FEB. 20, 2024 — The Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary held its twelfth annual International Film Festival, showcasing ocean and Great Lakes films from around the world. On January 26-27, NOAA’s Marine Debris Program’s Great Lakes Regional Coordinator, Haley Dalian, exhibited at the festival to engage with the public and filmmakers about marine debris in the region.
OR&R Weekly Report
The Office of Response and Restoration publishes this weekly round-up of news and information of interest to our partners, stakeholders, and team members. Click to subscribe
February 2024
FEB. 12, 2024 — OR&R’s Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) is expanding west. Kyla Breland, the former Southeastern and Caribbean Regional Preparedness Coordinator, is now our first West Coast and Pacific Island Regional Preparedness Coordinator (RPC).
FEB. 5, 2024 — On January 23-25, the Caribbean Regional Response Team (CRRT) meeting took place in Puerto Rico. The CRRT serves as the regional body for planning and preparedness activities before a response to an oil or hazardous substance incident is taken, and for coordination and advice during response actions. Participants include the Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Coast Guard, NOAA, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and agencies from Puerto Rico and the U.S.
FEB. 5, 2024 — On January 17-19, the NOAA Marine Debris Program, within the Office of Response and Restoration, coordinated an annual meeting to discuss the progress of the actions related to the 2023-2028 Puerto Rico Strategic Plan to Reduce Aquatic Debris (Strategic Plan), and to establish the 2024 actions.
FEB. 5, 2024 — On January 9-10, more than 30 OR&R researchers and users of remote sensing products met at NOAA’s Western Regional Center in Seattle to outline operational applications in support of OR&R’s mission spectrum and to chart a near-term research path on the topic of remote sensing and uncrewed aerial systems (UAS).
FEB. 5, 2024 — Building from the first workshop held in September 2023, the International Joint Commission’s Microplastics Monitoring and Risk Assessment Working Group reconvened with interdisciplinary experts in Windsor, Ontario, Canada from January 17-18, 2024. OR&R's Research Coordinator Carlie Herring and Great Lakes Regional Coordinator Haley Dalian, within NOAA's Marine Debris Program, once again participated in this effort.
FEB. 5, 2024 — The NOAA Marine Debris Program's (MDP) Chief Scientist, Amy V. Uhrin, and Research Coordinator, Carlie Herring, attended Duke University’s Workshop on the Social Cost of Plastic Pollution held January 26 in Washington D.C. The workshop brought together a small group of experts, with expertise in climate economics, the social cost of carbon, environmental justice, and plastic pollution to discuss the feasibility of measuring the social cost of plastic, and to propose a research agenda moving forward.
January 2024
JAN. 29, 2024 — A new storymap created by NOAA and the Elliott Bay Trustee Council provides a visual journey of the Lower Duwamish River in Washington and the restoration work that is underway in this important urban river.
JAN. 29, 2024 — The Office of Response and Restoration conducted an internal preparedness exercise on January 18th, 2024. The exercise was loosely based on the historic Argo Merchant spill that happened off the coast of Massachusetts in December of 1976.
JAN. 29, 2024 — The NOAA Marine Debris Program is proud to present the 2023 Accomplishments Report, outlining our continued efforts to address marine debris through our program pillars – prevention, removal, research, monitoring and detection, response, and coordination.
JAN. 29, 2024 — On January 25, 2024, NOAA’s National Ocean Service (NOS) highlighted the Office of Response and Restoration’s coastal recovery and restoration successes in 2023. OR&R and partners recovered over $92.8 million in pollution settlements to restore seven waterways in six states following oil spill and industrial pollution incidents throughout fiscal year 2023.
JAN. 22, 2024 — The NOAA Institutional Repository, a digital space curated by the NOAA Libraries to collect and disseminate materials published by NOAA authories, has a new collection: the Deepwater Horizon Collection.
JAN. 22, 2024 — OR&R staff co-authored a new publication, "Dietary Exposure to Environmentally Relevant Levels of Chemical Contaminants Reduces Growth and Survival in Juvenile Chinook Salmon." This work supports injury determination for Pacific Northwest Superfund sites that have similar contaminants of concern; specifically, mixtures of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethanes (DDTs), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).
JAN. 8, 2024 — In December of 2023, OR&R released its 2023 Accomplishments Report. The report highlights key accomplishments by OR&R during the fiscal year 2023, with a focus on the Office’s four mission focus areas: oil and chemical emergency response, natural resource restoration, marine debris, and disaster preparedness.
JAN. 8, 2024 — Recently, NOAA and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) jointly released their annual updates for CAMEO Data Manager and Tier2 Submit™, two programs that aid users in meeting regulatory filing and emergency response planning efforts under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA).
JAN. 8, 2024 — When declared disasters and other emergencies occur, Emergency Support Functions (ESFs) provide the structure for coordinating federal interagency support for a federal response to an incident. Following the devastating August 8, 2023 wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) issued the United States Coast Guard (USCG) a Mission Assignment under an ESF 10 to assess and remove incident-generated pollution, hazardous materials, damaged and sunken vessels, and associated debris in and around Lahaina Harbor.
JAN. 8, 2024 — In early January, a new NOAA publication, How we count counts: Examining influences on detection during shoreline surveys of marine debris, was published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin.
December 2023
DEC. 18, 2023 — The NOAA Marine Debris Program, within OR&R, is pleased to release the United States Marine Debris Emergency Response Guide (Guide). The Guide is a product of a collaborative process with federal agencies. The Guide aims to improve preparedness for responding to marine debris after hurricanes and other disasters in coastal areas of the United States and the Great Lakes.
DEC. 18, 2023 — The 2023 hurricane season had an above average amount of storms, with 20 storms in the Atlantic and 16 in the Pacific compared to the average of 14. Now, OR&R is taking a look back at its accomplishments from this past hurricane season.
DEC. 18, 2023 — On December 6th and 7th, Mid-Atlantic Regional Coordinator Katie Morgan participated in the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on the Ocean’s (MARCO) Marine Debris Summit, held in Ocean City, Maryland. This two-day summit is typically held every two years.
DEC. 11, 2023 — On December 7, 2023, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) released a proposed legal settlement to compensate for natural resource injuries resulting from hazardous substance releases from the American Cyanamid Superfund Site in Bridgewater, New Jersey.
DEC. 11, 2023 — On December 1, OR&R’s Texas-based scientific support coordinator, Paige Doelling, Ph.D., participated in an Oiled Wildlife Response Training Workshop held in Corpus Christi, Texas, along with a diverse group of oil spill and wildlife response professionals.
DEC. 4, 2023 — From November 13-19, 2023, over 1,900 participants—representing 161 governments as well as stakeholders from nongovernment organizations, academia, the private sector, the UN, and other international organizations—met in Nairobi, Kenya, for the third session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC3) to continue negotiations towards a new international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution.
DEC. 4, 2023 — OR&R staff co-authored a new publication in Science of the Total Environment which documents impacts to resident fish due to industrial contamination released into the Lower Duwamish River, Washington.
DEC. 4, 2023 — On November 30, the NOAA Marine Debris Program announced that our 2024 Marine Debris Calendar is now available for download!
DEC. 4, 2023 — OR&R has a long-term partnership with the NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC) to develop science for natural resource damage assessment and restoration. One area of collaborative research has focused on understanding the impacts of oil exposure on forage fish, such as Pacific herring, which are keystone species in coastal ecosystems.
DEC. 4, 2023 — On November 16, 2023, OR&R and U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) response teams activated as reports came in regarding a leak in a pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. The source of the leak was reported to be at least 19 miles offshore of the Mississippi River Delta, near the pipeline system of Main Pass Oil Gathering, LLC (MPOG).
DEC. 4, 2023 — From November 13-17, global leaders met to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum in San Francisco, California. The NOAA Marine Debris Program California Regional Coordinator, Christy Kehoe, attended sustainability and business roundtables facilitated by the Department of Commerce (DOC) U.S. Commercial Service Northern California District of Export Council. The meetings were hosted by the Commonwealth of Australia and the Republic of the Philippines.
DEC. 4, 2023 — The Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) North America annual conference was held in Louisville, Kentucky in November 2023. Staff from OR&R’s Assessment and Restoration Division (ARD) participated in the conference and contributed to a successful and engaging meeting.
November 2023
NOV. 20, 2023 — On November 7th, the Great Lakes Regional Coordinator for NOAA’s Marine Debris Program, Haley Dalian, presented at the Plastic Reduction Strategies Workshop for Lake Erie Businesses and Communities. Hosted at Old Woman Creek National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) and State Nature Preserve in Huron, Ohio, the workshop gathered participants from diverse perspectives to connect and learn about the ever-present type of marine debris: plastic.