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In her short time at the Environmental Protection Agency, Nyla McCranie helped a central Ohio woman who complained that someone was burning lithium batteries near her rural home, creating an air pollution hazard.
A scientist who is part of an environmental justice team in Chicago, McCranie put the woman in touch with the agency’s enforcement officials earlier this month, and the problem is being dealt with, she said.
“She called us because she didn’t know where else to turn,” McCranie said of the woman.
On Friday, less than three months after she started at the EPA, McCranie lost her job as part of President Donald Trump’s mass firing of federal employees.
McCranie, who moved to Chicago after working at a nonprofit in Alabama, was a probationary employee who lacked the job protections of veteran union workers.
She was one of dozens of EPA scientists and other staff in Chicago to lose their jobs Friday.
In all, union officials estimate that more than 100 Chicago-area EPA workers resigned, retired, were fired or have been put on forced administrative leave as Trump looks to thin the ranks of the environmental agency responsible for protecting public health.
American Federation of Government Employees Local 704 estimated it represented about 1,000 Chicago-region employees before reductions. The regional office oversees six states.
Around 200 EPA and other federal employees rallied midday Tuesday at Federal Plaza in support of the targeted workers.
As a scientist in the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, Nicole Smith was working on a few projects in her new job, including analysis of state pollution reports.
On Friday, she was informed that she would also lose her job after just starting in late December.
Earlier this year, Smith received her master’s of public health from Yale. The Michigan native was looking forward to putting her environmental health training to use.
“This was the dream for me,” Smith said.
At the Tuesday rally in Federal Plaza, Smith held a sign that said “I was illegally terminated while protecting Americans from poisoned air.”
Bridget Lynch, a scientist focused on ground water and drinking water, began her job a month ago.
A Chicago-area native and graduate of Wellesley College, Lynch said she received a form email around 4:30 p.m. Friday that said that she was “failing to demonstrate that my qualifications fit the role, even though I’m a highly qualified recent graduate, and I was doing my best.”
Her access to email was cut off at 5 p.m.
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