AUGUST 26, 2016--Six members of the Northeast Branch of OR&R’s Assessment and Restoration Division (ARD) met at Spermaceti Cove, Sandy Hook, New Jersey on August 23 and 24 to address salt marsh damage assessment techniques and data compilation.

The training provides a suite of plant and resident biota injury metrics that could be used in a Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) in a northeast marsh. Instructors presented these metrics in the ARD national salt marsh workshop at Waquoit Bay, Massachusetts, during the summer of 2015. We used a tested site transect design as an example to illustrate how these metrics could be collected for a northeast assessment. In an actual future injury assessment, these specific metrics and study design would be driven by the conceptual site model and the hypotheses tested. In addition, training in data management, health and safety requirements, and maintenance of sample custody was provided to expose participants to updated ARD guidance for NRDAs.

Our principal goals included:

• Reinforce current NRDA guidance (e.g., health and safety, sample custody, data management).
  
• Apply NRDA field sampling techniques for marsh injury assessment in the greater New York and New Jersey Harbor area.
  
• Improve understanding of the northeast coastal marsh marine ecology.
  
• Techniques, tools, and skills practiced here are expected to be applicable in similar coastal marsh systems from Virginia to Maine.

We worked closely together with each individual taking a role in the training. It was both a terrific educational exercise and an opportunity for team building.

For further information, contact Ken.Finkelstein@noaa.gov.

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