In May, Harriet M. Perry, the director of the fisheries program at theGulf Coast Research Laboratory, was asked to examine some mysterious droplets found on blue crab larvae by scientists at Tulane University. An early test indicated that the droplets were oil, and she has continued to find similar droplets on fresh larvae samples taken all along the northern Gulf of Mexico.
Despite the potential significance of the discovery, Dr. Perry does not have research money to cover further tests. And like other scientists across the Gulf Coast who are racing to sketch out the contours of the BP oil spill’s effects, she has few places to turn for help.
The only federal agency to distribute any significant grant money for oil spill research, the National Science Foundation, is out of money until the next fiscal year begins Oct. 1. The Environmental Protection Agency, which has only $2 million to give out, is still gearing up its program. A $500 million initiative for independent research promised by BP, which was to be awarded by an international panel of scientists, has become mired in a political fight over control. State agencies, too, are stymied.
“We have met with every possible person we can regarding this issue, built the templates, sent in the requests, and we are waiting to see,” said Hank M. Bounds, the Mississippi commissioner of higher education, speaking of the needs of Ms. Perry and other scientists.
There is plenty of science being done on the spill, but most of it is in the service of either the response effort, the federal Natural Damage Resource Assessment that will determine BP’s liability, or BP’s legal defense. Scientists who participate in those efforts may face restrictions on how they can use or publish their data. More important, they do not have a free hand in determining the scope of their studies.
“Independent research is being squeezed by federal agencies on one side and BP on the other,” said Dr. Perry, whose only offer of help has come from BP (she declined). “It’s difficult for the fishing community and the environmentalists to understand why we are not receiving the money that we need.”
Scientists view the situation as urgent because the environmental picture in the gulf region changes daily, as the plume of undersea oil disperses and degrades, fish eggs hatch and crabs molt.
“Time is of the essence,” said Lisa Suatoni, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. “Knowing the answers to basic questions like how much oil is below the surface, where is it going and what is its fate — those are answers that are slipping through our fingers.”
John H. Paul, a biological oceanographer at the University of South Florida, has found evidence of stress and even genetic damage in plankton exposed to the spill. “Everything that I’ve done, I’ve not had funding for,” he said. “I’ve had to pull people off my other projects and say, ‘Here, let’s do this for two weeks.’ ”
Ralph Portier, an environmental scientist at Louisiana State University, said earlier grants would have meant earlier answers to key questions like how long it will take for the oil in the marshes to break down. “We could have had a much better answer to that by now if we had started in the summer,” he said.
But, Dr. Portier said, there was no mechanism set up to provide research money in the event of an oil spill. “We always seem to be reacting and reacting and reacting, rather than being proactive,” he said.