Trump administration prepares to delete data Americans rely on for their livelihoods and safety

Last week, a note appeared on the website of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announcing that a Coastal Water Temperature Guide is disappearing, along with other data that will be taken offline by May.  That map shows at a glance if your coastal water is reaching hot tub temperatures.

The Current uses free, open, public images and geographic information files from federal agencies so we can show you where Superfund sites are near homes, where factories are planned in watersheds and the lushness of a tree-covered island viewed from space.  

Any given weather app depends on federal data as well — if a hurricane is coming, federal forecasters are helping predict its path and severity.

NOAA and other agencies publish information that folks need to understand our world and make decisions about it. There’s no gatekeeping: we the public get the data we paid for.

Heck, there’s still at least one government site up that proclaims the public usefulness of understanding air quality, biodiversity, natural disasters and sea level rise. 

Nerds have united against Trump-era data deletion by archiving public data on websites like Public Environmental Data Partners and Data Rescue Project. Given a couple of hours, some lines of code and space in the cloud, nerds can actually copy and republish a lot.  (Sidebar: there’s an entire side of tech that’s all about open-source free information-sharing and collaboration, not private monopoly and profiteering. Think Wikipedia.)

As for the NOAA May deletion list, the map files we’ve used aren’t scheduled for deletion.  But given scientist layoffs and data deletion, we can’t be sure what we — or you — may have already lost.

The Tide brings regular notes and observations on news and events by The Current staff.