Data Sharing and Access Challenges Associated with Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Research

As oil poured from the ruptured Macondo oil well, scientists from around the country scrambled to contribute their expertise and understanding to help understand the transport and fate of the oil.  Federal agencies, including the Coast Guard, NOAA, BOEMRE, EPA, and others quickly established communications pathways for information sharing between the agencies and they also initiated the NRDA (Natural Resource Damage Assessment) process, including a limited number of academic scientists.  For those on the “inside” of this process, it seemed to work will with plans being coordinated and data being collected, processed and shared.  However, for most academic scientists who were not included in this process, information was very difficult to acquire and this impacted the science that was accomplished. One obvious impact was the lack of coordination in sampling plans and research cruises.  The best and most frequently used method of finding out who was doing what was to watch the AIS (Automatic Identification System) to see which ships were where and then contact their supporting institutions to find out who was aboard and what experiments were being carried out.  Because this took place after the cruises started, it did not allow for collaboration on vessel usage and, consequently, ships sailed with at least some empty berths on most occasions during the early, critical months of the spill. Once the data were collected, they were difficult to access for several reasons.  One was that the NRDA data were required for anticipated lawsuits and therefore could not be shared openly.  Another involved scientists’ fears that premature sharing of findings would impact their ability eventually publish the results in scientific journals, and this was, in fact, true in at least a few cases.  The most conspicuous deterrent to data sharing was the media frenzy that often resulted in exaggerated claims being published with resulting impacts to their relationships with funding agencies and colleagues at other institutions. In evaluating these issues and challenges, it would be nice to formulate an easy solution that could be implemented for future events but this may be more difficult than it appears.  The legal issues are inherent to any event of this scale and will impact the decision making process regardless of who is responsible.  Concerns about publication in journals could be dealt with if journal editors would agree that announcement of preliminary findings cannot substitute for publication in peer reviewed journals where the data are carefully scrutinized by competing scientists before they are accepted in what will become the archive of knowledge for the event. Finally, interactions between scientists and media can and should be supported by knowledgeable staff to help researchers avoid many of the pitfalls that were experienced.