Enhanced Coordination with National Marine Fisheries Service Protected Resources Board on Response and Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) Issues
OCT. 20, 2017 — Staff from NOAA's Damage Assessment Remediation and Restoration Program (DARRP) gave a briefing to the National Marine Fisheries Service Protected Resources Board in an effort to enhance communication and coordination between DARRP and Protected Resources related to incident response and NRDA issues for oil spills, hazardous waste sites, and ship groundings.
DARRP is comprised of NOAA’s OR&R, the Restoration Center, and General Counsel for Natural Resources.
The briefing included a presentation covering the basics of response, NRDA and DARRP, as well as some insight as to how we currently work together during these incidents, as well as challenges, opportunities, and upcoming guidance documents.
The briefing was well-received and should lead to more regionally focused discussions coordinated through the National Marine Fisheries Service regions, Science Centers and OPR headquarters staff. Issues to discuss include agreed engagement on existing cases, operational and communications practices, planning for future incidents and pre-incident coordination and drills.
The presentation is available here. For more information, contact Tom.Brosnan@noaa.gov or Jeff.P.Smith@noaa.gov.