In a complaint filed this week, a group of federal scientists working on Klamath River issues is claiming U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials are threatening to eliminate their jobs because the agency was unhappy with their scientific conclusions.

A group that filed a complaint on the employees’ behalf said the seven biologists are being reassigned, and the Klamath Basin Area Office will no longer do studies on endangered species.

A group called Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility filed the complaint this week with the Department of the Interior’s Office of Executive Secretariat and Regulatory Affairs, the source of a similar complaint in February 2012. The bureau is part of the Department of the Interior.

In that complaint Paul Houser, the former scientific integrity officer in the executive secretariat’s office, complained that reports on the Klamath River were being edited to favor removal of the four dams on the river.

Other information raising alarms about the dam removal was being edited out, he said.

“They’re related,” Houser said of the two complaints Wednesday. “I think they’re on the same topic – scientific integrity issues and the KBRA (Klamath Basin area) and dam removal.”

The Klamath Basin has been controversial for decades, as farmers, ranchers, environmentalists and Indian tribes fight over water in the basin.

The most recent complaint alleges that the manager of the Klamath Area Office, Jason Phillips, threatened the biologists and attempted to coerce by shutting down the fisheries branch office because he was unhappy with their findings.

“Instead of using sound science, Mr. Phillips wants only non-controversial science and is moving to achieve that preference by eliminating his own agency’s scientists and disregarding their scientifically sound findings,” the complaint says.

But a bureau spokesman called the issue a misunderstanding, saying Phillips was only interested in trying to run his office more efficiently. He was not trying to influence the biologists’ work, said Pete Lucero, a spokesman for the bureau.

In a letter to the local president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, Klamath Area Office Manager Jason Phillips said the scientists in the office’s fisheries branch had lost their credibility with other agencies with whom they work.

“Many perceive our efforts as inherently biased, considering that in some cases the Klamath Project contributes to species decline,” Phillips wrote in a memo to the NFFE.

“There’s a concern that KBAO will not consider these effects objectively and that in some cases we are simply carrying out studies to contradict the science of other agencies and tribes,” Phillips wrote.

Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said Phillips’ memo, as well as other meetings with the employees and union, were an attempt to influence their work as scientists.

“Requiring that science be non-controversial is like ordering your omelet made with un-cracked eggs,” Ruch said. “Scientific differences are supposed to be addressed through consultation, not suppressed by bullying and threats.”

But Pete Lucero, a spokesman for the bureau, said the memo was intended to open a discussion about reorganizing the Klamath office to make it operate more efficiently.

The U.S. Geological Survey does work similar to that of the bureau’s scientists, so it may be more efficient to have that agency do more studies, Lucero said. While Phillips’ memo does not mention trying to making his department more efficient, Lucero said Phillips’ memo was intended to open a discussion with the union about that.

He said no employees have been reassigned and no decisions have been made to reorganize the office.

“None of this is a done deal,” Lucero said.

“The reality is this is supposed to open a discussion,” Lucero said. “We probably could have written that memo better.”

But Ruch said the bureau has not issued any further memos refuting Phillips’ plans to shutter the fisheries branch. He questioned the tone of the memo as an opener for discussions.

“If telling people they are going to lose their jobs is a way to start a conversation, then he needs to go to management finishing school,” Ruch said.

As scientific integrity officer, Houser evaluated complaints like the one filed by the seven biologists. He said shortly after Phillips sent out his memo in November someone anonymously faxed it to him.

“This action to eliminate an office because its product is controversial is a breach of scientific integrity,” said Houser, an associate hydrology professor at George Mason University.

Houser has settled a separate whistleblower complaint, but part of the settlement included an agreement that no one would comment on it.