My initial response is of course not. If the data is collected honestly, competently and without a pre-determined bias then I would hope not. However... just about none of those conditions apply here in Elmira. The good news is that more and more people are learning about that.
Data most certainly can be fudged. This past thirty-five years in Elmira has been a tutorial on how determined polluters can fudge their raw data to save themselves millions of dollars in cleanup costs. Yes of course both the public interest and the interests of the natural environment are harmed by these actions. Firstly some sort of Workplan indicating what, when, where and how samples will be collected must be determined. After that, honest collection of samples followed by honest measurement and then publication are required. Everyone of these steps is open to perversion.
When enough people are involved it's called a conspiracy and really is so much easier for polluters to get away with it. The conspiracy here in Elmira is vast although I'm sure that there are some who long ago drank the Kool Aid and think everything is on the up and up. It is not.
Fellow travellors are offered a little bit of status by working for free (unless you are the current Chair). The lazy ones will quickly stop reading any more than the Executive Summary of technical reports. Some TAG members may know full well what's going on whereas others don't have a clue. Nevertheless all members will support the pro environment, pro precautionary principle positions during discussions. I expect that the hardcore, badass pro corporate, anti environment types may actually crack jokes and pat each other on the back for their most brazen and successful obfuscations to the public.
Technically competent, honest with backbone citizens are most required to stop the games. We have those people in Elmira albeit they have been discriminated against by our authorities constantly.
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