Sea lions, seals, dolphins, and whales are some of the marine mammals at risk of oil spills and marine pollution. To prepare for future disasters, NOAA’s marine mammal and oil spill experts worked together to publish "Guidelines for Assessing Exposure and Impacts of Oil Spills on Marine Mammals."

The guidance document is available online for free. Viewers can also explore some of the new information and science from the document in our latest story map. We’re preparing for marine mammals today, so when oil spill disasters strike we will be even better prepared to respond on behalf of marine mammals.

Explore the story map online to learn more!

This map shows the locations of over 200 oil spill and hazardous waste sites where NOAA and partners from state, tribal, and federal agencies and industry have recovered over $10.4 billion to restore a wide variety of critical public habitats and resources nationwide.

Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) is the process that NOAA and other trustees use to study the effects of these pollution incidents on fish, wildlife, surrounding habitats, and public use of those resources. Scientists work together to identify the extent of natural resource damage and specify the type and amount of restoration required.

Since 1990, NOAA’s Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program (DARRP) has been integral to the NRDA process through its work assessing, restoring, and protecting polluted coastal environments.

Our restoration projects benefit coastal communities by enhancing fisheries and wildlife, restoring protected species (e.g., sea turtles, dolphins) and sensitive habitats (wetlands, corals). These projects also provide economic benefits from recreation (fishing, boating, swimming), tourism, green jobs, coastal resiliency, property values, and quality of life. 

For more information about the NRDA process, visit the DARRP website. To access an interactive version of this map, click here and explore individual projects.  

January’s Map of the Month comes from Tom Brosnan in Washington D.C. and Terrance Wang in Seattle.

DEC. 11, 2019 — Today a consent decree was announced that includes $25 million as a partial settlement to restore natural resources injured by releases of hazardous substances to the Kalamazoo River and Portage Creek in Michigan.

Under the proposed settlement, NOAA and co-trustees will use $25 million to plan and complete environmental restoration projects. These projects will both benefit injured natural resources, and compensate the public for lost recreational opportunities.

There will be a 30-day commenting period. The proposed consent decree will be available on the Department of Justice website. 

Restoration projects will be selected with public input. The Trustees invite interested parties to suggest habitat and recreational restoration project ideas during the planning process. Project ideas can be submitted at the trustees online portal.

For more information about the Kalamazoo River site and the settlement, visit the Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program website. 

This month's map shows the Geographic Response Plans (GRPs) for Oregon and Washington. GRPs are guides for actions during an oil spill response. These plans help responders to deploy predefined strategies at previously identified areas of significant economic, cultural, and ecological value. They are designed to minimize the potential damage that an oil spill may have on these areas.

Working with both the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality Emergency Response Program and the Washington Department of Ecology Spill Prevention, Preparedness, and Response Program, NOAA has integrated the GRP data from both states into ERMA for use by responders. The GRP data is regularly updated in ERMA as the states make updates to the plans, ensuring that the most up-to-date data is available. 

Users in ERMA can click on the GRP data and obtain a variety of information regarding the response plan strategies, including access points, boom placement locations, equipment needs, as well as links to the full PDF documents.

Click here to view the map online.

December’s Map of the Month comes from OR&R Spatial Data Branch’s Nicolas Eckhardt.

Oil Spill Response Training

For those who respond to or plan for oil spills, we are offering our popular Science of Oil Spills (SOS) training on these dates and locations:

• Key West, Florida, the week of Feb. 10, 2020: Applications for this class will be accepted through Friday, Dec. 13.
• Mobile, Alabama, the week of March 23, 2020: Applications for this class will be accepted through Friday, Jan. 31.
• Seattle, Washington, the week of June 22, 2020: The application period for this class will open at a later date.
• Final class: Northeast region of the country; date to be determined.

Interested applicants should review details about this class on the SOS Classes page and use the SOS Application Form to apply.

Chemical Spill Response Training

In addition, for those who respond to chemical and hazardous materials spills, Science of Chemical Releases (SOCR) training will be offered in two locations this year. The application form for these classes will be opened closer to the trainings.

• Mobile, Alabama, the week of May 4, 2020
• Seattle, Washington, the week of August 17, 2020

More detail is provided on the SOCR Classes page. Use the SOCR Application Form when the trainings are opened for registration.

IOSC Short Courses

As in past years, OR&R specialists will be teaching full-day and half-day Short Courses at the International Oil Spill Conference (IOSC) in May 2020. The Short Courses will be on a broad range of response topics, such as boom techniques for fast and slow water, public health issues and spills, facility response plans, dispersants, shoreline cleanup assessment technique (SCAT), and Arctic and cold weather response techniques. 

OR&R specialists will contribute to the following Short Courses:

• Environmental Unit Leader Training for Managers
• Basic Oil Forecasting and Modeling
• Aerial Observation and Surveillance of Oil
• Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Data Management

The Short Course schedule will be listed on the program page for IOSC 2020. We hope to see you there!

For more information, contact Kimberly.Albins@noaa.gov.

When hurricanes push displaced boats into shipping channels or sensitive habitats, they need to be cleared out fast. NOAA uses the Environmental Response Management Application (ERMA®) to gather and display information about boats that are displaced during hurricanes so responders can efficiently address these threats. 

Learn more about ERMA and NOAA’s work with displaced vessels on our new story map.

For NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R), Fiscal Year 2019 was a year filled with new challenges and new achievements. In FY19: we provided scientific support for 133 pollution-related incidents (including a historic World War II tanker); we provided disaster coordination during the 2019 hurricane season through the Disaster Preparedness Program; we helped to settle seven pollution cases, resulting in $28 million for natural resource restoration; and we made major advances in data management. 

Each year, we put annual report as an overview of the efforts in oil and chemical spill response, shoreline restoration, marine debris reduction, and the many other tasks OR&R accomplished. These accomplishments show our dedication to science-based solutions for protecting and restoring natural resources from coastal hazards.

Find out more about OR&R’s work for the past fiscal year by viewing our 2019 Accomplishments Report.

"Scott [Lundgren] is an outstanding choice as our new director and I'm leaving OR&R in highly capable hands," said former director, David Westerholm, who retired last week. "Scott's range of experience, demonstrated leadership, environmental stewardship and compelling vision will serve as a solid foundation for OR&R. More importantly his commitment to our people will ensure this office always has a promising future."

Lundgren joined NOAA in 2015 as the chief of the Emergency Response Division — the group within OR&R that provides scientific support for preparedness and response to spills and other coastal emergencies. During his time as division chief, Lundgren led scientific support for preparedness for and response to over 600 significant spills and coastal incidents, including extensive response following recent hurricane seasons. 

Prior to NOAA, Lundgren served as a 23 year civilian employee of the Coast Guard in several environmental response and incident management positions from the field to headquarters. He was the senior technical advisor to the Coast Guard’s Marine Environmental Response program office and led the Coast Guard’s all hazards preparedness division. 

Lundgren lives with his wife and high school son in Fairfax, Virginia. Their daughter is currently a college sophomore in Boston. Lundgren holds a master’s degree in natural resources management and biology from Harvard University Extension School, a master’s degree in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College, and a bachelor’s degree in biology and environmental studies from Tufts University.

“OR&R has been a key partner throughout my professional career. I was drawn to NOAA by the talent, passion, and knowledge of the OR&R team and my affinity for its mission. I’m excited to lead the range of OR&R roles, from oil and chemical spill response and restoration, marine debris, and disaster preparedness,” Lundgren said. “I am looking forward to getting to know the staff as well as our partners and stakeholders as we continue to advance and evolve OR&R’s capacity to provide important products and services that benefit the environment, the public, and the economy.”

A substantial amount of oil was discovered during an underwater assessment of the Coimbra in May 2019. The Coast Guard decided removal would be needed and scheduled operations to begin later that month. 

The Coimbra, a British tanker, was torpedoed and sunk during World War II by a German U-Boat in the Battle of the Atlantic on Jan. 15, 1942. The vessel is one of 87 wrecks prioritized for oil pollution risk in a 2010 NOAA study — a continuation of the Remediation of Underwater Legacy Environmental Threats (RULET) project, a joint effort with the Coast Guard to address threats from vessels sunk off U.S. shores that contain significant volumes of oil. These shipwrecks are routinely monitored, and the NOAA Satellite and Information Service Satellite Analysis Branch, has observed oil slicks over the years that showed the wreck was still actively leaking.

A unified command was set up to support the removal operations, which began on May 11, 2019. More than 100 government, industry, and environmental specialists are supporting the U.S. Coast Guard and New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, including NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration and other NOAA offices. 

OR&R coordinated and participated in the collection of sheen samples over the last two years, including analysis of samples to help characterize the oil as bunker oil and lube oil. OR&R has also been providing oceanographic products, including potential trajectory analyses, in case any release occurred during the survey and removal process. OR&R also worked with NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries to synthesize the available historical information on the wreck.

The Coimbra went down carrying approximately 2.7 millions gallons of lubricating oil, much of which was probably lost during initial sinking.  The amount of oil left was enough to pose a risk to natural resources, prompting the recent underwater intervention. Now, with as much as 99% of the remaining recoverable oil removed, the operations have prevented any major leak from occurring at this site. According to the latest Coast Guard press release, the wreck was largely left undisturbed and remains in place 30 miles offshore of Shinnecock, New York, serving as a natural reef for marine life. 

“The amount remaining in the vessel is very small and any sheening poses minimal risk to the local environment and no risk to the shoreline,” said Steve Lehmann, OR&R senior scientific support coordinator, in the release. 

For more information and to stay up to date on the Coimbra RULET project, visit the Incident News link here. 

The Duwamish River has been a hazardous waste site since the mid-1900s. Though it was once a wide, meandering river with large areas of mudflats and marshes, by the 1940s the 9-mile estuary had transformed into a 5-mile industrial waterway — destroying 97% of the original habitat. 

The river is still highly developed, with many industrial and commercial facilities lining its banks. Hazardous substances have been released since the early 1900s, resulting in injuries to fish, birds, wildlife, and their habitats. 

Cleanup operations for the river are ongoing, and will continue for many years. Though the cleanup is not yet over, NOAA and its various partners in government and industry have already begun working on restoration efforts to compensate for the lost natural resources.

To help tell the story of this important urban river — from its polluted history to the restoration projects that promise a cleaner future — OR&R, with help from last year's summer intern Kavya Varkey, has put together a new story map. To learn more, view the new story map here. 

The Coimbra was a British supply ship during WWII that was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat in the Battle of the Atlantic. The vessel now sits 180 feet below the surface about 30 miles off the coast of Shinnecock, New York. The Coimbra went down carrying 2.7 million gallons of oil. In 2015, NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NESDIS) discovered abnormalities at the wreck site that appeared to be an oil sheen.

Oil sheens have been reported at the site with growing frequency. The Coast Guard determined that the Coimbra posed a substantial threat to the environment and opened the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund for an underwater assessment.

Deep-water divers continue to drill into the ship using a process called hot tapping in order to extract oil samples and determine the best removal process. Initial dive operations began earlier this month and will continue over the next few weeks until all the recoverable oil is removed and the tanker no longer poses an environmental threat.

“There are a lot of moving parts to this one operation in order to safely remove the oil product in the tanks that far below the surface,” said Cmdr. Keith Donohue, the on-scene federal incident commander, in a Coast Guard press release. “Each person aboard the Shelia Bordelon has a very specific role to play in these daily movements, whether it is a diver working on the wreck itself, to the dive supervisors keeping a close eye on his particular diver, to the those working with the salvaged piece of hull so that we can determine the best way to drill into the tanks, extract the oil and have as minimal impact on the maritime environment as possible.”

OR&R's Steve Lehmann is providing scientific support to the mission from the region. OR&R’s Emergency Response Division continues to provide trajectories in case a spill should occur during the operation.

The U.S. Coast Guard announced in a press release last month that an underwater assessment would be conducted to determine the possibility of oil removal operations on the Coimbra. The Coast Guard contracted Resolve Marine Group to conduct a full assessment of oil remaining on the Coimbra wreck. A substantial amount of oil was discovered during an assessment on Tuesday, May 7, and the Coast Guard said removal operations would take place prior to the end of May.

A British supply ship during World War II, the Coimbra was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat in the Battle of the Atlantic on Jan. 15, 1942. The vessel went down carrying approximately 2.7 million gallons of lubricating oil. Though most of the oil is thought to have spilled or burned immediately following the incident, divers have reported sheens appearing near the wreck site over the years. After a recreational diver surfaced reportedly covered in oil from the area, scientists began to suspect the leak was getting worse.

The Coimbra is one of 87 wrecks prioritized for oil pollution risk in a 2010 NOAA study — a continuation of the Remediation of Underwater Legacy Environmental Threats (RULET) project, a joint effort with the Coast Guard to address threats from vessels sunk off U.S. shores that contain significant volumes of oil. After looking into about 20,000 known shipwrecks, the two agencies identified the 87 high level risk wrecks. Those sites are routinely monitored by the NOAA Satellite and Information Service Satellite Analysis Branch.

OR&R coordinated and participated in the collection of sheen samples over the last two years, including analysis of the samples to help characterize the oils as bunker oil and lube oil. OR&R has also been providing oceanographic products, including potential trajectory analyses, in case any releases occurred during the survey process.

After extensive planning supported by OR&R and other NOAA programs, The Coast Guard and partners contracted Resolve Marine Group for assessment and potential subsequent oil removal on April 28, 2019. On Tuesday, May 7, the incident command reported that a substantial amount of oil on board was available for mitigation.

The Coast Guard reported that oil was found in at least eight of the vessel’s tanks, though the total amount of oil remaining is still unknown. Divers found that the oil was discharging slowly from a pinhole leak in one of the tanks and dissipating before reaching the shore. Of six intact cargo tanks that were hot tapped — a process in which divers drill into the ship using special equipment designed to handle the displacement of liquids and other underwater complications— four contained significant quantities with three of them having 6 feet of cargo. Oil removal operations will help to resolve the risk of a major spill and its effects on trust resources.

In a press conference on Thursday, May 9,Capt. Kevin Reed, commander of Coast Guard Sector Long Island Sound, said, “Starting in 2015 the Coast Guard began receiving pollution reports from the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service via NOAA. Those notices showed anomalies that appeared to be an oil sheen in the vicinity of the Coimbra wreck. I used this information to determine that Coimbra poses a substantial threat to the environment, and opened the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund to complete an assessment of the vessel.”

“We established a Unified Command between the U.S. Coast Guard and New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Through the use of ROV [remotely operated underwater vehicle] we were able to identify a pinhole leak. We were assessing the tanks and then would determine the amount of recoverable oil that is inside of each tank that we are probing. Then we will be moving to the recovery phase.”

NOAA support and assessment to this removal is ongoing. In addition to the Office of Response and Restoration’s involvement in this incident, other NOAA offices have been essential in this project, including the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS), which has leveraged the use of their recent agreement with Canada for greater satellite coverage during the operation. The Office of National Marine Sanctuaries also worked on the original RULET project and helped to gather historical information about the Coimbra and other wrecks. OR&R was also supported by the National Weather Service Ocean Prediction Center with detailed spot forecasts critical for offshore operations, and the National Marine Fisheries Service provided environmental consultations.

For more information and to stay up to date on the Coimbra RULET project, visit the Incident News link here.

According to a Coast Guard press release, the tug was transporting two barges — each loaded with about 25,000 barrels of gasoline blend stock. The official amount released from the Kirby is believed to be about 9,000 barrels, or 378,000 gallons. The Genesis River was loaded with butane and propane, but was not reported to be spilling any petroleum cargo.

The Coast Guard established a Unified Command with the Texas General Land Office and Kirby Inland Marine on Friday. OR&R’s Emergency Response Division has provided weather, trajectory, resources at risk, and hazard analysis products and preliminary discussion and scoping efforts have begun to assess environmental impacts. The Unified Command has also been conducting air sampling and is responding to citizen questions about air quality and potential health risks from exposure to the spilled material. 

Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Technique (SCAT) teams continue to check for areas where oil may have reached the shore. OR&R’s Assessment and Restoration Division has also sent staff on scene to begin assessing the damage to natural resources in the area. There are reports of wildlife impacts and a sizeable fish kill was reported.

As of Sunday, May 13, the sheens in the waterway near the damaged barge were significantly reduced from the day before. Operations to transfer cargo to another vessel began yesterday. The capsized barge is still intact with no visible sheening. Some of the darker oil near the barge Kirby and along the shoreline is being recovered.

Doug Helton, operations coordinator for OR&R’s Emergency Response Division, said the operations to empty and refloat the capsized barge will be challenging due to the barge’s double hull and its current position. The barge is upside down, with all the hatches and vents now grounded in the mud at the bottom of the bay adjacent to the shipping channel. The oil is also highly flammable, and responders will have to approach the tanks with extreme caution to avoid an explosive reaction.

A Unified Command press release stated that 334 federal, state, and local response personnel are engaged in planning and implementing response and cleanup operations. Eight skimmers are in operation and more than 20,000 feet of product containment and absorbent boom have been deployed to limit further contamination.

Update: As of Wednesday, May 15, the two barges were successfully removed from the Houston Ship Channel. The estimated spill volume from the damaged barge was increased to 11,276 barrels (473,600 gallons). 

The Port of Houston-Galveston has reopened the Houston Ship Channel without restrictions and normal vessel traffic has resumed. Air monitoring is ongoing as the scene of the incident, and skimming operations are also ongoing to collect product from the sheen at the site. Water quality sampling is being conducted and environmental samples of discharged product are being analyzed. 

OR&R is continuing to provide trajectory information for potential discharges of product remaining in the damaged barge. NOAA is also assisting with the shoreline survey efforts and characterization of the spilled materials.