As seen in the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico last year and in ExxonMobil&rsquo;s pipeline spill in Montana this summer, the public expects accurate and timely information about oil spills and the efforts to clean them up.
In the Gulf and in Montana, the amount of oil spilled was calculated by the spiller and the cleanup effort was based on those estimates. Each time, the spiller&rsquo;s first estimate drastically understated the size of the spill and its potential environmental impacts. The public was kept largely in the dark about cleanup strategies and outcomes.