Any scientists in the house? 2 big cases of hiding environmental data

[Tracey P. Lauriault]

I just reviewed the Alberta Oil Sands Regional Aquatics Monitoring Program (RAMP) agency and a few stories associated with it and posted an overview of observations on datalibre.ca (Fhttp://datalibre.ca/2010/12/17/ottawa-kept-data-on-abnormal-fish-found-in-oil-sands-rivers-not-shared/).  

The only lens I can bring is in relation to the data, and a brief analysis of who sits where to assess scientific bias.  Based on a quick review, this is a stacked deck for sure but that does not mean the industry stakeholders are malfeasant but does indicate that there is a clear power imbalance where the only citizen and non government and non industry stakeholders are - 2 First Nations and 1 Metis groups - and they are clearly very small compared to the heavy oil and energy presence at the table.  I also do not see one environmental group, hobby fisherman, biologists, etc.

It would be great to have a scientist or two keep an eye on this issue.  I do not have the skills to assess the labs, however, alarm bells start to ring when only one lab seems to be doing the assessment of fish on a very specific criteria - Flett Research – mercury analysis in non-lethal fish tissue samples, and there is no information provided on who the members of the technical committee are.  I have requested that information.  According to the articles, there has been peer review of the process and also, it looks like on some species are being monitored while the maps on the site only show two locations where fish samples were taken, which seem quite odd.

I am trying to pay attention to issues public disclosure on environmental data.  The last big one that I know of was the mine pollutants case where the Government of Canada was taken to court by environmental groups and forced to share that database after 10 years of deliberation (http://datalibre.ca/2009/04/27/canadian-federal-court-orders-the-release-of-mine-pollutant-data/). 

From a data access perspective, it is important to get access to fun data, and it is critical to get access to data on issues related to health and environment, I am particularly interested in air quality, brown fields, incidences of respiratory health problems, water quality, etc.  And most open data projects to date have not included those datasets.

 
Cheers

t
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Tracey P. Lauriault
613-234-2805