ spending. The order appeared to implement a 30-day freeze on government-issued credit cards while making exceptions for disaster relief and “other critical services.”
So far, though, the credit cards issued to workers at the Alaska Volcano Observatory don’t appear to have been exempted. According to the people familiar with the situation, it’s unclear how soon telecom services might be cut off if payments can’t be made.
The volcano observatory is run jointly by the U.S. Geological Survey, the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys.
For now, the observatory is still monitoring Mount Spurr for signs that it is moving closer to erupting. Small, shallow earthquakes have been detected. Steam has been seen wafting about its peak.
Another Alaska volcano is on an even higher alert status. At Great Sitkin Volcano, which sits on an island in the Aleutian chain, lava has been slowly erupting from the summit crater since 2021.