LOS ANGELES _ President Donald Trump's budget would eliminate federal funding for an earthquake early warning system being developed for California and the rest of the West Coast, which if enacted would likely kill the long-planned effort.
The budget proposal for the year ending in September 2018 also seeks to eliminate U.S. funding for critical tsunami-monitoring stations in oceans and reduce funds for a next-generation weather forecasting system.
Scientists said the loss of federal funding would derail the early warning system, which officials hope would one day send public earthquake alerts to smartphones seconds or even minutes before a temblor.
"It probably would kill the early warning system if we thought there were no more funding coming from the U.S. Geological Survey," said John Vidale, director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network and a seismology professor at the University of Washington.
"The money we've received is essential," he said.
In a statement announcing the USGS budget, the Department of the Interior said the budget "focuses on core USGS science and efficiency," and asserted that the budget would be able to fund monitoring of the nation's earthquakes. But the budget document posted on the U.S. Department of Interior's website did not elaborate on the reason for cutting the alert system, saying only: "This elimination would end USGS efforts to implement the ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system."
The earthquake early warning system, being built by the USGS in conjunction with several major universities, still needs more seismic sensors installed across Washington, Oregon and Northern California, and it needs a staff of 40 to 50 people to install and maintain equipment as well as monitor the computer systems.
Already, hiring has proved difficult. Since Trump was inaugurated, new hires for the network have not been approved. "There are people we've identified and interviewed and we'd like to hire them as soon as we have permission," Vidale said. "These are the people who would keep the computer doing what we need to to get the early warning system up and operating."
Without ongoing funding, the ShakeAlert system would need to lay off employees, said Tom Heaton, a California Institute of Technology professor of engineering seismology.
"If that funding went away, we would have to lay off a number of the developers and the development would basically cease," Heaton said. "I'm not sure how we could possibly recover from that."
Such a blow would likely cause Heaton, who said he is nearing retirement, to work on other issues.
"I've been kind of excited at the possibility we'll have a system up and running by the time my career was done. That hope would be dashed in that case," Heaton said.
