Amid all the tumult surrounding major cuts proposed by the Trump administration targeting the National Weather Service and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), are a couple of properties NOAA currently leases from the City of Santa Barbara.
Should these leases be terminated as proposed, the NOAA offices at 113 Harbor Way — a 452-square-foot space rented by the agency since 1997 ― will be open for new tenants as of May 31, 2026. Likewise for the 2,160-square-foot slip in Marina 4-B that NOAA has leased from City Hall to berth its 65-foot research vessel, the Shearwater, since 2008.
The Harbor Way offices are occupied by two longtime research employees. One focuses on efforts to bring Santa Barbara’s steelhead trout population — a federally endangered species ― back from the brink of extinction; the other has been more focused on efforts to reduce the number of boat strikes on whales in the Santa Barbara Channel.
The two leases combined generate City Hall $44,520 a year in rental income. As a real estate matter, the numbers are not that consequential. “Considering the high demand for both office and water space in the Santa Barbara Harbor, we anticipate that any vacancies will be quickly filled,” said City Administrator Kelly McAdoo. She noted that the city’s Waterfront Department has yet to be notified of the changes by anyone from the General Services Agency or any other federal agency.
Under the cost-cutting reign of Elon Musk as titular head of Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), NOAA has been earmarked for a 20 percent reduction in its workforce. Some of those cuts, however, have since been countermanded by federal judges. The cuts proposed for the National Weather Service (NWS) have elicited among the loudest and most sustained howls of protest, and perhaps the most bipartisan as well.
NWS forecasts provide the backbone for all weather forecasting services in the United States and for many throughout the globe. Farmers, disaster planners, fishing fleets, academics, and scientists have all spoken out against the cuts, insisting that accurate weather data is critical to their economic well-being, not to mention the nation’s natural disaster response network.
NWS data also provides the scientific backbone for many studies detailing the scope and scale of climate change. The White House has mocked concern about climate change as overblown, referring to it as “climate change religion.” In addition, Trump has denounced efforts to save endangered fish by setting aside enough water to sustain breeding populations, insisting the limited supplies could be better used fighting fires or growing crops.
Calls to the NWS offices in Ventura — vital in providing the forecasts relied upon during and leading up to our regional wildfire, flooding, and debris flow events — were met with suggestions to call other government agencies for confirmation or information.
