NOVEMBER 3, 2016--OR&R’s director Dave Westerholm and Emergency Response Division (ERD) Chief Scott Lundgren participated in the Industry Technical Advisory Committee (ITAC) Annual Meeting held on October 24-26 to share information on current and emerging issues influencing spill response.

The 2016 ITAC brought together the technical side of the spill response community to share information on new technologies, trends, and issues that will influence future spill responses.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) venue reflected a key theme of the agenda regarding understanding, incorporating, and coordinating the substantial academic and published science regarding oil spills, particularly the recent surge stemming from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 and associated research dollars.

During the meeting, Dave Westerholm spoke about the Programmatic Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration Plan and consent decree for the Deepwater Horizon spill, and new scientific understanding that emerged from this extensive injury assessment work. Scott Lundgren spoke to the constellation of models, tools, and databases developed by ERD and used in providing scientific support for spill preparedness and response, with a particular focus on the major updates to the GNOME Suite (General NOAA Operational Modeling Environment), including enhancements to the GNOME trajectory module and integration of the weathering model, ADIOS (Automated Data Inquiry for Oil Spills).

Many other international government, academic, and industry organizations involved in technical aspects of spill response globally were also represented at the meeting.

For additional information, contact Scott.Lundgren@noaa.gov.

Go back to OR&R Weekly Report.