Behind a nondescript door in downtown Davis exists a little-known but vitally important piece of infrastructure, the Hydrologic Engineering Center.

“They provide the software infrastructure for hydraulic engineering for the U.S.,” says Gregory Pasternack, a professor of hydrology at UC Davis. “Their suite of software is used just about by every engineering firm that does anything related to rivers.”

A recent threat to this center’s existence appears to have passed. Jeff White, a spokesperson for the U.S. General Services Administration, confirmed Tuesday via email that a lease termination notice the center received had been rescinded.

The Davis Vanguard had reported March 5 that the Trump Administration was canceling the center, which sits under the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Virginia-based Institute for Water Resources. CBS News reported March 14 that the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE had “notified landlords in recent weeks that it plans to terminate 793 leases, focusing mostly on those that can be ended within months without penalty.” The cancellations were projected to save $500 million.

A spokesperson for Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Napa), whose district includes the HEC facility in Davis, said via email that their office reached out to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and learned the lease had been terminated on Feb. 26, with the termination revoked on March 13. Why the Hydrologic Engineering Center quickly went from being on the proverbial chopping block to being spared wasn’t immediately clear, with the GSA declining further comment.

Gene Pawlik, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, says his organization had heard that the Hydrologic Engineering Center’s lease would remain in place. “We’re certainly pleased that the HEC facility, they get to remain in the building they’ve been in for so long,” says Pawlik, who didn’t have a reason for why things had shifted.

Darryl Browman, a principal for a company that owns the Brinley Building, where the Hydrologic Engineering Center is based at 609 2nd St. in Davis, didn’t respond to a request for comment. Lea Adams, the director of the center, was unavailable for an interview.

A web search through the GSA’s Inventory of Owned and Leased Properties showed that the Hydrologic Engineering Center’s current lease in Davis runs through mid-2029. The center has been in Davis since 1969, five years after it opened in a federal building in Sacramento.

Previously, news that the center had been targeted for removal had stirred concern among academics aware of it. These people include Belize Lane, who earned a Ph.D. in hydrologic sciences from UC Davis in 2017 and is now an associate professor at Utah State.

“I guess everyone in my world, when they heard the news or rumor — whatever it is — that that center may be shut down, we were just horrified and pretty upset by it,” Lane says. “Because it is such a pillar in hydrology in the United States, and it’s a very unique group.”

The center has a very low-key footprint in downtown Davis, with no signage at the doorway to indicate what is. “It’s a glass door with a metal frame,” Pasternack says, noting that the entrance is completely indistinguishable.

Outside on the sidewalk on the block, a man exercising, two women bringing coffee back to their office and a woman going to a class last Thursday morning had one thing in common: None had any idea that the center was located here.

Samuel Sandoval Solis, a water management professor at UC Davis, has worked in the past to bring representatives from the center to campus for a course. “I don’t think people realize what we are losing is just people that have dedicated their lives to provide a service to the entire nation,” Sandoval Solis says.

Sandoval Solis says the services the center provides includes training people and supporting field operations to prevent floods, ensure that reservoirs operate adequately and provide forecasts for rivers.

Those in the know can be excited about the center, though. Pasternack says that when people visit him, he’ll tell them that the HEC is located in Davis and people can react with excitement.

A leading hydraulic engineer from Switzerland who was visiting last year had his photo taken in front of the drab HEC entrance, Pasternack says, “to just show everybody back in Switzerland, like, ‘Can you believe it? Like, here’s the Hydrologic Engineering Center, and they don’t even have an awning declaring they’re here.’”

What would happen if the center were to go away remains to be seen.

“The fact that we do have such high-quality research tools that are free is really incredible,” Lane says. “It’s a really amazing thing that the United States government has done to really invest in publicly available data and modeling tools to support water resources management.”

She adds, “It’s something that I’ve been really proud of as a hydrologist in the United States and really sets us apart from a lot of other countries. And it would be really sad to see damage done to that legacy.”

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