Driving east on New Haven Road, one could pass the Columbia Environmental Research Center (CERC) in a couple of seconds. Its short, beige buildings don’t make much of an impression. The small U.S. Geological Survey sign out front is easy to miss.
But scientists in the building have studied ecosystems, animals and toxic chemicals since the 1960s. Today, in dozens of laboratories lining tight corridors, most of CERC's 92 employees are doing just that.
But they might not be for much longer. That’s because of proposed cuts to CERC and other federal agencies that do scientific research.
CERC is part of the Ecosystems Mission Area, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Interior. The Trump Administration’s current budget proposals would cut the program significantly — maybe entirely.
The White House wants to cut the budget of the Ecosystems Mission Area by 90%, down to $29 million. The Department of Interior and a document from the Congressional Research Service two weeks ago state that the mission area is being cut completely.
Either way, it would likely mean lights out for CERC, which is a small part of the Ecosystems Mission Area but annually spends about $20 million, according to sources familiar with its budget.
So, if CERC closes, taxpayers would save about $20 million. But what would they lose?
“There are a lot of unique things that are done there that aren't done elsewhere, that'll just go away,” said Nile Kemble, who worked at CERC for 34 years before retiring last December.
A wealth of assets
CERC and other centers in the Ecosystems Mission Area focus on research that policy makers use to make decisions and other agencies use to inform their science.
“We're the research arm of the government, for the most part, and that's where we really take pride, is in the science and the research,” CERC’s former Acting Director Kelly Warner said during a tour of the center in April. “Because we don't have any regulatory responsibility, it really opens the doors to be able to ask the scientific questions and explore the answers for those questions.”
During that tour, scientists at CERC described the work they do. Some of them research the impact that contaminants such as forever chemicals have on wildlife. Others study invasive species, including the zebra mussel, that pose risks to ecosystems and infrastructure.
Others are looking into how to restore the pallid sturgeon to the Mississippi River. Once fished commercially, over-harvesting and habitat loss have made the pallid sturgeon “one of the rarest fish in North America,” according to CERC ecologist Aaron DeLonay.
“We do a lot of mapping, a lot of hydraulic work in the river itself, a lot of tracking and tagging of fish,” DeLonay said.
CERC houses specialized equipment and infrastructure used for experiments, such as research ponds and an indoor “eco-flume” that simulates river environments.
“We also keep a brood stock here of adult pallid sturgeon — some of them are more than 20 years old,” DeLonay said. “Keeping the fish here allows us to manipulate them and spawn them in the laboratory to produce eggs and larvae and young-of-year fish that we can do our experiments on.”
If CERC closes, one of the biggest uncertainties is what would happen to the dozens of species that it studies.
“If Ecosystems Mission Area is abolished, those fish go away — they would actually have to be euthanized,” said retiree Robb Jacobson, who worked at CERC for 20 years.
“Once you've done that, it's hard to bring a population like that back.”
Ripples in the Mississippi
A lot of CERC’s research uses data collected continuously over the course of years. As the leading source for data on certain topics, a cessation or gap in CERC’s operations could permanently alter the scientific data available about various animals and ecosystems.
“The USGS has become a dominant science provider for decisions about how the Missouri River is managed by the Corps of Engineers,” Jacobson said.
“We have a bunch of pallid sturgeon with transmitters in them, and we're developing the data sets to help really understand where they go, why they go, when they do, where they spawn,” he added. “Some of those data sets depend on continued monitoring, year to year. When you have gaps in that monitoring, you just don't have the information available to make the decisions you anticipated trying to make.”
CERC has already been impacted by the Trump Administration's desire for a leaner bureaucracy. Its staff is down 20% since the beginning of the year, according to sources familiar with its workforce who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The scientists still there have continued to publish work despite the uncertainty, and sometimes because of it. When the USGS publishes data, it’s in the public domain, but unpublished data may languish as unused government property if CERC closes.
“They don't know if it's going to happen next week, a couple months from now, or at the beginning of the next fiscal year,” Jacobson, who regularly talks with current employees, said. “They’re very concerned it's going to happen, and so they are working to do everything they can to push the science as much as possible before that happens.”
Columbia Mayor Barbara Buffaloe is concerned about what more cuts would mean for the local economy and the city’s reputation as a hub for science.
“These are 91 families that are impacted and are making local impacts,” Buffaloe said. “They're living here in Columbia; their kids are going to school here. They're spending their money here, and if we lose those jobs, what is the ripple effect that's going to have for our community?”
One ripple effect will be on the University of Missouri. The cuts would likely affect the USGS Cooperative Research Units program, which gives university students the opportunity to work in the field and in the lab. Students at Mizzou regularly work with scientists at CERC through the program.
Dave Mosby retired from the Fish and Wildlife Service last year and said he’s worried about what the cuts mean for the next generation of scientists.
“(It’s) a really important program that does science but also develops the young scientists of the future,” he said. “Young students may not choose to go into the environmental field, or the education will suffer for the folks that are already in the field. So, it's not just the loss of the current folks working, but it could be a whole generation of scientists that are impacted by this.”
“If people care about the quality of Missouri's environment or natural resources, they should care that the best decisions are made to manage that,” Mosby added. “Without USGS and CERC, we won't have that.”
Officials with the Department of Interior did not answer when asked whether the Ecosystem Mission Area would be eliminated entirely or if it would retain the $29 million outlined in the White House budget proposal. The department's own 2026 Budget in Brief document calls for the program’s elimination, writing that the work is duplicative and supports “social agendas” such as “climate change research.”
