When Kim Albins first began working at NOAA, nearly 20 years ago, she never expected to see her role transform over the years from that of a marine biologist to an emergency management planning specialist.

Kim had discovered her love for marine science before high school. Growing up in Mobile, Alabama, she had ample opportunity to frequent the beach and learn more about its inner workings. In her sixth grade science class, taught by her mother, Kim visited the Dauphin Island Sea Lab and was immediately taken with the marine animals she saw. Field trips to Dauphin Island became a yearly staple.

Kim had started her undergraduate studies at Birmingham-Southern College, when a friend asked Kim if she really was going to pursue her dream or instead do something more practical. Birmingham was more of a traditional liberal arts school, with little opportunity for advancing into the serious sciences (other than medicine). Reinvigorated to pursue her dream, Kim began her search for a new school.

After looking throughout the U.S. for a marine science undergraduate program, Kim set her sights set on Hawaii. Kim received her bachelor’s degree in marine science from the University of Hawaii at Hilo in 2001. She was hired immediately after by NOAA’s coral reef ecosystem investigation office — now a division within NOAA Fisheries — to do marine debris removal work in the Northwestern Hawaiian islands. She started in the summer of 2001 and continued working with them through 2006 shifting focus from marine debris to coral reef ecology.

Kim worked on a variety of diving operations with NOAA spending large chunks of time out at sea. In total she spent over 500 days, she said, with her longest trip lasting about three months at sea.

“It was a dream come true, to be out there and every day getting to dive in some of the most amazing places,” Kim said. “But it’s also hard, physically challenging work.”

While working for NOAA, Kim began pursuing a master’s degree in benthic coral reef ecology and seaweed from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Following her fiance at the time to Oregon, Kim then got a position with the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO). As their physical oceanography research assistant, Kim was in charge of PISCO’s nearshore oceanographic mooring program — managing field operations and hiring seasonal staff for the various research needs. She and her team used scientific instruments attached to moorings to monitor temperature, salinity, currents, and other basic parameters to examine the long-term nearshore oceanographic patterns.

After more than a decade away from home, Kim and her husband Mark began looking at moving closer to family. They had been searching everywhere from North Carolina to Texas when her husband, a fish biologist, got a job in Fairhope, Alabama.

“Moving back to Alabama really brought my life full circle,” Kim said. “It was clear for me that we were meant to be back home. Fairhope is the most idyllic town in coastal Alabama and it was kind of a miracle for us.”

Kim had been teaching biology at a local community college when she chanced upon a Craigslist ad for a marine debris job at NOAA. She was hired in 2013 as the Gulf of Mexico regional coordinator for the Office of Response and Restoration Marine Debris Program. It was a good fit given her previous work with marine debris,and she again felt her life was coming full circle.

In 2016, Kim gave birth to her first daughter, Amelia, and was pregnant with her second daughter, Eliana, six months later when she decided to take a step back to focus on her growing family.

Kim took a year off from work before starting her own company taking on freelance projects. She was approached about a project for the new Disaster Preparedness Program by her previous employer, Genwest — a contract company that handles a lot of projects within NOAA. Kim was asked to create a platform to help coordinate response efforts during a disaster. This platform, the Disaster Coordination Dashboard, is now the central tool used for disaster coordination in the National Ocean Service.

The NOS Disaster Coordination Dashboard was put to the test during the National Level Exercise in May 2018. Kim flew to the NOAA headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland and helped the Disaster Preparedness Program team put it to use. From that point forward, every time there was a storm, Kim helped to set up the dashboard. With one exercise and seven named storms on the board in its first year, the dashboard proved its worth.

From her work on the dashboard, Kim had already worked closely with the Disaster Preparedness Program’s Kate Wheelock and Charlie Henry when she discovered they were looking for an emergency management planning specialist.

“Having started my career out with NOAA, it just feels like home to me to work with NOAA again,” Kim said.

On Kim’s first day in her new role, she got to experience the dashboard in action once again as NOAA responded to Hurricane Michael.

“There’s definitely a sense of accomplishment in seeing the dashboard in its intended use,” Kim said. “Charlie [Henry] and Kate [Wheelock] mapped it out and I was just trying to make their idea become a reality.”

The dashboard has received quite a bit of action during this past hurricane season, Kim said, adding that it’s been a great opportunity to continue improving it as a response tool.

In addition to her continued work on the dashboard, another big part of Kim’s new job will be training coordination. In this role, Kim will be coordinating classes such as Science of Oil Spills, NOAA-Specific Incident Command System 300, and Science of Chemical Releases.

“Training is really intriguing for me,” Kim said. “Having a connection to the community is really important to me and that’s the cool thing about external training is that you get to learn about what’s going on outside of your agency.”

Kim really values community involvement and outreach and sees preparedness as an important topic that everyone can get involved in.

“What’s really neat is that the Disaster Preparedness Program is a new program, so there’s a lot of opportunity to grow and change. To get to be a part of that is really exciting, and to think strategically about what role we can play as a program for OR&R and NOS [National Ocean Service],” Kim said.

“I definitely think the program could have a community outreach component and establish a link between NOAA and our communities so that we’re better prepared for hurricanes and ready to respond in different ways. It’s hard for me to think about preparedness without thinking about building a resilient community and infrastructure. So I think as we grow in the future that’s something we want to look at and incorporate into the program.”

When Kim isn’t working or busy taking care of her growing family, she enjoys spending time at the beach, surfing and paddleboarding. She hopes to share her love for paddleboarding with her daughters when they are old enough to swim, and she looks forward to the day when the whole family can do diving operations to collect seaweed together.

NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration was notified of the Lake Washington A10 Well Leak last Sunday, Dec. 9 when an equipment failure on a wellhead casing caused oil to begin discharging. OR&R has been on scene providing scientific support in the form of oil spill trajectories, aerial observations, and shoreline injury and cleanup assessments to the Unified Command.

Wildlife operations conducted by the Louisiana Department of Fish and Wildlife, the U.S. Coast Guard, and NOAA Office of Protected Resources are ongoing. The Unified Command has received reports of oiled birds and bottlenose dolphins have been observed swimming through oil on the water’s surface.

The Coast Guard stated in a press release earlier today that 10,080 gallons of oily water mixture has been recovered so far.

This is an update to the original story posted on Dec. 13, 2018.

OR&R’s Emergency Response Division is providing scientific support in the form of oil spill trajectories and shoreline injury and cleanup assessments to the Unified Command (consisting of the Coast Guard, Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator’s Office, and Hilcorp Energy Co.).

“Source control crews have controlled the leak, and continue to work to repair the well in attempt to prevent further discharging,” stated a Coast Guard press release on Wednesday. The release noted that roughly 11,000 feet of hard boom had been deployed to contain the leak. At the time of the release approximately 4,830 gallons of oily water mixture have been recovered and 116 oil spill response personnel were on scene conducting containment and clean-up operations.  

OR&R’s Assessment and Restoration Division has staff on scene to coordinate with co-trustees in evaluating impacts to NOAA Trust Resources. Additionally, the division is providing information management support through ERMA (Environmental Management Response Application), and the DIVER application.

Response operations are ongoing and more updates will follow.

By Shanelle Naone, Office of Response and Restoration

The power and mystery of the ocean draws some to develop an enduring sense of responsibility to protect it. Growing up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Charles Grisafi has had a lifelong connection to and love for the ocean. This special relationship has led him to pursue a career dedicated to conserving and safeguarding marine resources.

Charles has fulfilled his goal of working for NOAA in his position as the Florida and Caribbean regional coordinator as a Freestone Environmental Services contractor for OR&R’s Marine Debris Program. Doing this important work in a region that includes his home state of Florida is especially meaningful to him. He has long had a specific interest in the impacts of lost and discarded fishing gear on marine resources and solutions to the issue. As part of the marine debris team, he is able to directly contribute to efforts that address issues like this, and many more.

In his role he works with partners in Florida, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands on marine debris projects, assessing regional needs, supporting prevention and removal efforts, developing and implementing emergency response plans, and coordinating stakeholder outreach. Charles also works with partners to coordinate the implementation of the Florida Marine Debris Reduction Guidance Plan’s five goals.

Hurricane Response

Over the last two years, the Florida and Caribbean region has been severely impacted by hurricanes Irma, Maria, and Michael. As a result, a major area of focus for Charles has been coordinating marine debris response efforts. This included deploying to the Florida Emergency Operations Center to support the Hurricane Irma debris task force, serving as the statewide natural resources adviser coordinator for the United States Coast Guard Hurricane Irma Emergency Support Function (ESF) 10 mission, and he is now serving as a member of the Hurricane Michael ESF-10 response team. Charles also worked with state agency partners to develop large-scale projects to assess, remove, and dispose of hurricane-related marine debris in the region. Disaster relief funding from the Marine Debris Program, provided through the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, will support post-storm surveys, mapping of marine debris accumulation hot spots, and the removal and disposal of vessels, derelict fishing gear and traps, damaged piers, pilings, and other infrastructure debris in Florida.

Response work can be challenging, but Charles appreciates the opportunity to aid in efforts that address the destruction and devastation caused by hurricanes and the impacts its had on people’s lives.

“I am glad I can play a very small part in helping my fellow citizens recover. In the future, it’s important that I continue to assist partners in the region to be fully prepared to respond to severe marine debris events,” Charles said.

Developing Solutions Now and into the Future

Charles believes that working with stakeholders from diverse backgrounds in government, industry, and academia to create and implement solutions in their region, is one of the most rewarding aspects of his job.

“It’s a great feeling to watch a project develop from an idea on a napkin to a large-scale initiative working to remove or prevent marine debris,” he shared.

One of his future hopes for Florida and the Caribbean includes a region-wide effort to reduce the amount of lost and discarded fishing gear through working with the commercial fishing industry and recreational fishers to create solutions. He also looks forward to seeing completed marine debris action plans for each state and territory in the region, with stakeholders actively working together to implement them.

Our office is accepting applications for a Science of Oil Spills (SOS) class to be held March 25-29, 2019 in Mobile, Alabama. Those interested are encouraged to complete an application.

OR&R also teaches Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Technique (SCAT), and we will be offering a hybrid SOS/SCAT class March 11-15, 2019 in Hagatna, Guam. (Due to the distance involved for the Guam class, we are unable to offer both classes, so this class will offer materials from both SOS and SCAT training.) Please complete the SOS application form to be considered for this class.

SOS classes are designed to help spill responders and planners increase their understanding of oil spill science when analyzing spills and making risk-based decisions to protect public health, safety, and the environment.

The class offers a broad, science-based approach to understanding the framework for spill responses for the purpose of:

• increasing awareness and preparedness, and
• reducing uncertainty and risk associated with these types of incidents

SOS classes are primarily intended for new and mid-level spill responders, planners, and stakeholders from government and public agencies.

To learn more about SOS classes, review the sample agenda [PDF, 170 KB], the SOS Classes page, and our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) page. You're also welcome to contact us with questions, comments, or suggestions about SOS classes.

For 28 years, Ed Levine has worked in OR&R’s Emergency Response Division as a scientific support coordinator (SSC)in New York City. SSCs make up an interdisciplinary scientific team that responds to oil and chemical spills in U.S. waters and helps the U.S. Coast Guard make timely operational decisions during a spill response.

But for the past three years, Ed has served as a response operations supervisor for the East Coast at NOAA headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. In this position, he supervises the SSCs located from Maine to Louisiana. The way he sees it, his job is to ensure that OR&R’s emergency responders in the field — where the “rubber meets the road” — are best enabled to do their jobs. This encompasses a lot of administrative tasks, but mostly, he tries to look out for their welfare, and act as a mentor and sounding board.

A Winding Path to NOAA

As an undergraduate student at Boston University, Ed began his environmental career developing an independent concentration in coastal environmental studies. This concentration combined biology, chemistry, geography, and geology of the coastal zone (beaches).

From Boston University, Ed went on to enjoy “four years in paradise” as he pursued his graduate studies at the University of Puerto Rico. He grew to enjoy the Caribbean way of life and obtained a great all-around marine science education, focusing on chemical oceanography and completing a thesis on nutrient transport through red mangroves.

After leaving Puerto Rico, he returned to his roots in the Bronx, where he was hired by New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection to run the New York Bight program for compliance monitoring under the Environmental Protection Agency’s ocean dumping permit for sewage sludge.

While working for the city of New York, Ed had the opportunity to meet the OR&R SSC in New York at that time, Gary Ott. When he learned about the work that Gary did at NOAA, he was fascinated. Five and a half years later, seeking new opportunities, he read an employment ad in the New York Times for a position that sounded a lot like the role Gary had at NOAA. He applied and became the scientific support coordinator for New York.

The Highlights

In his position as response operations supervisor, Ed finds the most rewarding aspect of the job to be bringing field perspectives to the headquarters atmosphere. He tries to serve as an advocate for the field SSCs, who are the on-the-ground interface with OR&R’s stakeholders — such as the U.S. Coast Guard, state agencies, and the oil and chemical industries — by making people aware of how decisions made at the headquarters level affect staff in the field. He tries, where possible, to minimize the policies, procedures, and information needs of headquarters, and ensure that the SSCs have the time and tools to deliver OR&R products and services where they are needed.

Ed has enjoyed having an impact with the spill response community at the national level, as well as working with OR&R’s international partners — such as ITOPF, a foundation that responds to tanker-related incidents involving oil or chemical spills worldwide, and the Panama Canal Authority.

“Learning how other organizations do things around the world is eye-opening and instructive,” he said. “Also, bringing our knowledge to other areas is gratifying as well.”

Ed said his spill response career with OR&R has been very fulfilling, offering opportunities to respond to a broad array of incidents — from biological agents and chemical releases, to sewage releases and floating debris events.

“As an SSC, challenges and rewards occur every day. The mission of the Emergency Response Division is very easy to understand and respect,” Ed said. “With many responses behind me, ranging from small routine incidents, up to the Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon spills, there were many high points and numerous challenges. … There was never a day that was boring!”

Six pollution cases were settled, resolving several companies of their liability.

These cases included two oil spills and four hazardous waste sites in Maryland, Washington, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Louisiana, and Massachusetts.

The $34.3 million secured from these settlements will be used for the restoration of public resources such as fish, wildlife, habitats, and recreation.

America's coastal and marine environments are a shared public resource. They belong to us all. Visit the story map and walk through the six sites to learn more about NOAA's work on injured marine and freshwater resources in 2018.

OR&R puts out an annual report as an overview of the efforts in oil and chemical spill response, shoreline restoration, marine debris reduction, disaster preparedness, and the many other tasks OR&R handled during the previous fiscal year.

"It was an extraordinary year in OR&R. From the Sixth International Marine Debris Conference to receiving the Gold Medal for our hurricane response, from our $34 million in Natural Resource Damage Assessment settlements to creation of the Disaster Preparedness Program and from improvements to our lifesaving tools to another year with over 200 incidents, this report is just a snapshot of the great things we do every day. On behalf of OR&R, I also want to thank our leadership and incredible partners, as we could not have done this without their commitment and support. As I wrap up my career in NOAA, I have been humbled and honored to witness the incredible innovation, extraordinary capability, exemplary camaraderie and extreme dedication of our team. I thank you for standing ready every day and know the future will be even brighter. I proudly present this year’s accomplishments report."

~OR&R Director Dave Westerholm

Find out more about OR&R’s work for the past fiscal year by viewing our 2018 Accomplishments Report.

By Donna L. Roberts, Office of Response and Restoration

Oceanographer Amy MacFadyen had been in her position less than a year when she found herself supporting the emergency response to the largest marine oil spill ever to occur in U.S. waters — the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. She will never forget hearing the first reports from overflight observers flying over the spill source describing the magnitude of this incident, and realizing that she’d be providing critical information to support the massive emergency response.

Amy first came to OR&R in 2009, joining the small team of scientists who provide emergency support to the U.S. Coast Guard for oil spill response in coastal waters and the Great Lakes. The majority of the spills that OR&R provides support for are relatively small — for example, frequent small diesel spills from recreational or fishing vessels. Fortunately, larger spills like the Deepwater Horizon are relatively rare. But for spills big or small, an essential piece of information for emergency response is an estimate of where the spilled oil will end up — an oil spill trajectory forecast. This information is used to determine what habitats and resources are at risk — such as threatened or endangered species, sensitive habitats, shorelines important for human use — and to direct response activities.

To produce oil spill trajectory forecasts, OR&R oceanographers have developed modeling tools (GNOME: the General NOAA Operational Modeling Environment) for predicting the fate and transport of pollutants (such as oil) spilled in water. These modeling tools are used for NOAA’s spill response support and are also publicly available for use by the broader academic, response, and oil spill planning communities. In recent years, Amy has been part of the development team, updating GNOME’s algorithms and user interface (WebGNOME: a new, web-based, modern interface for running and interacting with the model).

Amy didn’t grow up wanting to be an oil spill modeler. She actually grew up in a rural lumber town in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada. Over the years, her home town of Nelson has transformed into a thriving arts and mountain sports mecca, but as a young adult, she couldn’t wait to head for the metropolis of Vancouver, where she became enthralled with all things marine. She became an avid scuba diver in the chilly waters surrounding Vancouver and the islands of the Salish Sea. She began taking marine science courses at a local college and dreamed of becoming a marine biologist. With a strong aptitude for math and physics, she went on to complete a physical oceanography degree from the University of Victoria, and ultimately, a doctorate from the University of Washington.

Spending as much time as possible in, on, and around the ocean, it’s no surprise that Amy’s graduate studies focused on the coastal physical oceanography of the Pacific Northwest. She had the opportunity to be a true seafaring oceanographer, participating in numerous research cruises off the Washington and B.C. coasts and also venturing further afield to the equatorial Pacific and even the Southern Ocean. Many of her research partners throughout her graduate studies were from different NOAA offices and she aspired to one day work for NOAA. In 2009, she was excited to hear about a position with the Office of Response and Restoration in Seattle.

Since joining OR&R, she has thoroughly enjoyed becoming more familiar with many other U.S. coastal regions — in particular, the Gulf Coast and the North Slope of Alaska — two regions she has since visited and learned a great deal about. Because she can be asked to work on spills anywhere in the U.S. or even internationally, establishing relationships with other NOAA offices and with regional experts is critical for success and she finds this part of the job very rewarding. Although it can be stressful having to provide information quickly for a spill potentially occurring anywhere in U.S. waters, she is excited to be putting her education and skills to use in such an important and much applied field.

Outside of work, Amy loves spending time outdoors, particularly backpacking and climbing with her husband in the Cascade Mountains. Recently, she and her husband have expanded their family through foster parenting and proudly saw their 5-year-old son off to kindergarten this fall.

Amy MacFadyen reaching the summit of Mount Rainier in 2006. 

Hurricane Michael made landfall near Mexico Beach, Florida yesterday as a Category 4 storm with winds of 155 miles an hour. Water levels at NOAA’s tide gauge in Apalachicola, Florida, broke the 2005 record set by Hurricane Dennis with a recorded 7.72 feet above high tide. Though the full impact has not yet been evaluated, the hurricane-force winds and storm surge have caused significant damage and there have already been several reports of displaced, overturned, or capsized vessels.

OR&R’s Gulf of Mexico Disaster Response Center, located in Mobile, Alabama, is currently providing office space and support to the Coast Guard and National Geodetic Survey. All OR&R staff working in the areas impacted by Michael are accounted for.

The U.S. Coast Guard established an incident command post in St. Petersburg, Florida on Tuesday in advance of the storm.  At this time, OR&R has not been activated for response and is standing by at the ready to deploy when the time comes.

Early imagery is being ingested into OR&R’s Environmental Response Management Application (ERMA) — a mapping tool frequently used as a common operating picture by NOAA, the U.S. Coast Guard, and other response agencies. NOAA and the Environmental Protection Agency have already identified regulated facilities, including commercial and industrial facilities and Superfund sites, that lie in the affected zones.

Having barreled its way through the Florida Panhandle, Michael is now moving northeast through the Carolinas as a tropical storm. According to the National Hurricane Center, Michael is headed northeast at approximately 23 mph and is expected to continue at that rate with an increase in forward speed throughout tonight. The center of the storm will continue to move across central and eastern North Carolina today before reaching Virginia this evening and continuing on to the western Atlantic ocean.

OR&R is continuing to staff the North Carolina incident command post for pollution task force operations for Hurricane Florence. That area may see additional flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Michael over the next few days. 

To stay up to date on Tropical Storm Michael's movements, visit the QuickLook here.

As impact became imminent, NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) began tracking the storm’s path and intensity.

OR&R facilitated daily coordination calls with several other NOAA entities along the coast  (including National Marine Fisheries Service and National Marine Sanctuaries) to prepare for potential impacts to NOAA staff, assets, and facilities. As OR&R continued to monitor the storm’s path and it became apparent Florence would make landfall in Wilmington, North Carolina, the team prepared to deploy staff to the area.

Among the first to arrive on scene were scientific support coordinator Frank Csulak and spatial data experts George Graettinger and Mike Greer, who support the management of OR&R’s Environmental Response Management Application (ERMA) — a mapping tool frequently used as a common operating picture by NOAA, the U.S. Coast Guard, and other response agencies. Their goal was to ingest post-event data from the National Geodetic Survey, Office for Coast Survey, Environmental Protection Agency, and other sources to determine the worst hit areas for flooding, coastal erosion, displaced vessels, and waterway obstructions. This effort allowed the U.S. Coast Guard to focus primarily on conducting search and rescue operations and clearing waterways to reconstitute vessel traffic, especially in the ports of Wilmington and Morehead City.

“The OR&R team knocked it out of the park in terms of supporting the Coast Guard,” Csulak said, adding that the NOAA team had the lead for using the National Geodetic Service’s aerial imagery to locate and identify displaced vessels. The Coast Guard then used ERMA as their common operating picture to visualize the location of these vessels, the habitats they ended up in, and prioritize vessels for removal.  

On Sept. 19, 2018, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s mission assignment tasking took effect and a pollution task force was established. Emergency Support Function #10 (ESF-10) is the framework coordinating federal and state agency response to actual or potential oil spills or hazardous material releases in the FEMA designated counties. Partnering ESF-10 agencies include NOAA and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The ERMA team was now focused on analyzing aerial imagery to locate displaced vessels and potential hazardous substance releases. This coupled with field assessments helped the Coast Guard determine which vessels had the highest chance of leaking or those that were located in the most environmentally sensitive areas.

“If vessels are not removed from the waterways, they will become a navigational hazard, or if they are not removed they could break up and create more of a marine debris problem,” Csulak said. “If the vessels are allowed to remain in the sensitive areas, they will destroy those areas through increase erosion and loss of habitat.”

Other team members coordinated with various state, federal, and nongovernmental agencies to develop best management practices to minimize any collateral impacts from the displaced vessels and coordinate Threatened and Endangered Species Act and Historic Preservation Act concerns with ongoing and planned response activities.

The Coast Guard and NOAA work to remove the pollutants from displaced vessels, however, the state of North Carolina is responsible for either arranging for the return of the vessels to their owners, relocating them out of sensitive areas, or disposing of them. NOAA advised the state of the environmental risks to habitats such as waterways, wetlands, oyster beds, seagrass beds, turtle and bird nesting areas. 

OR&R’s Katie Krushinski stepped on scene as a member of the North Carolina Joint Information Center — serving as the link between NOAA and the incident command post. She vetted NOAA-related inquiries from the public and media and was the conduit to share NOAA-specific information to support U.S. Coast Guard press releases. Krushinski’s role evolved and she served as the public information officer for the ESF-10 response.

“As for inter-agency coordination, the relationship we have developed with the Coast Guard for post-hurricane response is great,” Krushinski said. “Many of us deployed to hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria last year and we’ve all been through this process before. We were able to pick up where we left off last year and our interactions were flawless.”

As of Monday, Oct. 1, 2018, a new team of experts relieved the on-scene staff. OR&R personnel overcame the challenges of working in the aftermath left by Hurricane Florence — dealing with road closures and other navigation issues as well staffing and resource shortages.

Teams will continue to notify and educate vessel owners on the best ways to remove their property. The Coast Guard will assess the targets one more time before beginning hazardous material removal. This is an ongoing response that takes planning to ensure the safety of the environment as well as the community. As the establishment phase of the response efforts wraps up, implementation of response strategies and actions will soon begin.

Much of the success in responding to Florence can be attributed to the prolonged response during the 2017 hurricane season.

“We learned some valuable lessons about data management from last year’s hurricanes and we naturally pulled lessons learned into our processes this year," Krushinski said. "We ensured those same pitfalls didn’t happen this year and we were able to find solutions very early on. This allowed a more productive flow of information, helped those in the field do their job easily, and ultimately, helps the ecosystem recover as quickly as possible.”

The task force has identified 223 vessels in North Carolina impacted by the hurricane that hit the East Coast earlier this month. This number is expected to grow as initial assessments continue.

NOAA is providing scientific and technical aid, including geographic information system (GIS) support, to the incident command. The vessels discovered during the initial assessment — the majority of which are recreational vessels — are being tagged with a sticker requesting owners to contact a hotline to report the vessel’s salvage or request assistance. Vessels actively leaking pollution are the highest priority. Vessels that are sunk or damaged will be mitigated to avoid pollution release and may be relocated to avoid becoming a future hazard to navigation.

“Our number one priority during pollution assessments is the safety of our responders and the public affected by these potential hazards,” said U.S. Coast Guard Commander JoAnne Hanson in a Coast Guard press release. “Our objective is to complete assessment and mitigation of all hazardous materials and substances, including displaced vessels and chemical containers, that resulted from the hurricane.”

NOAA teams expect to remain on scene for at least several more weeks. The Coast Guard continues to survey waterways and place stickers on vessels advising the owners on their options and actions they need to undertake if they elect to remove their own vessels properly. The goal is to recover property with minimal environmental impact.

ESF-10 partner agencies have issued guidance for vessel owners who wish to remove their boats damaged by Hurricane Florence from local waterways. The Coast Guard has estimated that the majority of vessel owners, roughly 80 percent, will likely remove their own vessels — making the issued guidance an important component for pollution mitigation.

Contact Information

• Anyone witnessing an oil spill, chemical release, or maritime security incident should call the National Response Center hotline at 1-800-424-8802.
• Any containers smaller than 55 gallons (approximately two feet wide by three feet tall) should be reported to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality or local municipal waste facilities.
• Owners of storm-impacted vessels can contact the teams at 757-355-1042 to report their salvage plan or request assistance.

View the most recent Coast Guard press release for more information.

Hurricane Florence left a coastal disaster in its wake that continues to severely impact communities, ecosystems, and economies. The remnant catastrophic flooding in North and South Carolina continues to test responders as they assess coastal damage, clear debris and displaced vessels, address pollution, and reopen navigable waterways.

Both OR&R’s Emergency Response Division and Assessment and Restoration Division have staff in North Carolina to support abandoned vessel assessment and pollution response. OR&R will assist the Coast Guard with ESF-10 (Environmental Support Function) to identify and remove stranded and sunken vessels from marshes and waterways.

To reduce the collateral environmental impacts of the salvage and wreck removal activities, OR&R responders are also refining best management practices based on work done and lessons learned during the 2017 hurricane responses in Puerto Rico, Florida, and the U.S. Virgin Islands and tailoring them to the habitats and resources at risk in North Carolina waters.

OR&R is using National Geodetic Survey imagery to identify pollution targets post-storm and is currently supporting two command posts. Imagery is processed and posted online within 12 hours, including flight and processing time, and may be viewed online via the NGS aerial imagery viewer. NOAA's aerial imagery captures storm damage to coastal areas and aids safe navigation. It is a cost-effective tool for determining the extent of flood damages and assessing damage to major ports and waterways, coastlines, infrastructure, and coastal communities.

Office for Coast Survey is completing its work to survey ports and navigable waterways for any obstructions and hazards. OR&R’s Disaster Preparedness Program continues to provide situational awareness on NOAA’s continued efforts to support these mission response activities.

“NOAA’s Navigation Services Division conducts surveys and assessments in order to provide the Coast Guard with critical information to reconstitute and resume the flow of commercial operations vital to the North Carolina economy and national interests,” said Frank Csulak, NOAA scientific support coordinator, in a U.S. Coast Guard press release.

The Coast Guard advises all mariners to exercise extreme caution when transiting due to possible shoaling, debris and aids to navigation that still may be off-station or unreliable. Mariners should report any hazards to navigation to the Coast Guard Sector North Carolina command center at 919-722-4884.

For more information about NOAA’s Hurricane Florence response efforts, view the latest article “After landfall: 4 ways NOAA is helping your community recover from Florence.”

Hurricane Florence made landfall this morning near Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina after downgrading to a Category 1 storm — though the hurricane remains a life-threatening event and has caused severe flooding and left hundreds of thousands of people without power. Florence was moving slowly westward at 6 mph with sustained winds of 90 mph when it made landfall. Heavy rainfall, upwards of 20 inches in some locations, is expected to continue and will cause severe flooding across portions of the Carolinas into the weekend.

OR&R personnel will focus on  pollution-related assistance — though responders will likely not be able to assess the full scope of the storm’s impacts until next week at the earliest. In previous hurricanes, NOAA has assisted the U.S. Coast Guard with information management, derelict vessels, oil spills, hazardous material releases, and marine debris.

In addition to household hazardous materials, commercial oil, and other materials, the area of impact has a significant number of waste lagoons associated with the agricultural industry which are also a pollution concern. The Environmental Protection Agency has also been deployed to assist with Emergency Support Function (ESF) 10 for Oil and Hazardous Substances response efforts, and has identified 40 Superfund sites, oil sites, and other facilities that pose a pollution risk.

Weather conditions are still severe.  

“Once weather subsides and conditions become safe for first responders, we will begin search and rescue, focus on environmental impacts and begin the process to re-open our ports,” said Capt. Bion Stewart, incident commander of the Coast Guard’s Hurricane Florence response in North Carolina, in a Coast Guard press release.

OR&R is expecting to be supporting three command posts, though the mission and the response needs are still evolving. To stay up to date on Hurricane Florence’s movement, visit the National Hurricane Center or the Hurricane Florence QuickLook.

By Alexis Thorbecke, NOAA Marine Debris Program

Sarah Lowe is the Great Lakes regional coordinator for the Marine Debris Program and is based in Oak Harbor, Ohio. In this role, she works with partners across eight states in the U.S. and the Canadian province of Ontario to address the problem of marine debris in our Great Lakes.

Sarah is uniquely able to bring this vast region together partially because she truly is a member of that community. The Great Lakes have been a part of her life since she was a small child and her fondest memories growing up are of fishing, camping, and exploring on the shores of Lake Erie. However, her passion for aquatic ecosystems was really ignited during a marine biology class in high school.

She took that passion to Bowling Green State University where she received her bachelor's in biology and eventually her master’s studying heavy metals in lake sediments and their effects on mayfly larvae. She has previously worked on other important Great Lakes issues. As a research technician, Sarah documented aquatic invasive species interactions between the round goby and smallmouth bass, as well as industrial impacts to fisheries when she was part of a team evaluating the effects of coal-fired power plants on local fish species.

Sarah first joined NOAA as a John A. Knauss Marine Policy fellow in 2009, during the very early years of the Marine Debris Program. At the time, the program was about half its current size, and marine debris was not on the public consciousness the way it is today. Sarah did not know much about the issue. As she started her work helping to standardize monitoring procedures for the Marine Debris Monitoring and Assessment Project, she realized the enormity of the problem. When the opportunity came about to become the Great Lakes Coordinator of this fledgling program, Sarah jumped at the chance to bring what she had learned in Silver Spring back to her own community.

Until 2015, Sarah also shared time with the NOAA Restoration Center, where she assisted in the management of Great Lakes Restoration Initiative projects, provided technical assistance on restoration techniques to regional partners, participated in natural resource damage assessment cases, and worked with Great Lakes Areas of Concern on restoration and assessing the integrity of the ecosystem.

Addressing debris in the Great Lakes isn’t always easy, there are many challenges that are unique to this region. It is one of the largest regions and is managed by two different countries — the U.S. and Canada. It is also freshwater, which makes it unique to the other regions of the Marine Debris Program. Plastics behave differently in the vast windswept waters of the lakes. Research indicates that debris tends to be break into smaller pieces in the lakes as compared to our world ocean, and since many communities get their drinking water from the lakes, things like microplastics become a huge health concern.

Sarah isn’t daunted by the scope of the problem in front of her. She says working with the young students in her community makes it all worthwhile. Her strong sense of place drives her to help kids fall in love with and care for the lakes the way she has.

“When you see the light bulb go off, it really hammers home why we do what we do,” she said.

When not at work, Sarah loves to travel, read, and spend time with her family on the shore of the lake where she grew up.

Aug. 24, 2018 — As Hurricane Lane continues to move north toward the main Hawaiian Islands, NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration, the U.S. Coast Guard, and many other federal and state agencies are alert and standing by to begin response efforts.

The Central Pacific Hurricane Center announced earlier this week that Hurricane Lane would be closing in on the Hawaiian Islands from Thursday and into the weekend. What began as a Category 4 hurricane was downgraded to a Category 2 this morning, though the latest forecast stated the center of the hurricane is still expected to come dangerously close to the central Hawaiian Islands today.

Life threatening conditions are still possible for the now Category 2 hurricane, with a potential for flash floods, landslides, and swells generating large and rough surf with dangerous rip currents. Hurricane Lane is expected to produce rainfall between 10 to 20 inches, with some areas receiving as much as 40 inches of rain. The Big Island, Maui County, and Oahu are already experiencing tropical storm conditions, including excessive rainfall resulting in flash floods.

In a press release on Wednesday, the the Coast Guard updated the port conditions in advance of Hurricane Lane, alerting the Hawaii County ports that gale force winds were expected within 12 hours.

The Coast Guard requested that all recreational watercraft should seek sheltered waters. Large ocean-going vessels and barges (200 gross tons and above) have been told to prepare to depart port before gale force winds are within 12 hours of the port — when all activity in the port will be suspended until the storm has passed and damage assessment has been completed.

Transportation of bulk oil and hazardous materials within the port has been limited, and shore-side facilities will begin to remove debris and make preparations for heavy weather.

“The Coast Guard reminds the public when hurricane or tropical storm force winds are present to stay off the water and clear of beaches. The Coast Guard's search and rescue capabilities degrade as storm conditions strengthen. This may delay help,” the release advised. “Heed weather watches, warnings, and small craft advisories. Evacuate as necessary. Coast Guard personnel and other emergency responders may not be able to evacuate or rescue those in danger during the storm.”

For more information on Hurricane Lane’s progress and hurricane preparedness, please visit the Central Pacific Hurricane Center or the NOAA Hurricane Lane QuickLook.

Debris on beaches is not only ugly, it can be hazardous to people on the sand or out in the water, and it could also be costing you money!

In a study funded by the NOAA Marine Debris Program, it was found that the presence of debris on beaches influences our decisions to go to a beach littered with debris, or spend money seeking out a cleaner spot. Focusing on southern California, the study surveyed residents in Orange County to understand what features are most important when they consider visiting a beach. These included a scenic view, convenient parking, the distance from their home, and even whether or not the beach is suitable for recreational activities like surfing or fishing. However, most important to residents is that no marine debris is on the beach, and that it features good water quality.

In order to find a beach that fits the bill, residents of southern California find themselves travelling farther from their local beaches, and spending more money as a result. Overall, this results in losses of millions of dollars every year. By reducing marine debris on beaches by just 25 percent, Orange County residents could save roughly $32 million during summer months by decreasing travel distances to enjoy the beach.

The study only focused on one county in the United States, where tourism generated over $1.5 trillion in economic output in 2016, according to the Department of Commerce SelectUSA Program. In a country where one out of every 18 Americans is employed in a travel or tourism-related industry, the potential effects marine debris has on this sector of the economy is substantial.

In order to better understand the financial impacts of marine debris around the country, the NOAA Marine Debris Program is partnering with Abt Associates to conduct a Regional Pilot Study in a first attempt to link beach trip choices with estimates of marine debris at beaches. The regions of interest for this work include the Great Lakes (OH), Mid-Atlantic (DE), Gulf of Mexico (AL), and West Coast (CA). Using this information and data from the previous Orange County study, we can evaluate changes in tourism spending based on increases or decreases in marine debris, improve our understanding of the economic impact of marine debris, and prioritize areas of the United States where future prevention and removal efforts might be needed.

So, where does the debris on beaches come from? Well, it comes from us! People are the sole cause of marine debris, but that means we can also be the solution. You can help reduce marine debris on beaches by practicing these simple tips and tricks:

• Reduce your waste footprint. Reduce the amount of waste you bring to the beach by choosing reusable bottles, food containers, and coolers.
• Dispose of trash properly, no matter where you are. Whether you are inland, or on the beach, trash can travel. Wind, rain, and storms can push trash and litter into storm drains and streams, where it can travel to our ocean and Great Lakes.
• Keep track of your beach toys. Make sure to keep an eye on your beach toys, like balls, sand shovels and nets. What may seem like a good place to leave your stuff while you go explore, may soon be covered in water as the tide rises. These plastic items can quickly wash out to sea and become marine debris.
• Pack it out. No trash cans, or only overflowing bins at your beach? No problem! Pack up all of the trash you bring to the beach and dispose of it properly once you get home.
• Clean up debris. Spend a couple of minutes picking up the debris around you when you leave the beach, and dispose of it properly. Want to do more? Join a local cleanup, or start your own using the Marine Debris Tracker app!

The Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary notified NOAA that a fishing vessel had grounded at the base of a bluff near the sanctuary earlier that day. Attempts to pull the vessel off the bluff were unsuccessful. It was determined that salvage operations would be unsafe.

The 56-foot commercial fishing vessel had a maximum potential capacity of 1,200 gallons of diesel aboard at the time of the spill. The Pacific Quest began discharging diesel fuel after the vessel started to break apart on the rocks — rupturing a fuel line.

The fuel vents were secured during low tide to prevent further discharge. No oil sheen has been observed at this point. As of Monday, Aug. 13 the vessel remained aground and responders were working to remove fuel from tanks on the beach during low tide.

"The Coast Guard and other federal, state and local agencies have established a unified command to ensure a safe and rapid response to the Pacific Quest grounding," said Coast Guard Ensign Kelly Hodges in a press release, the federal on-scene coordinator representative for the unified command. "We are working diligently with our partners to minimize impacts to the public and the environment."

For more information, see the Coast Guard’s most recent update. You can also check out a video of the grounded vessel here.

This new law resulted in NOAA’s Deepwater Ports Project Office — an early predecessor to NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration and the start of OR&R Senior Economist Norman Meade’s 43 year career with NOAA.

“There was an increase in public awareness that came from assessing costs and impacts from potential oil spills,” Norman said, adding that in the mid- to late 1970s NOAA had been very innovative in preparing for the potential negative environmental impacts that the rise in big tankers could lead to. Though, he said, it wasn’t until the Amoco Cadiz oil spill of 1978 that NOAA had the opportunity for a large-scale damage assessment.

On March 16, 1978, the super tanker Amoco Cadizran aground on Portsall Rocks three miles off the northwestern coast of France due to failure of the steering mechanism and stormy weather. The entire cargo — a total of 1,619,048 barrels of oil — spilled into the sea and polluted approximately 200 miles of the Brittany coastline, a very ecologically and recreationally important region of France.

“That was really the first oil spill that was studied in depth by lots of different disciplines under the rubric of the natural resource impacts,” Norman said. “I was involved with conducting a study of the economic consequences, which NOAA headed up in collaboration with French colleagues. For many of us, that was the first time we were involved in an empirical study of the economic impact of an oil spill.

Since then, the tools and methodologies available have evolved to offer a more in-depth precise estimate of the economic and social impacts of oil spills. Find out more below in the Q&A with NOAA economist Norman Meade:

Q: How have the economic assessment methodologies changed over time?

A: Since the late ‘70s when I got started studying the economic effects of oil spills, a number of state and federal laws and regulations have been created to codify how natural resource trustees, such as NOAA, are to go about assessing the ecological and economic impacts of oil spills and hazardous waste site releases. The biggest change over time is probably in the depth and accuracy of the results. They aren’t dramatically different, but they’re more refined and more sophisticated. There’s more data that can be relied on. Advances in the natural sciences have influenced the development of the social sciences — and vice versa — such that we can progressively get better insights into what the ecological and economic consequences are.

Q: When assessing the damages to natural resources, how do you arrive at a monetary number for what they’re worth?

A: Looking at how we estimate the cost of spills, we are using what’s called non-market valuation — things that are not traded in ordinary markets. You don’t go to the store to purchase a trip to a clean beach, you may have other accrued costs — such as for transportation, entry fees, and the like — but you can’t buy that experience in the market.

For example, if you’re trying to preserve an endangered species, say an endangered chinook salmon in the Columbia River, what’s the value of that fish? Is it just the value of the price it could be sold for in a fish market? … Hardly. Some people also want to preserve the fish just for its existence — because people care about them swimming in the wild, maybe it symbolizes their view on what should exist in nature, and obviously Native Americans have their own cultural uses and values for salmon as well. Losses of the mere existence of species (natural resources) that members of the public care about would not otherwise be compensated for were it not for natural resource damage assessment laws and regulations. NOAA and other natural resource trustees act on behalf of the public to quantify losses of resources and/or their services and compensate the public for them. Without a trustee doing that, the public would be at a loss to recover them on their own because of the way our system of laws works regarding publicly owned natural resources. The principle that the natural resource damage assessment process is built on is that the trustees work on behalf of the public to make the public whole and to compensate them through restoration projects that try to provide equivalent projects and services to what they lost. It’s still not a perfect process, but we’re constantly learning and improving on the science, data, and techniques.

Q: How you decide what method to use for valuation?

A: Habitat equivalency analysis is one of the methodologies in our toolbox for analysis to equate the amount of loss, in ecological terms, with the amount of gain, in ecological terms. We avoid putting economic values on the resources until the very end when we estimate the cost for the restoration projects to just equal the level of ecological services lost. That’s an ecological based approach typically used for cooperative resource damage assessment settlements.

Revealed preference methods (RPM) and stated preference methods (SPM), they’re both survey based, i.e. where you have to collect survey data in order to estimate the value lost in, say, recreational activity. The travel cost method (aRPM),takes the cost people incur to travel to and from a site for a recreational activity and derives an estimate of the value of the recreational experience or trip. This allows us to estimate losses from oil spills that close beaches or result in fish consumption advisories. Even when people are just aware that there are contaminated fish in the water, how does that affect their recreational experience? … There’s also another type of human use loss, which I referred to earlier, known as passive use values, where you don’t exactly have to reveal your use of the resources. “Nonuse values” is a little misleading so we prefer to say “passive use values,” are for resources that people care about or just want to know they exist, say for future generations (a bequest value, if you will). That’s where the stated preference method comes in, we typically ask people their willingness to pay to prevent the loss or willingness to receive payment to accept a loss.

Most recently with the Deepwater Horizon natural resource damage assessment, we employed both stated and revealed preference methods to estimate recreational and total value losses. Recreational loss is a subset to the total value loss. Just because some people don’t ever go to the Gulf of Mexico, doesn’t mean that they don’t care about natural resources adversely impacted there by an oil spill. It [passive use value losses] could potentially pertain to anyone in the U.S. population, whereas the recreational losses would be limited to the people who actually recreated, or wanted to recreate, there. It took awhile for the concern over the oiling and the impact on people’s decisions and values to go back to baseline following the spill. Collecting recreational data for two plus years after the spill, there were telephone and mail surveys as well as on-shore surveys and aerial counts of users on the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico. We asked people retrospectively what their reaction was to the injuries caused by the spill. We described in detail the key injuries as we understood them from the natural scientists and we asked them what they would be willing to pay to prevent another Deepwater Horizon spill.

Q: From these surveys, have you discovered some resources that the public values more than others?

A: Different people care about different things. What you learn from these surveys is that there are big difference is what people care about. Such as the more charismatic critters like sea otters, whales, dolphins … not surprisingly more people resonate to those animals with higher expressions of value and importance than they do for small benthic organisms that live down in the sediments. But even for a generally acknowledged charismatic critter, like the sea otter, there are people who value them very little versus those who value them highly. ... Someone in Chicago, who has a greater passive use value for them, may value otters more highly than a fisherman living along the Pacific Coast.

Q: If you could emphasize to the public any one point, what would it be?

A: That human values and the natural world are very complex and we should not assume we understand either based on instinct, rather than sound scientific evidence. Scientists who get degrees in these subject areas will have a lot more knowledge, but that doesn’t mean that people without that knowledge don’t hold legitimate values for elements of the natural world. One of the things that has been a real benefit to society from the natural resource damage assessment process (in addition to compensatory restoration), is the knowledge and insights gained into the natural world and how people value the goods and services they provide.. The damage assessment process is in part a public process. When we get to the stage of having a successful claim and the damage assessment and restoration plan comes out with information on the value of the injuries and the preferred restoration projects, the public gets to comment on that, and in some cases, change the thinking of the trustees about what and how to restore. Outreach, communicating what the trustees are doing to restore those injured resources is key. We try to keep the public informed so they understand what they’re getting back for what they lost.

 

Norman Meade is the senior economist for NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration. He joined NOAA's Deepwater Ports Project Office in 1975 after working as a staff economist for the Environmental Protection Agency. He stepped into the role of senior economist for OR&R in 1990 and after 43 years at NOAA, Norman will be retiring this year. To learn more about Norman's work, read his recent paper titled "Estimating the value of lost recreation days from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill."

Related Articles: 

• Looking Deeper at the Social Science Behind Marine Pollution

This new law resulted in NOAA’s Deepwater Ports Project Office — an early predecessor to NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration and the start of OR&R Senior Economist Norman Meade’s 43 year career with NOAA.

“There was an increase in public awareness that came from assessing costs and impacts from potential oil spills,” Norman said, adding that in the mid- to late 1970s NOAA had been very innovative in preparing for the potential negative environmental impacts that the rise in big tankers could lead to. Though, he said, it wasn’t until the Amoco Cadiz oil spill of 1978 that NOAA had the opportunity for a large-scale damage assessment.

On March 16, 1978, the super tanker Amoco Cadizran aground on Portsall Rocks three miles off the northwestern coast of France due to failure of the steering mechanism and stormy weather. The entire cargo — a total of 1,619,048 barrels of oil — spilled into the sea and polluted approximately 200 miles of the Brittany coastline, a very ecologically and recreationally important region of France.

“That was really the first oil spill that was studied in depth by lots of different disciplines under the rubric of the natural resource impacts,” Norman said. “I was involved with conducting a study of the economic consequences, which NOAA headed up in collaboration with French colleagues. For many of us, that was the first time we were involved in an empirical study of the economic impact of an oil spill.

Since then, the tools and methodologies available have evolved to offer a more in-depth precise estimate of the economic and social impacts of oil spills. Find out more below in the Q&A with NOAA economist Norman Meade:

Q: How have the economic assessment methodologies changed over time?

A: Since the late ‘70s when I got started studying the economic effects of oil spills, a number of state and federal laws and regulations have been created to codify how natural resource trustees, such as NOAA, are to go about assessing the ecological and economic impacts of oil spills and hazardous waste site releases. The biggest change over time is probably in the depth and accuracy of the results. They aren’t dramatically different, but they’re more refined and more sophisticated. There’s more data that can be relied on. Advances in the natural sciences have influenced the development of the social sciences — and vice versa — such that we can progressively get better insights into what the ecological and economic consequences are.

Q: When assessing the damages to natural resources, how do you arrive at a monetary number for what they’re worth?

A: Looking at how we estimate the cost of spills, we are using what’s called non-market valuation — things that are not traded in ordinary markets. You don’t go to the store to purchase a trip to a clean beach, you may have other accrued costs — such as for transportation, entry fees, and the like — but you can’t buy that experience in the market.

For example, if you’re trying to preserve an endangered species, say an endangered chinook salmon in the Columbia River, what’s the value of that fish? Is it just the value of the price it could be sold for in a fish market? … Hardly. Some people also want to preserve the fish just for its existence — because people care about them swimming in the wild, maybe it symbolizes their view on what should exist in nature, and obviously Native Americans have their own cultural uses and values for salmon as well. Losses of the mere existence of species (natural resources) that members of the public care about would not otherwise be compensated for were it not for natural resource damage assessment laws and regulations. NOAA and other natural resource trustees act on behalf of the public to quantify losses of resources and/or their services and compensate the public for them. Without a trustee doing that, the public would be at a loss to recover them on their own because of the way our system of laws works regarding publicly owned natural resources. The principle that the natural resource damage assessment process is built on is that the trustees work on behalf of the public to make the public whole and to compensate them through restoration projects that try to provide equivalent projects and services to what they lost. It’s still not a perfect process, but we’re constantly learning and improving on the science, data, and techniques.

Q: How you decide what method to use for valuation?

A: Habitat equivalency analysis is one of the methodologies in our toolbox for analysis to equate the amount of loss, in ecological terms, with the amount of gain, in ecological terms. We avoid putting economic values on the resources until the very end when we estimate the cost for the restoration projects to just equal the level of ecological services lost. That’s an ecological based approach typically used for cooperative resource damage assessment settlements.

Revealed preference methods (RPM) and stated preference methods (SPM), they’re both survey based, i.e. where you have to collect survey data in order to estimate the value lost in, say, recreational activity. The travel cost method (aRPM),takes the cost people incur to travel to and from a site for a recreational activity and derives an estimate of the value of the recreational experience or trip. This allows us to estimate losses from oil spills that close beaches or result in fish consumption advisories. Even when people are just aware that there are contaminated fish in the water, how does that affect their recreational experience? … There’s also another type of human use loss, which I referred to earlier, known as passive use values, where you don’t exactly have to reveal your use of the resources. “Nonuse values” is a little misleading so we prefer to say “passive use values,” are for resources that people care about or just want to know they exist, say for future generations (a bequest value, if you will). That’s where the stated preference method comes in, we typically ask people their willingness to pay to prevent the loss or willingness to receive payment to accept a loss.

Most recently with the Deepwater Horizon natural resource damage assessment, we employed both stated and revealed preference methods to estimate recreational and total value losses. Recreational loss is a subset to the total value loss. Just because some people don’t ever go to the Gulf of Mexico, doesn’t mean that they don’t care about natural resources adversely impacted there by an oil spill. It [passive use value losses] could potentially pertain to anyone in the U.S. population, whereas the recreational losses would be limited to the people who actually recreated, or wanted to recreate, there. It took awhile for the concern over the oiling and the impact on people’s decisions and values to go back to baseline following the spill. Collecting recreational data for two plus years after the spill, there were telephone and mail surveys as well as on-shore surveys and aerial counts of users on the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico. We asked people retrospectively what their reaction was to the injuries caused by the spill. We described in detail the key injuries as we understood them from the natural scientists and we asked them what they would be willing to pay to prevent another Deepwater Horizon spill.

Q: From these surveys, have you discovered some resources that the public values more than others?

A: Different people care about different things. What you learn from these surveys is that there are big difference is what people care about. Such as the more charismatic critters like sea otters, whales, dolphins … not surprisingly more people resonate to those animals with higher expressions of value and importance than they do for small benthic organisms that live down in the sediments. But even for a generally acknowledged charismatic critter, like the sea otter, there are people who value them very little versus those who value them highly. ... Someone in Chicago, who has a greater passive use value for them, may value otters more highly than a fisherman living along the Pacific Coast.

Q: If you could emphasize to the public any one point, what would it be?

A: That human values and the natural world are very complex and we should not assume we understand either based on instinct, rather than sound scientific evidence. Scientists who get degrees in these subject areas will have a lot more knowledge, but that doesn’t mean that people without that knowledge don’t hold legitimate values for elements of the natural world. One of the things that has been a real benefit to society from the natural resource damage assessment process (in addition to compensatory restoration), is the knowledge and insights gained into the natural world and how people value the goods and services they provide.. The damage assessment process is in part a public process. When we get to the stage of having a successful claim and the damage assessment and restoration plan comes out with information on the value of the injuries and the preferred restoration projects, the public gets to comment on that, and in some cases, change the thinking of the trustees about what and how to restore. Outreach, communicating what the trustees are doing to restore those injured resources is key. We try to keep the public informed so they understand what they’re getting back for what they lost.

Norman Meade is the senior economist for NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration. He joined NOAA's Deepwater Ports Project Office in 1975 after working as a staff economist for the Environmental Protection Agency. He stepped into the role of senior economist for OR&R in 1990 and after 43 years at NOAA, Norman will be retiring this year. To learn more about Norman's work, read his recent paper titled "Estimating the value of lost recreation days from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill."