The Kachemak Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve is the latest local organization on the chopping block due to proposed funding cuts coming from the federal government.

A pre-decisional memo from the Trump administration — specifically the Office of Management and Budget — outlines a series of drastic cuts in federal funding to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s budget for fiscal year 2026.

“Passback eliminates functions of the Department (of Commerce) that are misaligned with the President’s agenda and the expressed will of the American people,” the memo, titled “2026 Passback Agency Funding Highlights,” states. “This includes … significant reductions to education, grants, research and climate-related programs within NOAA.”

Passback is the process by which agencies who have submitted budget requests to OMB are notified of their approved budgetary levels, which may differ from the agencies’ requests.

Passback described in the pre-decisional memo provides a $1.672 billion reduction in funding from FY2025 for NOAA, citing support for a “leaner” NOAA that “focuses on core operational needs, eliminates unnecessary layers of bureaucracy, terminates nonessential grant programs and ends activities that do not warrant a federal role.”

There is no funding provided in passback for the National Estuarine Research Reserve System — which includes the Kachemak Bay NERR.

KBNERR — supported through a partnership between the University of Alaska Anchorage and NOAA — is one of 30 research reserves across the U.S., and the only one located within the state of Alaska. It is also the largest reserve in the system, covering more than 320 miles of Alaska’s shoreline, according to the reserve’s website. Designated in 1999, KBNERR has more than 25 years’ worth of research, education and long-term monitoring data that has benefited multiple other local organizations, including the City of Homer.

“I have enough funding right now to keep us running, barely at capacity, through December,” reserve manager Katherine Schake said in a June 5 interview.

After that, if funding is eliminated, staff and program reductions will be inevitable.

Schake explained that NERRs are a “separate appropriated line item by Congress” and receive operations funds from NOAA, shared equally across all 30 reserves.

“We get the same amount of base annual operating funds, and that’s funding to make sure we are enacting our requirements, as authorized in the Coastal Zone Management Act, to be a research reserve,” she said. “In a normal year, Congress — both the Senate and the House — would be discussing appropriations.”

As Congress is currently working on the large budget reconciliation bill and processing rescission requests submitted by the Trump administration, Schake said she didn’t know if the cuts targeting NERRs and other partners under the NOAA umbrella would move forward.

“We hope Congress will continue to appropriate base funds for the NERRs in fiscal year 2026 like they have every other year,” she said. “We’re hoping that Congress will communicate with the Secretary of Commerce how important the NERR system is.”

In the meantime, KBNERR is also still awaiting funding from the FY2025 spend plan, submitted to Congress by NOAA at the end of May.

“We are supposed to have that money in hand to start spending July 1, and we don’t know if it’s coming,” Schake said. “The spend plan … did not specify funding for the NERRs — it was very vague in general, is my understanding.”

The overall situation is “unclear” at this time, she said.

Base funding provided to KBNERR supports the reserve’s staff, students and facilities, as well as their ability to conduct and provide comprehensive monitoring and research that informs and educates the entire Kachemak Bay region.

Among KBNERR’s missions for the past 25 years, according to their website, is community monitoring for invasive species and harmful algae blooms; weather and water quality monitoring; research of headwater salmon streams, watershed ecology, nearshore and marine ecology and oceanography; hands-on, place-based education for K-12 students; teacher trainings and undergraduate and graduate student internships; and supporting decision-makers, such as City of Homer leadership, with trainings and technical assistance in accessing local science and data to address coastal management issues including drinking water source protection, stormwater management and salmon habitats.

“We’re trying to get the information and science out there to the people who live here too, not just the decision-makers, because we know policy is not the only way to impact change,” Schake said.

KBNERR also fosters multiple partnerships and collaborations with local and statewide organizations, such as Kachemak Bay Campus for marine trades technical training opportunities; the Alaska Ocean Observing System and the statewide Harmful Algal Bloom Network for monitoring of harmful algal blooms, or HABs, and invasive species like northern pike and European green crabs; and Kenai Peninsula Borough municipalities and municipal governments in support of informed infrastructure development.

According to Schake, KBNERR employs 10 staff members and annually hosts approximately 10 students who are conducting either high school, undergraduate or graduate internships or fellowships. The reserve is also the only entity on the peninsula that monitors and reports HABs to the Kachemak Bay region on a weekly basis — an effort that is “essential” to the mariculture industry and subsistence and recreational shellfish harvesters who are concerned about paralytic shellfish poisoning. Additionally, KBNERR is currently working to establish a new weather station to support the City of Homer in “filling data gaps” to improve drinking water budgets and landslide risk forecasting.

With funding loss looming, Schake expects to lose more than half of the reserve’s staff and the continuity of 25 years of long-term monitoring programs.

“When I think about the things that will get lost, apart from people’s jobs — I care about keeping people employed and keeping this workforce development line — (programs) that our community council that represents the people of Kachemak Bay have told us (are) important for us to fund … will just go away,” she said.

The reserve may also lose ability to maintain two weather stations in Homer and Anchor Point and two water quality stations located in Homer and Seldovia.

“We’re not directly tied to (National) Weather Service cuts, but our data feeds into national systems, so that data set gets lost without NOAA support,” Schake said.

She also noted that KBNERR has been a “leader” in the state for small coastal Alaska towns concerned about invasive European green crabs, the first confirmed presence of which was discovered in the Metlakatla Indian Community in Southeast Alaska in 2022. European green crabs are considered one of the most invasive species in the marine environment and pose a “serious threat” to Alaska tidal habitats, juvenile salmon and native crab and shellfish species. The crabs’ presence was confirmed in Ketchikan earlier this month; currently, no invasive European crabs have been detected in Kachemak Bay.

Long-term monitoring of European green crabs in Homer and Seldovia, as well as training workshops, conducted by KBNERR “will also go away” if federal funding is eliminated.

Also at risk are training opportunities available to teachers across the Kenai Peninsula Borough that help get local, place-based science into classrooms, and competitive funding opportunities accessible only by research reserves that serve as a pipeline for federally-funded projects to reach local Alaskan communities.

Schake said that KBNERR was recently awarded a grant for additional land acquisition in the Bridge Creek Watershed, which serves as Homer’s drinking water source, and for establishing a new weather station “specifically” for landslide monitoring and improving forecasting.

“This is in partnership with the city and the (Kachemak Heritage) Land Trust, but this is because the state has a new landslide report out, and now we’ve been able, as the Research Reserve, to bring funding to the city,” she said. “We’re also taking on the ownership and management of that weather station, and a new precipitation gauge means the city can forecast when they may or may not need a new drinking water reservoir.”

The grant award is still awaiting the signature of the Secretary of Commerce.

In the past two years, according to what Schake called “an excellent deal for the federal government, the State of Alaska and local citizens,” KBNERR has also leveraged a “small amount of annual federal NOAA dollars” into a “four-fold amount of additional multi-year extramural grants.”

Schake additionally noted ways in which KBNERR’s mission aligns with President Trump’s executive order to “Unleash Alaska’s Resource Potential.” This includes the reserve’s collaborative hydrology research of Kenai Peninsula freshwater systems that, in partnership with the borough government, “informs road and infrastructure development compatible with maintaining productive salmon streams” and drinking water source protection. KBNERR is also collaborating with the borough in writing proposals to expand hydrology research, particularly near the proposed LNG pipeline terminus in Nikiski. KBNERR’s work and partnerships also boost Alaska’s workforce in marine trades, informs port expansion and marine trades security and supports Alaska’s natural resources.

The Kachemak Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve is urging members of the Kachemak Bay and Kenai Peninsula community to contact Alaska’s Congressional representatives by the end of June to express support for KBNERR and full funding for the National Estuarine Research Reserve System. Homer Mayor Rachel Lord and Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Peter Micciche also sent letters to Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan and Rep. Nick Begich, all R-Alaska, asking for their support in fully funding NERRs for FY2025 and 2026.

In a statement emailed to Homer News on Tuesday, Joe Plesha, Murkowski’s communications director, wrote, “Senator Murkowski is an unabashed public supporter of NOAA, including the National Estuarine Research Reserves and their mission to support coastal communities and the broader ecosystem they reside in. Kachemak Bay Research Reserve has served as a vital partner with Homer, the Southcentral region, and Alaska as a whole. She will continue to use her position on the Senate Appropriations Committee to ensure their good work can continue well into the future.”

Amanda Coyne, communications director for Sullivan, wrote in an email to Homer News Tuesday, “First, it’s important to remember that Congress holds the power of the purse, and the President’s budget request is just that — a request. Senator Sullivan has consistently supported funding for NERRs in Alaska in the annual congressional appropriations process.”

Begich’s office did not respond to request for comment.

Learn more about KBNERR at kachemakbayreserve.org/support-the-kachemak-bay-research-reserve/.

Homer, Seldovia and Kachemak City staff and city managers, along with KBNERR staff and partner researchers from the University of South Florida, tour Homer’s water treatment facility on Friday, June 6, 2025, in Homer, Alaska. The USF ecohydrology research team presented their findings at the Homer City Council Committee of the Whole Meeting on Monday, June 9. Photo courtesy of Katherine Schake

Homer, Seldovia and Kachemak City staff and city managers conduct a site visit to the Bridge Creek Reservoir, Homer’s public drinking water source, with KBNERR staff and partner researchers from the University of South Florida on Friday, June 6, 2025, in Homer, Alaska. The USF ecohydrology research team presented their findings at the Homer City Council Committee of the Whole Meeting on Monday, June 9. Photo courtesy of Katherine Schake