For three months, oil spilled non-stop into the Gulf of Mexico during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, endangering ocean life, animals and residents in the surrounding area. Gary Machlis, University of Idaho professor of conservatism, was there during spring 2010.
Machlis and then UI student Rachel Woita had 36 hours to organize and get to Mobile, Ala., with the help of UI financial officers, UI-sponsored programs and National Park Services funds.
“Our responsibility was to advise (Department of the Interior decision makers) on consequences on the spill — to the ecology, the economy and the people of the Gulf of Mexico,” Machlis said. “If this spill continued, (there were all) kind of environmental impacts you (could have) expected.”
A new group dubbed the Department of the Interior’s Strategic Sciences Group resulted from the trip. Recently appointed co-leader of the group, Machlis said when the British Petroleum oil rig exploded the NPS director instructed Machlis to tour incident command locations and record the science that went on.
Machlis said the idea for a science group originated in this task — straight out of a crisis.
“(Governmental decision makers) have to make really difficult decisions during a crisis and they need the best available science,” Machlis said. “What our group does is create a structure of scientists … that can respond really quickly within hours. We organize and begin to deliver to decision makers scientific advice that helps them make better decisions.”
Woita, now 33, started working for Machlis as a UI research assistant one week before the rig explosion and is now a social science technician at Yosemite National Park
“When the spill happened, he asked me to come,” Woita said. “And so I did.”
Woita was the group’s designated note-taker, and researched information when necessary.
“The oil spill was a really great opportunity and (Machlis) really pushed for all these different scientists to work together,” Woita said. “Scientists in other fields don’t always see eye-to-eye because they’re coming from different backgrounds and have different goals, and he was really good at helping bridge that gap and helped them see that they can see it from a different perspective.”
The Strategic Sciences group can include scientists from governmental or non-governmental groups, academic institutions and private governmental sectors.
“We take the best available existing scientific data — we don’t take new data — and we examine it and then make recommendations,” Machlis said.
Machlis said the group delivers its recommendations to the Department of the Interior, generally to the Director of the NPS, the Director of Fish and Wildlife services or the Secretary of the Interior.
Machlis said the biggest challenge has been the group’s relative newness.
“We have to build it in a way that is efficient, really effective and as cost effective as possible,” Machlis said. “(We have to be) built to respond to a crisis that could happen at any moment.”
Machlis is still employed as a UI professor through an Intergovernmental Personnel Act assignment, as paid for by the NPS. Although he is not currently teaching classes, he said he plans to return to UI.
“I just want to emphasize that it’s an example of how UI faculty all over campus, can engage in nationally vital work,” Machlis said. “…This is just one example.”