Among those tracking the icebreaker were top-secret U.S. spy satellites. With the OK of a little-noticed but influential government committee known as the Civil Applications Committee, those reconnaissance photos were eventually released to scientists.

The committee, under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Geological Survey, reviews civilian requests for classified reconnaissance information and makes a recommendation to the intelligence community, which has the final say on what is declassified.

The spy data can be helpful to scientists studying volcanoes, forest fires, earthquakes and landslides, climate change, hurricanes, flooding and pollution.

Now the Bush administration plans to abolish the committee and create an office within the Department of Homeland Security to review such requests, along with those from law enforcement agencies. Scientists are concerned their requests could be sidetracked or delayed as security and law enforcement needs take precedence.

The shift would be a “grave mistake,” and the administration should rethink its plan, said Rep. Norm Dicks. Dicks is chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee with control over the Geological Survey and is the senior member of the House Homeland Security Committee. He said federal scientists don’t like the plan.

“They are worried,” Dicks said. “The scientists say this information is very valuable to them, and they are concerned this new office will be looking more at homeland security and law enforcement.”

The Canadian icebreaker Des Groseilliers drifted more than 1,800 miles while frozen in place for a year as researchers tracked changes in the ice pack. Eventually, nearly 60 photos from the National Imagery and Mapping Agency were released.

Much of the information that has been released remains sensitive, and federal agencies and scientists are tight-lipped about the details. The U.S. Forest Service declined to discuss information it received from the intelligence community during the forest fire season, though some of the information is thought to involve infrared images.

The Geological Survey and other federal agencies have had access to information about volcanoes erupting in the Aleutian Islands. Volcanic ash can damage the engines of planes crossing the North Pacific.

“Sometimes this information is critical and we need to know right now,” said James Devine, a senior adviser to the Geological Survey’s director. “The Aleutians are a major flyway for airplanes.”

CLASSIFIED ROUTE ‘A LAST RESORT’

Devine said classified information is requested if the data is needed immediately, if it involves a hard-to-get-to location or if private satellites are unable to provide the required detail.

“We use these assets as a last resort,” he said.

The government spy satellites offer greater resolution than private satellites. And aircraft-borne sensors and radars can take infrared readings, measure electro-magnetic activity and peer through clouds. Devine wouldn’t disclose the type of classified data that civilian scientists have secured.

“It can be more than just imagery, but I can’t go beyond that,” he said.

He said the Civil Applications Committee has turned down requests, but as far as he knows, the intelligence community has never refused a request cleared by the committee.

Scientists at the Polar Research Center at the University of Washington in Seattle have used classified measurements from nuclear-armed U.S. submarines that lurked under the polar ice cap during the Cold War to determine whether the ice has thinned because of global warming. It has, at the rate of 4 inches a year.

The submarines were equipped with upward-looking radar, said Drew Rothrock, one of the researchers who has used the Navy data. The submarines needed to know the thickness of the ice so they could surface.

Rothrock said the data was always “fuzzed up” a bit, so as not to disclose the exact locations of the submarines, but that it proved valuable. The information came from the Navy’s Arctic Sub Lab in San Diego, and Rothrock said he was not sure whether its release was approved by the Civil Applications Committee.

Even so, Rothrock said, the process to get classified information remains murky.

“Everyone is timid about declassifying this stuff. People are a little skittish,” he said.

ACCESS RESTRICTED DUE TO 9/11

The Civil Applications Committee, formed 30 years ago, is comprised of representatives of 10 federal agencies. They include the departments of Interior, Agriculture, Commerce and Transportation, along with the Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, NASA and the National Science Foundation. The CIA, State Department and National Reconnaissance Office participate but can’t vote on the requests.

After the 9/11 terrorists attacks, the Bush administration began exploring the possibility of sharing more classified information with law enforcement officials and others involved in homeland security. The result was the plan to do away with the Civil Applications Committee and create the National Applications Office within the Department of Homeland Security.

The change has raised concerns on Capitol Hill that military spy satellites and other intelligence assets will be used for domestic surveillance by providing federal and local law enforcements officials with sophisticated, real-time data that could be used for such things as border security and catching drug smugglers.

“We believe the elimination of the civilian orientation of the Civil Applications Committee represents explicit harm in the near term to USGS and other civilian federal agencies, and it represents a potentially serious harm over the longer term to the constitutional protections U.S. citizens expect and deserve,” Dicks said in a letter to administration officials.

The office was expected to start operating last fall, but it was put on hold as administration officials scrambled to address the scientific and civil liberties questions.

The charter for the National Applications Office is being reworked, said Russ Knocke, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman.

“We think it will be something Congress is satisfied with,” Knocke said. “I predict the stakeholders will be relieved and satisfied that their concerns were unfounded. We will get it out as soon as possible.”

Les Blumenthal: 202-383-0008