Subject: Federal Lab Ignored Data Manipulation For YEARS

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) officials knew about environmental data manipulation for years before they stopped the manipulation or notified scientists who may have used phony information, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation has found.

A USGS analyst resigned while under investigation for data manipulation from 1996 to 2008, but another analyst continued that distortion until 2014. But agency officials learned data was manipulated as early as 2004 when scientists found “test results did not make sense” and “were not accurate,” according to a Department of the Interior inspector general (IG) audit published 11 years later.

“Our office wasn’t aware of the 2008 incident until we began work on our May 2015 evaluation report,” IG spokeswoman Gillian Carroll told TheDCNF.

Yet USGS allowed the manipulation to continue until 2008, and the agency didn’t post a notice until April 2010. An external audit USGS contracted in 2012 found 29 issues, but 11 remained uncorrected as of June 2014 – six years after the manipulation was caught, the IG reported.

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