Gulf coast scientists recruited for BP legal defense (07/16/2010)
BP PLC is offering money to scientists with research into the Gulf spill, in an effort to secure their support for the company in impending spill litigation.
In one case, the company offered to hire the entire marine sciences department at an Alabama university, according to scientists who spurned the offer.
The contract, obtained by the Mobile Press-Register, prohibits scientists from publishing their research and sharing it with the scientific community for three years.
“It makes me feel like they were more interested in making sure we couldn’t testify against them than in having us testify for them,” said George Crozier, head of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, who was approached by BP.
Robert Wiygul, an Ocean Springs lawyer who specializes in environmental law, said the contract is one-sided. “This is not an agreement to do research for BP,” he said. “This is an agreement to join BP’s legal team. You agree to communicate with BP through their attorneys and to take orders from their attorneys.”
BP declined to comment, and the scale and success of its operations in purchasing the support of scientists is unknown. Most scientists are allowed to do consultations outside their universities for up to eight hours a week. A few said that they had been offered $250 an hour, which comes to $104,000 a year.
It is expected that the government will use scientists from the Gulf region to support its natural resources damage assessment lawsuit, and BP appears to be seeking an advantage in securing the support of experts. The company is looking to sign the scientists onto its own legal team for the suit.
Academic officials said that scientists from Louisiana State University, Mississippi State University and Texas A&M have accepted. The company is targeting researchers with specializations in marine invertebrates, plankton, marsh environments, oceanography, sharks and other topics.
Academics said that BP’s contracts would hinder the scientific process by prohibiting communication between researchers, but given the dearth of government funding to universities, they don’t have much choice if they want to continue with Gulf spill research. Federal officials have warned that academics who accept BP’s overtures will lose academic funding for ongoing research into matters unrelated to the spill, said scientists.
“It’s a very strange situation. The science is already suffering,” said Richard Shaw, associate dean of LSU’s School of the Coast and Environment. “The government needs to come through with funding for the universities. They are letting go of the most important group of scientists, the ones who study the Gulf.”
