Albany, N.Y. -- Federal taxpayers paid more than $23 million to build New York's new weather detection system. State taxpayers are now paying to run the system, which is operated by SUNY Albany.

But if you want to see the data gathered by that system, you'll have to pay again. At $250 a pop. The weather system, co-operated with the state Homeland Security Department and the SUNY Research Foundation, charges $250 for any single request of archived data of temperatures, wind speeds and other weather data.

The system, called the New York State Mesonet, said it needs the money from data sales to stay in business.

The state's top public information officer, however, says public agencies must abide by the state's Freedom of Information Law, or FOIL. That law requires most records to be open to the public, and it allows agencies to charge only what it costs to copy records.

"Certainly the office of homeland security, the state university and even the SUNY Research Foundation are covered by FOIL," said Bob Freeman, executive director of the state's Committee on Open Government. "Any of those agencies would have an obligation to respond to a FOIL request."

The idea for the weather system began in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, which struck in 2012. Two years later, Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed building a 125-station weather network that would give emergency planners around the state more real-time data to prepare for major storms.

In an application to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for money to build the network, the state said severe weather had killed 60 people and caused more than $36 billion in damages in the previous decade. FEMA gave the state $23.6 million to build the system.

The 30-foot-tall weather stations measure wind speed and direction, rain and snow, sunlight, barometric pressure and soil temperatures, among other data. At least 42 of the stations are already operating.

On the mesonet's website, you can see the real-time data, updated every five minutes, from each station. The data is online for 24 hours and then archived in Albany. That's when all the data on wind speed, temperature and similar data becomes the mesonet's "intellectual property."

"The NYS Mesonet must raise a significant portion of its budget annually in external grants, contracts, and data sales to sustain the long-term operations and quality of the network," according to the agency's website. Data could be sold to a variety of users, including lawyers, farmers, airport managers and energy companies.

The freedom of information law doesn't allow governments to charge fees beyond the cost of copying, Freeman said.

"If FOIL applies, whatever the fee is must be the actual cost of reproduction," Freeman said. "Where they get this flat fee of $250, I don't know."

A spokesman for the University of Albany said the raw data is "indecipherable" and needs to be converted before anyone else can use it.

"Mesonet scientists need to extract that raw data and convert it to understandable, serviceable information for the end user," said Karl Luntta, the university's director of media relations, in an email. "They download the data, analyze it, interpret it, make recommendations, and deliver it in a comprehensible package for use by the client. The fee is for the expertise that extracts and collates that data."

Even after someone buys the data, the mesonet places strict limits on how that data can be used. The agency's data policy says individuals, government agencies and nonprofit organizations can buy the information, but "may be asked to sign a data-sharing agreement" that limits how they can share it. Universities have to pay for the data, too, but University of Albany researchers get it for free.

The mesonet even puts restrictions on what the news media can do with the data. Radio stations can talk about the data for free, but television stations have to buy it. Newspapers can print mesonet data on paper at no charge -- as long as they include the mesonet logo and website link -- but the data can't be posted on the web.

The media policy makes no sense, Freeman said.

"How is it that I can put (the data) on a tangible piece of paper, but I can't post it online in 2016?" Freeman asked. "Posting it online is the way of the world."

Oklahoma's mesonet, touted as a model for New York's, also sells data, but gives more freebies than New York does. Any person, government agency or nonprofit based in Oklahoma can get the data for free, for example, and the data can be posted on a news website.

And while New York says it has to unscramble the data before anyone can use it, the Oklahoma mesonet posts some archived data online. Results of a Syracuse.com search for five months of Oklahoma City data was emailed within minutes in a readable spreadsheet.

For free.

Contact Glenn Coin: Email | Twitter | Google + | (315) 470-3251