THE Deepwater Horizon blowout may be capped and the surface oil slick dispersed, but the scientists’ job has just begun: hundreds of us are working in and around the gulf to determine the long-term environmental impact of the drilling disaster.
Although we are all doing needed research, we’re not receiving equal money or access to the affected sites. Those working for BP or the federal government’s Natural Resource Damage Assessment program are being given the bulk of the resources, while independent researchers are shoved aside.
The problem is that researchers for BP and the government are being kept quiet, and their data is unavailable to the rest of the community. When damages to the gulf are assessed in court or Congress, there might not be enough objective data to make a fair judgment.
Transparency is vital to successful science: researchers must subject their proposals to the scrutiny of colleagues, and publications require peer review. When it comes to field research, scientists need equal access to the same sites to test competing hypotheses.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/opinion/25hooper-Bui.html?th&emc=th
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