JANUARY 8, 2016--On December 3 and 4, 2015, staff from OR&R’s Emergency Response Division (ERD), Assessment and Restoration Division (ARD) and NMFS’s Greater Atlantic Regional Office (GARFO) conducted a workshop at NMFS’s Regional Office located in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

The goals of the workshop were:

• to improve coordination between NMFS’s Regional Office and ORR’s Emergency Response and Assessment and Restoration Divisions;
  
• to implement plans/methods so that the Regional Office can identify appropriate roles and responsibilities and become more effective in emergency response consultation requirements, specifically when addressing Endangered and Threatened Species Act (Section 7), Essential Fish Habitat (EFH), and Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) ;
  
• to identify areas where additional work is needed and establish working groups to address remaining challenges; and
  
• to streamline communications prior to, during, and post emergency response.

Mr. Steve Lehmann (ERD) and Dr. William Whitmore (GARFO) were the two principles who organized the workshop. Other ERD personnel participating in the workshop were John Tarpley, Ed Levine and Frank Csulak. ERD staff provided training to GARFO staff on oil behavior and characteristics, regional threats, Incident Command System, communications within and outside NOAA, and ORR’s roles and responsibilities with oil and chemical spill response, and best management practices for spills. Dr. Ken Finkelstein (ARD) and John Catena, NMFS Restoration Center (RC) provided an overview of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration (NRDAR) process, respectively, and how this process fits into spill responses and remediation at hazardous waste sites.
Since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, GARFO’s Protected Resources Division (PRD) staff has been peripherally involved in planning activities for oil spill consultation and response efforts, but the lack of a detailed regional plan has been highlighted as a concern. PRD’s intent is to develop a comprehensive oil spill operating procedure for PRD staff to be better prepared to: 1) evaluate potential impacts of oil spill response activities on protected and endangered species, 2) identify roles for PRD staff in the command center during spill operations, 3) direct response and monitoring efforts for impacted protected and ESA listed species under our jurisdiction, and 4) further develop communication protocols to identify PRD’s roles in providing protected species information to the media, constituents and stakeholders within the ICS structure. GARFO staff led discussions on fishery impacts and closures, developing an Environmental Emergency Response Plan, and described the Science Center’s and Stellwagon Banks involvement and available expertise and resources to support ERD and ARD during a response.

Staff members from each of the programs were engaged in meaningful discussions as to how to best coordinate with one another during future emergency response events.

For further information contact Steve.Lehmann@noaa.gov or Frank.Csulak@noaa.gov.

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