ENVIRONMENT — SCIENTISTS BEG FOR CHANCE TO TAKE BASIC MEASUREMENTS OF GULF OIL SPILL: Nearly three months after BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists are still struggling to obtain even basic measurements of the oil disaster’s magnitude. In response, “a group of independent scientists, frustrated and dumbfounded by the continued lack of the most basic data,” have released a report, detailing a project “intended to definitively measure how much oil has spilled and where and how it is spreading throughout the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.” Team leader Dr. Ira Leifer, a researcher at the Marine Science Institute of the University of California, Santa Barbara, stressed that accurate data would have prevented BP’s failed “top kill” and “top hat” plans, saying “effective containment systems available now, if we’d had the measurements.” Ideally, the team would “begin its experiments at the well site, capturing data and imagery with remotely-operated vehicles that would produce authoritative measurements of the flow,” thereafter focusing on the water column and current to understand “how the oil is interacting with the water.” Although Leifer’s group has the support of Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), who successfully pressured BP to release live video of the oil leak, the scientists still require the approval and monetary support for their efforts from BP or the federal government. If the past is any indication, approval does not seem imminent — last month, BP rejected the help of thousands of volunteers, many with expert training and experience in handling offshore oil disasters and oil spill cleanup.