New England Public Radio

Post-Shutdown: Springfield Armory Re-opens, Farm Impacts Minimal

With the federal government shutdown resolved, furloughed workers and impacted industries are picking up the pieces, and national parks are opening back up. The Springfield Armory National Historic Site was among the closed landmarks. The Armory re-opened its doors to visitors Thursday.

James Woolsey is the historic site’s superintendent. He says he’s happy to return to work, but was greeted by plenty of missed emails and voicemails to wade through. Woolsey says he and his co-workers spent three days preparing for the shutdown, and will likely spend close to another week catching up. All told, he says that’s about a month lost to the closure.

“Normally we have lots of things going on. We have projects, we’re trying to do websites, school programs, and so basically, we’ve lost four weeks of doing the things I think people really care about,” says Woolsey.

Woolsey says several dozen people have visited the armory since it reopened Wednesday. He says he’s not sure how many visitors were turned away while the site was closed.

Farmers Spared the Worst

Meanwhile, advocates of various industries warned of doom and gloom as the shutdown began. But the impacts on farmers are not as dire as some predicted.

Richard Bonanno is head of the Massachusetts Farm Bureau Federation. He says some loans for farmers were delayed, but otherwise the shutdown did not have drastic consequences.

“Any time services are delayed or cut, people are certainly impacted,” says Bonanno. “But the reality was…in two and a half weeks, it wasn’t enough to make it a crisis.”

Bonanno says going into the shutdown, he was most concerned about the impacts on animal processing facilities who rely on USDA inspectors, but they stayed on the job. Bonnano says much of those inspectors’ pay comes from the facilities themselves, not the federal government. 

Photo via Flickr from Paul Cooper.

Federal Shutdown Could Affect Small Liquor Distilleries

Among businesses that could be affected by the ongoing government shutdown are small liquor distilleries. The federal Alcohol Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau has stopped approving permits and labels for alcoholic beverages. Curtis McMillan is a Boston-based marketing manager for spirits company William Grant. He says most large scale distilleries will likely weather the shutdown, but micro-distilleries may not fair as well. 

“If this shutdown runs in a long-term balance, and micro-distilleries aren’t able to get label approval on new products, it could potentially cripple the micro-distillery movement,” McMillan says.

McMillan says small distilleries need to continue coming up with new products to stay competitive. He says without federal labeling those products can’t go to market.

Operations at Western Mass. Air Bases Slowed by Federal Shutdown

The ongoing government shutdown doesn’t affect active-duty military, but it’s slowing down operations at two western Massachusetts air bases. Barnes Air National Guard base in Westfield has furloughed about 270 people, mostly technicians, but it remains open. At Westover Air Reserve Base in Chicopee, several hundred employees have been furloughed indefinitely – mostly civilians and reservists. But Lieutenant Colonel James Bishop says there are still enough people to carry out the base’s mission.

“We fly regularly overseas to military and humanitarian ops, says Bishop. “So we’ve got enough people in flying, maintenance, and services to make sure that mission still happens.”

Bishop says those who are still working are doing so without pay. He says many personnel are frustrated with the uncertainty of when they’ll return to work. Bishop says many base employees were furloughed for six days over the summer because of the federal sequester.