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SEPT. 30, 2024 – The NOAA Marine Debris Program is pleased to release the Guam Marine Debris Emergency Response Guide (Guide). This Guide aims to improve preparedness for responding to marine debris after typhoons and other disasters in the territory. A recent example is Typhoon Mawar, which impacted the island in May of 2023 and caused severe damage and impacts.
OR&R Weekly Report
The Office of Response and Restoration publishes this weekly round-up of news and information of interest to our partners, stakeholders, and team members. Click to subscribe
SEPT. 30, 2024 — During the week of September 16, 50 spill responders and planners gathered at the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Michigan for a Science of Oil Spills (SOS) class hosted by NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R).
SEPT. 30, 2024 – This month, NOAA's Office of Response & Restoration (OR&R) sponsored a workshop on Remote Sensing/Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) at the Coastal Response Research Center (CRRC) in Durham, New Hampshire.
SEPT. 30, 2024 – NOAA’s Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program (DARRP) is responsible for evaluating, restoring, and protecting our nation’s coastal and estuarine habitats harmed by hazardous waste releases, oil spills, and vessel groundings. NOAA and co-trustees work with those responsible to secure funding for restoration to compensate the public. Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) pollution settlements are used to restore robust fisheries, endangered species, coastal habitats, and outdoor recreation.
September 2024
SEPT. 23, 2024 – This month, NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration participated in a National Oil Spill Response Planning Workshop held in Koror, Republic of Palau which helped Palau responders develop a national response plan for oil and chemical spills.
SEPT. 16, 2024 — U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) Sector Northern New England recently completed a salvage operation of a historic sardine fishing vessel that sank in Maine during a January 2024 nor'easter. William Whitmore, the NOAA Scientific Support Coordinator for Sector Northern New England provided guidance to the USCG during the response and salvage efforts.
SEPT. 16, 2024 — On September 4, NOAA Scientific Support Coordinator for the Pacific Islands, Ruth Yender, participated in the 2024 U.S.-Taiwan Coast Guard Marine Environmental Response Group Online Symposium Program. The objective of the symposium was to deepen the cooperation between Taiwan and the U.S. in marine environmental response by providing an opportunity for dialogue and enhancing understanding of each other.
SEPT. 16, 2024 — On September 6, over 300 people gathered at the William S. Cahill Pier in Oswego, New York to witness and celebrate the designation of Southeastern Lake Ontario as the nation’s 16th national marine sanctuary.
SEPT. 9, 2024 — On September 5, the NOAA Marine Debris Program announced the 13 projects recommended for its NOAA Marine Debris Removal and Interception Technologies grant awards for Fiscal Year 2024, totaling over $23 million in federal funding for marine debris removal. Funding for these opportunities was provided through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
SEPT. 9, 2024 — On August 29, the NOAA Marine Debris Program within the Office of Response and Restoration, in coordination with the University of Rhode Island, hosted the first in-person progress update workshop for participants of the Southern New England Marine Debris Action Plan.
SEPT. 9, 2024 — On September 4, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a proposed $152 million settlement in connection to the release of hazardous substances into Margaret’s Creek Marsh, Old Bridge Waterfront Park and Raritan Bay from the Raritan Bay Slag Superfund Site in Old Bridge and Sayreville, New Jersey.
SEPT. 9, 2024 — The team behind the CAMEO® Software Suite is the 2024 recipient of the Howard Fawcett Chemical Health and Safety Award. Awarded annually since 1983 by the American Chemical Society, the award recognizes outstanding contributions to the science, technology, education, and communication of chemical health and safety.
SEPT. 9, 2024 — The 2024 annual meeting of the Southeast and Caribbean Regional Collaboration Team (SECART) took place in Key West, Florida on August 27-29. Participants included representatives from nearly all NOAA Line Offices, including National Ocean Service representatives from the Office of Coast Survey, Office for Coastal Management and Office of Response and Restoration. Discussions had during this meeting included:
SEPT. 9, 2024 — On September 3, the NOAA Marine Debris Program, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and Alaska Sea Grant announced $1.2 million in federal funding for seven marine debris removal projects funded under the 2024 Community Marine Debris Removal Grant Program.
SEPT. 9, 2024 — Two scientists from NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration’s Emergency Response Division gave presentations at the fall 2024 meeting of the American Chemical Society, which took place August 18–22 in Denver, Colorado. They were among the hundreds of chemistry professionals who gathered at the biennial event to share ideas, advance scientific and technical knowledge, and connect with the scientific society.
SEPT. 3, 2024 — On August 29, OR&R presented on its oil and chemical spill response expertise and experience in the Great Lakes region and nationwide, as part of the Hazardous Materials Transport Outreach Network (HazMaTON) Summer Webinar Series hosted by the National Sea Grant Program (Sea Grant). Lieutenant Commander Chris Duffy, who serves as OR&R’s Great Lakes Scientific Support Coordinator, provided the presentation virtually from the NOAA Research Vessel Oscar Dyson in the Bering Sea, Alaska.
SEPT. 3, 2024 — In August, staff from the NOAA Marine Debris Program (MDP), within NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration, visited and supported Oregon Marine Debris Monitoring and Assessment Project (MDMAP) partners in public engagement events.
August 2024
AUGUST 19, 2024 — In July, staff from the NOAA Marine Debris Program, within the Office of Response and Restoration, traveled to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) and Guam to visit project partners and sites. Concurrently, they hosted educator workshops for formal and informal educators to learn about marine debris in the classroom.
AUGUST 15, 2024 — NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) is supporting an oil spill from the tanker Terranova, which capsized and sank in Manila Bay, Philippines on July 25, 2024. A Philippine-flagged oil tanker carrying 396,000 gallons of industrial fuel oil, the Terranova rests in approximately 130 feet of water off the coast of Bataan.
AUGUST 12, 2024 — A team of OR&R scientists, data managers, and support staff gathered in Santa Barbara, California in collaboration with the Coastal Response Research Center (CRRC) at the University of New Hampshire, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), and private industry partners to advance technological capabilities for detecting and characterizing spilled oil and the impacts to aquatic wildlife.
Projects will strengthen local disaster readiness and recovery in Alaska, Connecticut, the Northern Gulf of Mexico region and South Carolina.
AUGUST 12, 2024 — Throughout the month of July, staff from NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration’s Assessment and Restoration Division and NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science Ecotoxicology Branch completed a joint preparedness exercise in coastal Louisiana, testing newly developed field-based mesocosms for potential use in Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) of nearshore marsh ecosystems.
AUGUST 12, 2024 — The Office of Response and Restoration’s (OR&R) Disaster Preparedness Program brought together nearly 100 team members from across NOAA for a virtual workshop to discuss disaster recovery.
AUGUST 12, 2024 — On any given day, NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) could be requested to provide response, assessment, and restoration scientific support associated with oil and chemical spills occurring in marine and coastal waters anywhere in the world. This work poses unique safety challenges, particularly when an incident occurs in remote, arctic, and offshore marine environments.
AUGUST 5, 2024 — On June 18, staff with NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) flew with a team from the U.S. Coast Guard’s Aviation Training Center (ATC) Mobile in Mobile, Alabama, as part of a broad hurricane response exercise to observe the capabilities of Coast Guard aircraft for potential use in pollution and environmental disaster response.
AUGUST 5, 2024 — NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) is excited to announce that John Tarpley was recently selected as Chief of OR&R’s Emergency Response Division (ERD)—the program within OR&R that provides scientific support for preparedness and response to spills and other coastal emergencies. John’s vision, subject matter expertise, leadership, and emergency management experience is an excellent fit in this pivotal role within OR&R. John took the helm of the division on August 1, 2024.
AUGUST 5, 2024 — On July 15, 2024, the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington finalized a settlement with General Recycling and two affiliates valued at over $23 million for adverse impacts to natural resources resulting from hazardous substance releases into the Lower Duwamish River in Washington.
July 2024
JULY 29, 2024 — From July 9-11, staff from NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R)’s Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) and Emergency Response Division (ERD) convened in Seattle, Washington to strategize program operations for the upcoming 2025 fiscal year (FY25).
JULY 29, 2024 — On May 30, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice approved a settlement of $427,000 for restoration, from the Flint Hills Ingleside Dock #5 oil spill. The spill occurred on December 24, 2022, when a pipeline failure at the Ingleside crude oil terminal released approximately 14,000 gallons of light crude oil into Corpus Christi Bay, Texas.
JULY 29, 2024 — On July 24, the NOAA Marine Debris Program announced two Fiscal Year 2025 NOAA Marine Debris notices of funding opportunity for both Marine Debris Removal and Interception Technologies under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. These two funding opportunities include the availability of up to $54 million across the competitions and allow NOAA to support impactful, large marine debris removal projects, as well as the installation of proven marine debris interception technologies, throughout the coastal United States, Great Lakes, territories, and Freely Associated States.
JULY 29, 2024 — From July 8-19, the NOAA Western Regional Center in Seattle transformed into NOAA Science Camp, where middle schoolers from across the Puget Sound explored the science and career possibilities at NOAA.
JULY 29, 2024 — On July 16 -17, approximately 50 emergency responders from across the Eastern Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway Area Committee convened at the Jefferson County Emergency Operations Center and Jacques Cartier State Park in upstate New York.
JULY 29, 2024 — On July 23, approximately 70 emergency responders across the Western Lake Superior region gathered on the Bad River Reservation near Ashland, Wisconsin for a functional response exercise based on a simulated pipeline release into the Bad River. The Unified Command (UC) for the exercise convened and talked through the initial response. Responders met in the field, checked in, and deployed oil boom to contain the simulated spill.
JULY 22, 2024 — The commonly held belief that good things come in threes was evident this year when NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) followed up on the success of last year’s inaugural safety training by providing not one, but three Safety Academy training opportunities. Geared toward the continuous improvement and maturation of OR&R’s safety culture, this year took a more inclusive approach by offering safety training relevant to both field and office staff.