Research into wildfire effects on Wine Country halted by federal job cuts
As Trump administration officials continue to cut federal government jobs, often with little understanding of their purpose or value, winemakers in Napa and Sonoma are angry over the firing of two researchers specifically hired to help the industry after devastating losses due to wildfire smoke.
The 2017 wine country fires that devastated Napa and Sonoma communities were just the beginning. Every year thereafter seemed to bring another huge wildfire somewhere in the state, fouling the air with smoke for the wine grapes to soak up.
"In '17, we lost a little bit of crop, but it was mostly along the hills, and it came at a different time in the season. 2020 is the year that took us down," said Tom Davies, president of V. Sattui Winery in St. Helena. "We lost millions of dollars, just personally here at V.Sattui. As the industry goes, we figure it was about a $3.7 billion hit to our industry."
Davies said they had never seen anything like it, and they weren't even sure how much the smoke would get into the finished product.
"A lot of people think, 'Smoke? OK, it's kind of a hickory, barbecue taste.' No. It's horrible. It's like licking an ashtray. It's really that bad."
They used every trick in the book to try to correct it, but in the end, they weren't taking any chances of ruining their reputation in the industry.
"We dumped millions of dollars of wine," said Davies.
So, the winemakers went to their Congressional representative, Mike Thompson, for help.
"We said, 'We need research on this. You need to help us.'" Davies said. "So, he won. He secured funds for us. You know, we asked him to do this. And now, with the stroke of a pen it gets taken away."
That's because the Trump administration, supposedly looking for fraud and waste, terminated the two USDA scientists at UC Davis hired to research the cause and effects of smoke exposure on the multi-billion-dollar wine industry.
Dr. Arran Rombaugh was one of them.
"That's how I started working with USDA," she said. "Because stakeholders went to Congress and asked for research to be done. And we were gaining momentum, so how I'm feeling is that this is impacting stakeholders greatly. They went and asked the federal government for assistance on an issue that they were seeing dramatically impacting their crops. And two and half years later, my position was removed."
Rombaugh said it appears that the budget cutters simply went after anyone still in their probationary period. She had worked for two and half years, but the probationary period at the USDA is three years. And, after earning distinction for her research, the form letter she got terminating her delivered one parting shot.
"It did say at the bottom that based on my demonstrated performance, my position in the agency was 'no longer of public interest,'" said Rombaugh.
She said she will soon be looking for a new job, probably at a university or in private industry. She said she will not be considering working for the government any time soon.
"It makes absolutely no sense," said Davies at V. Sattui. "They cut two jobs, and we lost $3.7 billion worth of wine and inventory and property due to a wildfire. Wouldn't you want to have those two people researching this."
