Deschutes National Forest back open for business

The Deschutes National Forest has reopened after the 35-day government shutdown. Between 300 and 400 people are employed by the forest, and almost all of them have been going without a paycheck for several weeks now.

The areas managed by the Forest Service have also only received minimal attention during this time. Public affairs specialist Jean Nelson-Dean said 35 days away from work will take its toll.

“In a limited fashion, we focus on the Deschutes River Trail and our winter recreation facilities and try to keep them up,” she said. “We couldn’t do that fully, because we would have to keep people on full time, and we weren’t really allowed to do that.”

Nelson-Dean said much of this week would be spent dealing with catch-up tasks, including jump-starting unused vehicles, updating expired passwords, responding to emails and figuring out paychecks.

She said she is hopeful employees will receive their pay the end of this week.

Hikers at Meadow Camp and Rimrock said Monday they hadn’t seen much difference in cleanliness since the government shutdown, but Nelson-Dean said that’s why it was important that some people continued to work.

“The reason we had some people working is so that we would lessen some impacts in some areas,” Nelson-Dean said. “But they’re going to see some changes. There are going to have to be some adjustments. You can’t lose over a month worth of work and not have impacts, for sure.”

The government may shut down again in mid-February, if a deal isn’t reached between President Trump and Congress. But Nelson-Dean said the Deschutes National Forest Service isn’t scrambling as if that is the plan.