MARCH 13, 2023 — Last month, staff from NOAA's Marine Debris Program, within the Office of Response and Restoration, presented to a tour group from the Pacific branch of the Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance (CFE-DM). CFE-DM is a U.S. Department of Defense organization that builds crisis response capacity and enhances coordination and collaboration with civilian and foreign partners.

MARCH 6, 2023 — Last month, the NOAA Marine Debris Program led the first virtual workshop to create the Southern New England Marine Debris Action Plan.

MARCH 6, 2023 — Last month, staff from NOAA's Marine Debris Program, within the Office of Response and Restoration, spoke about the issue of abandoned and derelict vessels at a public event in Cape May, New Jersey.

FEB. 27, 2023 — On Feb. 7, NOAA staff joined a group of other local organizations in a night of learning and exploration with students and families at Kapolei Elementary’s STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) night.

FEB. 27, 2023 — The United States Interagency Marine Debris Coordinating Committee will hold a virtual public meeting on March 15, 2023, from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. ET. The public meeting will include presentations from the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Agency for International Development on their relevant marine debris-related activities.

FEB. 13, 2023 — NOAA and partners recently released a new report on oil slick thickness, "Comparing Recent Advances in Estimating and Measuring Oil Slick Thickness: An MPRI Technical Report."

FEB. 13, 2023 — Last month, the NOAA Marine Debris Program, within the Office of Response and Restoration, participated in an “Expert Is In” program at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

FEB. 6, 2023 — The Department of Justice lodged a consent decree on Jan. 30, 2023, that proposes a settlement with Lynden Inc. and others to resolve claims related to releases of hazardous waste pollution on the Lower Duwamish River in Seattle.

FEB. 6, 2023 — NOAA and other federal, state, and tribal natural resource trustees have released a Draft Damage Assessment Plan for the St. Louis River / U.S. Steel site in Duluth, Minnesota, and are soliciting public comments.

FEB. 6, 2023 — The U.S. Coast Guard has recognized two OR&R Scientific Support Coordinators — CDR Faith Knighton and LTJG Kyle Vincent — with a Coast Guard Meritorious Team Commendation for their involvement in the incident management team for the recovery of the F/V Aleutian Isle.

JAN. 30, 2023 — After a public comment period, on Jan. 25, 2023 a settlement was finalized to resolve claims related to hazardous waste pollution from the du Pont de Nemours and Company (Dupont Hay Road) site on the Delaware River in Wilmington, Delaware.

JAN. 30, 2023 — Two virtual public meetings were held on Jan. 25, 2023, to inform the public about the status of the natural resource damage assessment being conducted for the Pipeline P00547 oil spill off of the coast of Huntington Beach, California. Restoration project ideas were also solicited.

JAN. 23, 2023 — NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration and the University of New Hampshire’s Coastal Response Research Center hosted a virtual workshop on harmful algal blooms on Jan. 17-18. The primary focus of the workshop was communication, preparedness, and response — across the federal government, state agencies, and other key partners — for harmful algal blooms in the Great Lakes region.

JAN. 23, 2023 — The Gulf of Mexico Alliance’s Marine Debris Cross-Team Initiative held its annual two-day meeting on Jan. 10-11 to bring together entities from across the gulf that currently address marine debris issues.

JAN. 13, 2023 — On Dec. 20, 2022 a settlement was proposed to resolve claims related to the hazardous waste pollution from the du Pont de Nemours and Company (Dupont Hay Road) site on the Delaware River in Wilmington, Delaware. Of the total settlement of $1,071,755.84, $808,500 is proposed for restoration activities and $263,255.84 will be allocated to the natural resource trustees for reimbursement of their natural resource damages assessment costs. 

DEC. 19, 2022 — On Dec. 13, following a competitive review process, the NOAA Marine Debris Program and National Fish and Wildlife Foundation announced the five recipients of the 2022 Hurricane Response Marine Debris Removal Fund.

DEC. 19, 2022 — On Dec. 5-9, the NOAA Marine Debris Program, in collaboration with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Trash Free Waters Program, hosted a virtual workshop to identify actions and strategies for the implementation of the Puerto Rico Strategic Plan to Reduce Aquatic Debris.

DEC. 12, 2022 — On Nov. 29, the 2022 Young Pacific Leaders cohort visited the Inouye Regional Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, for a facility tour and presentations from NOAA team members. The Young Pacific Leaders Program is organized by the U.S. government and aims to build the leadership capabilities of youth in the region and strengthen ties between the United States and the Pacific.

DEC. 12, 2022 — In early October, NOAA OR&R scientists participated in a functional tabletop exercise in Anacortes, Washington. The purpose of the exercise was to demonstrate the capability of the oil industry and other agencies working together to develop an oil spill response plan that is used to minimize and mitigate the impacts of an oil spill.

DEC. 12, 2022 — Last week, NOAA OR&R and NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service’s Pacific Regional Office, in collaboration with U.S. Coast Guard District 14, hosted an Environmental Consultation Seminar in Honolulu, Hawaii.

DEC. 5, 2022 — On Feb.15-16, 2022, the Coastal Response Research Center and NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration co-sponsored a virtual workshop entitled “Greater Houston Area Bottlenose Dolphin Data Gaps.”

DEC. 5, 2022 — In late September 2022, the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) released a pre-publication version of Oil in the Sea IV: Inputs, Fate and Effects.

NOV. 21, 2022  — Recently, NOAA and the Environmental Protection Agency jointly released their annual updates for CAMEO Data Manager and Tier2 Submit™, two programs that aid emergency organizations in preparing for and responding to chemical emergencies.

NOV. 21, 2022 — On Nov. 8, the NOAA Marine Debris Program Deputy Division Chief MaryLee Haughwout presented at a River Management Society Education Roundtable webinar titled “Talking Trash: Approaches to prevent, intercept, and remove ocean bound plastic and debris.” MaryLee shared the stage with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service colleague Glenn Constant.

NOV. 7, 2022 — The Office of Response and Restoration recently participated in the final of four multi-agency hotwashes to debrief the F/V Aleutian Isle sinking incident that occurred in the San Juan Islands in the state of Washington.

NOV. 7, 2022 — On Oct. 27, NOAA Marine Debris Program staff attended Materevolve’s Textiles x Ocean Connector Sail Event in San Francisco Bay, California. The goal of the event was to bring sustainability leaders together to discuss important topics at the intersection of textiles and ocean.

OCT. 31, 2022 — Nearly half of all Americans are exposed to potentially damaging earthquakes where they work and live. Still, others will be at risk when traveling. It’s a good idea for everyone, everywhere to know how to protect themselves during an earthquake.

OCT. 24, 2022 — A new map synthesizes more than 30 years of NOAA oil spill and hazardous waste pollution settlements. In total, NOAA has helped recover $10.6 billion for restoration from settlements across the United States.

OCT. 24, 2022 — On Oct. 6, Andrew Mason, the Pacific Northwest regional coordinator for NOAA's Marine Debris Program shared his NOAA career story, including that of starting as an intern before becoming a contractor and eventually a federal employee, with seniors from Highline High School in the Seattle area.

OCT. 17, 2022 — From Sept. 27-28, the NOAA Marine Debris Program (MDP), within the Office of Response and Restoration, participated in the Virginia Marine Debris Summit hosted in Virginia Beach, Virginia. This gathering brought together local, state, and federal marine debris and plastic pollution experts in focused discussion around tackling the challenges of consumer debris throughout the commonwealth.

OCT. 17, 2022 — With a team of instructors led by Scientific Support Coordinator Frank Csulak, NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration hosted a Science of Oil Spills class in the mid-Atlantic region the week of Sept. 12, 2022. 

OCT. 17, 2022 — OR&R’s Emergency Response Division recently completed an update to the guide book, Oil and Sea Turtles: Biology, Planning, and Response.

OCT. 17, 2022 — OR&R biologist and Environmental Sensitivity Index Program Manager Nicolle Rutherford presented at a series of conferences and workshops in September to share the benefits and uses of Environmental Sensitivity Index maps and data.

OCT. 3, 2022 — On Sept. 21, NOAA Marine Debris Program’s Northeast Regional Coordinator Demi Fox participated in an on-water Rapid Assessment Team during an oil spill exercise on the Piscataqua River.

SEPT. 26, 2022 — On Sept. 15 and 16, the 13th Natural Resources Symposium "Natural Resources at a Crossroads" reconvened at George Washington University. 

SEPT. 19, 2022 — OR&R has released a brief survey to evaluate the amount of human-use data for inclusion in Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) maps.

SEPT. 19, 2022 — On Sept. 15, NOAA's Marine Debris Program and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Trash Free Waters Program, on behalf of the Interagency Marine Debris Coordinating Committee, shared a draft Report on Microfiber Pollution for public comment. 

SEPT. 19, 2022 — Staff from OR&R’s Emergency Response Division participated in a worst-case oil spill response exercise conducted by ExxonMobil in Guam from Sept. 12-14. 

SEPT. 12, 2022 — OR&R’s Emergency Response Division participated in an event sponsored by U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM)—Disaster Response for Oil Spill and Mass Rescue Exchange—held in Port Louis, Mauritius on Aug. 22-26.

AUG. 29, 2022 — Last week, OR&R Director Scott Lundgren and Senior Scientist Lisa DiPinto joined the U.S. Coast Guard, NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL) Director Deborah Lee and others for the ribbon cutting ceremony for the grand opening of the Great Lakes National Center of Expertise (NCOE).

AUG. 22, 2022 — OR&R staff met with congressional committee staffers from the U.S. House Space, Science, and Technology Committee, as well as a staff member from the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee – Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee at the NOAA Western Regional Center on Aug. 8, 2022.  

AUG. 22, 2022 — Later this year and in 2023, a cross-divisional team within OR&R will address the science of per- and poly-fluorinated substances (PFAS) in aqueous fire-fighting foams (AFFF).

AUG. 22, 2022 — On July 26, 2022, OR&R's Disaster Preparedness Program and the Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS) partnered to exercise the Real-Time Currents and Meteorological Buoys (affectionately known as CURBY).

AUG. 22, 2022 — On July 27, 2022, the Federal Emergency Management Agency requested NOAA scientific support for a declared emergency on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands due to impacts on the island’s water supply from high concentrations of sargassum.

AUG. 15, 2022 — On Aug. 3, 2022, NOAA Marine Debris Program Mid-Atlantic Regional Coordinator Katie Morgan attended an outreach event in Fenwick Island, Delaware, organized by Delaware Sea Grant. 

AUG. 8, 2022 — On July 28, 2022, NOAA Marine Debris Program Northeast Regional Coordinator Demi Fox attended a Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment meeting in Portland, Maine, to join a presentation on marine debris prevention and removal efforts underway in Canada and the United States.

AUG. 1, 2022 — Scientists from OR&R have partnered with the U.S. and Canadian Coast Guards, the Coastal Response Research Center (a partnership between OR&R and the University of New Hampshire), and remote sensing consultants at Water Mapping, LLC to advance our ability to respond to and assess impacts from spills in the Arctic.

AUG. 1, 2022 — In 2019, a planning committee was formed to schedule class dates, define the class location, and narrow down field sites for NOAA’s Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Technique (SCAT) class.

AUG. 1, 2022 — Beginning in April 2020, in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, a small team in OR&R’s Emergency Response Division began sharing knowledge in the form of live, virtual lectures on emergency spill response, environmental protection, and related topics.

AUG. 1, 2022 – For the past few years, the U.S. Department of the Interior has offered the webinar series “Inland Oil Spill for DOI Response” to share pertinent lectures and topics of interest to the DOI spill response community.

JULY 25, 2022 — On July 11, 2022, NOAA Marine Debris Program Education Specialist Alexandria Brake led two workshops for students and educators. Alexandria presented on “Pesky Plastics” at the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School’s Virtual Engineering Exploration Experience, the first day of a five-week program bringing together experts in various fields to inspire students to consider solutions to complex global problems.

JULY 25, 2022 — On July 13, 2022, the NOAA Marine Debris Program’s Gulf of Mexico Regional Coordinator Caitlin Wessel presented at the Jackson County Soil and Water Conservation District’s teacher workshop.

JULY 18, 2022 — On June 22, 2022, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Coast Guard District 13, and Regional Response Team 10 held a Spill of National Significance Seminar in Astoria, Oregon.

JULY 18, 2022 — On July 6, 2022, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Marine Debris Program California Regional Coordinator Christy Kehoe presented at the July  Office of National Marine Sanctuaries Resource Protection and Permitting Cross-cut Meeting. The cross-cut meeting brought together over 15 Sanctuaries staff from across the country to focus on marine debris conversations impacting our sanctuaries.

JULY 11, 2022 — On June 29, the NOAA Marine Debris Program announced the Fiscal Year 2022 NOAA Marine Debris Removal notice of funding opportunity. Funding for this opportunity is provided through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

JULY 11, 2022 — OR&R Director Scott Lundgren visited the joint OR&R and University of New Hampshire Coastal Response Research Center on June 23, 2022. This visit provided the opportunity to hear from the center’s staff, student researchers, and visiting University of Puerto Rico students working on OR&R-related CRRC projects and other related environmental projects at the university for two months during the summer. 

JULY 11, 2022 — Scientists from NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration recently particpated in an Interspill conference held June 21-23, 2022 in Amsterdam. This event is part of the triumvirate series including the International Oil Spill Conference (U.S., 2024) and Spillcon (Australia, 2023).

JULY 11, 2022 — Recently, LCDR Rachel Pryor presented at the Environmental Emergency Management Conference hosted by Michigan’s Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy state department.

JULY 11, 2022 — On June 14-16, 2022, the Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) partnered with the Homeland Security Program Office to hold NOAA’s National Level Exercise.

JULY 11, 2022 — In May, the Marine Debris Program welcomed Elena Aguilar as part of the NOAA Experiential Research and Training Opportunity internship program.

JUNE 27, 2022 — On June 21 and 22, NOAA's Marine Debris Program coordinated and presented at the virtual 2022 California Ocean Litter Prevention Strategy Implementation Workshop. The workshop brought together over 90 people from across the state and from a diverse set of sectors, including state agencies, nonprofits, private sector, and academia.

JUNE 27, 2022 — OR&R has created a new landing page to highlight the work that our office does to contribute to Coastal Resilience. 

JUNE 27, 2022 — On Saturday, June 11, NOAA's Assessment and Restoration Division and Restoration Center joined the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Hudson River Estuary Program during its World Fish Migration Day event at Lemon Creek Park in Staten Island, New York.

JUNE 13, 2022 — Ruth Yender, scientific support coordinator for OR&R’s Emergency Response Division, participated in a U.S. Indo-Pacific Command-sponsored Oil Spill Response Workshop held in Colombo, Sri Lanka from June 6-10. The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command is one of six geographic combatant commands defined by the Department of Defense's Unified Command Plan.

JUNE 13, 2022 — On March 21, 2022 the Tug Western Mariner ran aground in Neva Strait, north of Sitka, Alaska, resulting in a diesel oil spill. OR&R has been providing support for the response, cleanup, and damage assessment for the spill since the incident occurred.

JUNE 13, 2022 — On May 23,  the Wildlife and Habitat Impacts Working Group of the Southeast Marine Debris Action Plan led a webinar to share the new app Tangled in Trash: A Reporting Tool For Wildlife. The webinar shared why collecting wildlife entanglement and ingestion data is important and demonstrated how users can report observations using the mobile or online version.

JUNE 6, 2022 — Last week, a collaborative research team led by NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration conducted experiments at the Ohmsett test tank facility in Leonardo, New Jersey.  These experiments were the first conducted at the tank since the completion of the multi-month facility refurbishment.

JUNE 6, 2022 ⁠— Protecting America’s waterways and coastal regions from the effects of oil and chemical spills is a collaborative mission, and OR&R’s Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) program strives to build a community of partners. On May 19, Nicolle Rutherford, ESI Program manager, gave a presentation on the available data and many uses of ESIs for Save the River, an organization in northern New York that serves as the Upper St. Lawrence Riverkeeper.

JUNE 6, 2022 ⁠— A new article titled “Ecosystem-Service Scaling Techniques to Evaluate the Benefits of Marine Debris Removal'' was recently published in the Journal of Environmental Management. It establishes a new framework to calculate the benefits of removing marine debris from the environment.

MAY 23, 2022 — On May 17, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, in partnership with the NOAA Marine Debris Program, announced a request for proposals under the Hurricane Response Marine Debris Removal Fund.

MAY 16, 2022 – From April 27-28, 2022, the NOAA OR&R Director Scott Lundgren and Senior Scientist Lisa DiPinto participated in the Annual Meeting of the Spill Control Association of America (SCAA) held in Savannah, Georgia.

MAY 16, 2022 — The Annual Meeting of the NOAA Great Lakes Regional Collaboration Team was held May 3-5 in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

MAY 9, 2022 — OR&R toxicologist and Alaska regional resource coordinator, Sarah Allan, co-authored a book chapter, Oil Spills in the Arctic, in a recently published book, Arctic One Health, Challenges for Northern Animals and People (Morten Tryland eds.).

MAY 2, 2022 – Last week experts from OR&R’s Assessment and Restoration Division (ARD) participated in a workshop held by the National Marine Mammal Foundation and NOAA’s Restore Science Program.

MAY 2, 2022 – On April 19, NOAA Marine Debris Program (MDP) staff presented to the Salish Sea Stewards on marine debris and the NOAA Marine Debris Monitoring and Assessment Project (MDMAP).

APRIL 22, 2022 – In order to meet the need for effective management during a potential oil spill, the U.S. Department of State partnered with the U.S. Coast Guard to provide oil spill response training to Guyana’s Civil Defense Commission and its interagency partners in support of Guyana’s activation and evaluation of its first National Oil Spill Contingency Plan.

APRIL 24, 2022 – OR&R Director Scott Lundgren was joined by OR&R science and emergency representatives Lisa DiPinto, Aaron Parker, and LT Steven Wall for the biennial Spills Advisory Group hosted by the American Petroleum Institute. This meeting brings together representatives of state and federal government, nongovernment organizations, academia, petroleum industry, and cleanup organizations for information sharing on spill preparedness and response. 

APRIL 24, 2022 — The NOAA Marine Debris Program and Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition's CoastWatch trained coastal community members to participate in the NOAA Marine Debris Monitoring and Assessment Project. MDMAP engages NOAA partners and volunteers around the world to survey and record the amount and types of marine debris on shorelines.

APRIL 18, 2022 — From March 28-30, the NOAA Marine Debris Program’s Pacific Island Regional Coordinator, Mark Manuel, participated in the Territorial Climate and Infrastructure Workshop hosted by the Department of Interior’s Office of Insular Affairs (D.O.I.).

APRIL 18, 2022 — Hurricanes and typhoons are powerful storms that cause loss of life and billions of dollars of destruction each year.

APRIL 11, 2022 — On April 6, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced the inaugural board of directors for the new Marine Debris Foundation.

APRIL 11, 2022 — On March 31, the 7th International Marine Debris Conference (7IMDC) launched a call for abstracts and posters, which is open until Friday, April 29, 2022. The 7IMDC is scheduled to take place from Sept. 18-23, 2022 in Busan, Republic of Korea.

APRIL 4, 2022 — U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) Sector Mobile recently completed the assessment operations for the WWII Liberty ship, Thomas Heyward, located in about 79 feet (24 meters) of water, four miles south of the Okaloosa Island Fishing Pier just north of the Pensacola-Panama City shipping lane. The vessel was intentionally sunk on April 14, 1977 off of Destin, Florida as an artificial reef structure. 

MARCH 28, 2022 — On Thursday, March 24, the Office of Response and Restoration hosted NOAA Administrator Richard Spinrad, at two project sites in northern New Jersey.

March 28, 2022 ─ On March 21-24, OR&R’s Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) held the second virtual offering of the “NOAA-specific ICS 300: Intermediate Incident Command System for Expanding Incidents” course, also known as ICS 300.

MARCH 21, 2022 –  Over the course of two afternoons on March 15 & 16, OR&R hosted a summit with NOAA developers of Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) maps and data. 

March 21, 2022 – On March 12, Christy Kehoe, California Regional Coordinator for the NOAA Marine Debris Program (MDP), presented at the Ocean Institute's 2022 Virtual Marine and Environmental Sciences College and Career Fair. The event was attended by a national audience of college-bound students, along with their parents and counselors.

MARCH 7, 2022 —This week the Coastal Response Research Center (CRRC) invited NOAA’s Senior Scientist Lisa DiPinto to the Baltimore Aquarium for an opportunity to brief representatives from Senator Shaheen’s staff about exciting dolphin research NOAA is leading with the Baltimore National Aquarium, the CRRC, and Johns Hopkins University.  

MARCH 7, 2022 – On February 28th, the NOAA Marine Debris Program (MDP) wrapped up a month of partner-led virtual workgroup meetings to discuss the California Ocean Litter Strategy (OLS).

FEB. 22, 2022 – On February 14-15, Marine Debris Program (MDP) staff served on the United States delegation to the eighteenth meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Oceans and Fisheries Working Group (OFWG). APEC is an important multilateral forum facilitating collaboration among economies in the Asia Pacific region, and marine debris is a high priority topic of discussion for the OWFG, and other relevant APEC working groups. 

FEB. 22, 2022 – Over recent weeks, the NOAA Marine Debris Program (MDP) participated in outreach to the Alaska fishing industry and marine debris community stakeholders through two events. These engagements focused on the unique nature of debris issues in Alaska, emerging work, and future efforts and opportunities, including collaborative action planning.

FEB. 22, 2022 – On February 14th, 2022, a Consent Decree was entered finalizing $2.5 million to restore natural resources injured by releases of hazardous substances at Pearl Harbor in Oahu, Hawaii. 

FEB. 14, 2022 — In this month’s lecture in the OR&R lecture series, You Don't Know What You Don't Know, we have the pleasure of diving into the world of climatology, as we listen to Dr. Nick Bond discuss the impacts that climate change has in the Pacific Northwest and the associated hazards that threaten coastal marine ecosystems and coastal communities.

FEB. 7, 2022 — As we closed out the fully virtual 2022 Alaska Marine Science Symposium, the Alaska Ocean Observing System (AOOS) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) hosted a unique webinar, convening U.S. and Russian experts to share information on fish populations in our shared (and neighboring) seas. 

FEB. 7, 2022 — OR&R's Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) held their National Ocean Service (NOS) Incident Management Team (IMT) 101 Training on Tuesday, January 25, 2022. The training included six modules specifically designed to provide NOS IMT members with an overview of their roles and responsibilities, as well as information on response management systems, tools, and best practices useful in managing all-hazards disasters.

JAN. 31, 2022 — On Jan. 13, NOAA Marine Debris Program’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Coordinator Katie Morgan provided a virtual presentation and Q&A session to more than 120 fifth grade students across six classrooms at Spring Hill Elementary School in Virginia.

Jan. 24, 2022 – On Jan. 18, 2022, a $15.3 million settlement was finalized in Federal District Court to restore natural resources damaged from the 2014 Texas City Y oil spill in Galveston Bay, Texas.

Jan. 24, 2022 – The Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) has selected nine projects submitted by the National Ocean Service (NOS) programs for funding as part of the “Lagniappe Awards.”

JAN. 18, 2022  — Recently, NOAA and the Environmental Protection Agency jointly released their annual updates for CAMEO Data Manager and Tier2 Submit™, two programs that aid state and local emergency planners in preparing for and responding to chemical emergencies.

JAN. 18, 2022 – The NOAA Marine Debris Program is excited to announce that recordings for all the Salvaging Solutions to Abandoned and Derelict Vessels monthly webinar topics are now available on our webpage.

JAN. 10, 2022 — Researchers from the NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) and Oregon State University recently completed field operations in support of the NOAA Office of Marine and Aviation Operations Office of Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UAS) Program-funded project "Using Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Machine Learning, and Polarimetric Imaging to Develop a System for Enhanced Marine Debris Detection and Removal."

DEC. 20, 2021 — On Dec. 3, 2021, a $15.3 million settlement was proposed in Federal District Court to restore natural resources damaged from the 2014 Texas City Y oil spill in Galveston Bay, Texas.

DEC. 20, 2021 — The Office of Response and Restoration released a report on Nov. 20 detailing the proceedings and recommendations of last year’s workshop on the Next Generation of the Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) program and products

DEC. 20, 2021 — On Dec. 6, the NOAA Marine Debris Program (MDP) hosted an information-sharing webinar for grant applicants.

DECEMBER 13, 2021 — OR&R staff are participating in a training to improve their training and instruction skills. While the training team spends a great deal of time educating others, very rarely do they have the opportunity to be the students themselves.

DECEMBER 13, 2021 ─ December 3, 2021 -- As part of efforts under the Southeast Marine Debris Action Plan, the Wildlife and Habitat Impacts Working Group developed a new tool, Tangled in Trash: A Reporting Tool For Wildlife, with funding from the NOAA Marine Debris Program and National Marine Sanctuary Foundation. 

NOVEMBER 13, 2021 ─ The 2022 virtual Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference is the latest in a long history of regional gatherings about the inland seas of Washington and southern British Columbia, collectively known as the Salish Sea.

DECEMBER 6, 2021 — Several OR&R staff members participated in the 2021 Annual Meeting of the Pacific States-British Columbia Oil Spill Task Force, held virtually on November 17. Composed of representatives from the key spill response agencies in Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska, as well as the Canadian province of British Columbia, the Oil Spill Task Force collects and shares data on oil spills, coordinates oil spill prevention projects, and promotes regulatory safeguards.

NOVEMBER 22, 2021 -─ On November 10, NOAA’s Marine Debris Program (MDP) coordinated and presented at the virtual bi-annual California Ocean Litter Strategy (CA OLS) webinar. The webinar brought together over 45 partners across the state and included a diverse set of sectors including state agencies, nonprofits, private sector, and academia.

NOVEMBER 15, 2021 ─ On November 9, led by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of the Interior, 15 federal agencies and non-governmental partners commemorated a decade of accomplishments under the Urban Waters Federal Partnership while pledging their recommitment to this partnership. Twenty partnership locations across the country are advancing economic, public health, environmental, and social benefits by enhancing community connections to water.

NOVEMBER 15, 2021 ─ On November 8 and 9, the OR&R Director Scott Lundgren, Marine Debris Program Pacific Northwest Regional Coordinator Andrew Mason, Marine Debris Monitoring Coordinator Hillary Burgess, and California Sea Grant Extension Fellow Tanya Torres presented at the virtual 2021 Oregon Marine Debris Action Plan (ORMDAP) update workshop. A prerecorded address to the marine debris community was also provided by Oregon's 1st District Representative Suzanne Bonomici.

NOVEMBER 15, 2021 ─ On November 3, a team of NOAA scientists from the Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R), and NOAA Fisheries participated in an industry-led oil spill exercise.  The scenario for the exercise, a deep-water well loss of control with a discharge significantly larger than that of Deepwater Horizon, provided an opportunity for the OR&R team to consider the processes associated with and potential environmental effects of using subsea dispersant injection (SSDI) as a response method. 

NOVEMBER 15, 2021 — In September of this year, the Washington State Department of Ecology hosted a workshop, Marine Mammal Management in Oil Spill Response, and we wrote about the presentations given by two recently retired scientists from OR&R’s Emergency Response Division, Gary Shigenaka and Dr. Alan Mearns. 

NOVEMBER 8, 2021 ─ On Nov. 2, the Office of Science and Technology Policy’s Subcommittee on Ocean Science and Technology hosted a panel discussion on Environmental Justice (EJ). The discussion provided an excellent introduction to the topic of environmental justice and OR&R staff who joined improved their understanding of the importance of the role our own work can play in perpetuating environmental injustices.

NOVEMBER 1, 2021 ─ What is marine snow? It is definitely not something strap on your boots and board to go ski, it is a little deeper than that, actually way deeper. In fact, look to the oceans, marine snow is mostly an organic matter that is falling from higher layers of the water column to lower layers and eventually settling on the sea floors.

NOVEMBER 1, 2021 ─ NOAA scientists from OR&R’s Office of Response and the Fisheries Restoration Center are in Southern California working with our state and federal co-trustees to initiate a Natural Resource Damage Assessment for the Huntington Beach oil spill (Pipeline P00547) that occurred in early October 2021.

OCTOBER 25, 2021 ─ On October 8, 2021 NOAA and our co-trustee partners released a Natural Resource Damage Assessment Plan  to guide assessment activities related to releases of oil and other contaminants at the ITC Tank Fire site in Deer Park, Texas. 

OCTOBER 25, 2021 ─ On October 21, the Marine Debris Program released the Hawai‘i Marine Debris Action Plan 2010-2020 Accomplishments Report. The Hawai‘i Marine Debris Action Plan was the first community-based marine debris action plan in the nation.

OCTOBER 25, 2021 ─ This past June thru September, the OR&R Emergency Response Division supported the Office of Marine and Aviation Operations fleet by approving the augmentation request for LCDR Faith Knighton to sail 76-days as a Senior Watch Officer and Acting Commanding Officer aboard the NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer.

OCTOBER 18, 2021 ─ OR&R’s Assessment and Restoration Division (ARD) and the University of New Hampshire’s Coastal Response Research Center hosted a three-day workshop to improve preparedness for West coast oil spills involving novel oils transported into the region. The workshop delved into a range of emerging oils including bakken, dilbit, biofuels, low sulfur fuel oils, and others.

OCTOBER 18, 2021 ─ The Marine Debris Program (MDP) is pleased to announce that Pacific Coastal Research & Planning (PCRP), a Saipan-based environmental non-profit organization, successfully completed a project funded by the MDP and National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to remove the derelict fishing vessel Lady Carolina from the central Saipan Lagoon.  

OCTOBER 11, 2021 ─ We had a shared idea to create an oceanographic/meteorological buoy system that could be deployed by a relatively small vessel to support scientific research and emergency response.  We thought, “There could be so many uses in support of NOAA and NOS missions if we only had such a buoy.”  If a critical fixed monitoring station was damaged during a major hurricane and there was a need for real-time data, the buoy could be deployed as a temporary monitoring device.

OCTOBER 11, 2021 ─ On October 6, the Marine Debris Program (MDP) released the 2021 Washington Marine Debris Action Plan. This document is the result of a collaborative effort between the MDP and partners across Washington State, including federal and state governments, tribes, nongovernmental organizations, industry, and academia.

OCTOBER 11, 2021 ─ OR&R’s Simeon Hahn presented with EPA (Chris Orvin), the New Department of Environmental Protection Frank McLaughline), the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary (Kathy Kline and Erica Rosetti), and a community organizer, Collaborate Northeast of Wilmington, Delaware (Bobbi Britton), on the Urban Water Federal Partnership (UWFP) at the 9th Annual Del-AWARE River Watershed Forum organized by the Coalition for the Delaware River Watershed.

OCTOBER 4, 2021 ─ NOAA and other Lower Duwamish Trustees conducted site visits at two restoration projects in the construction phase along the Lower Duwamish River. Trustees finalized a Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) settlement in May 2021 with Vigor Industrial and Exxon Mobil.

OCTOBER 4, 2021 ─ On September 23, 2021, Great Lakes Scientific Support Coordinator Lieutenant Rachel Pryor participated in a multi-agency effort to train Salamanca fire department and first responders for pollution response and spill equipment deployment in the Allegheny River.

OCTOBER 4, 2021 ─ New England Scientific Support Coordinator William Whitmore traveled to Belfast, Maine on September 21-22 to assist U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) Sector Northern New England with an oil spill drill that was part of the USCG National Preparedness for Response Program (PREP) and a mission-critical NOAA assignment.

SEPTEMBER 27, 2021 — NOAA has awarded a contract to Research Planning, Inc. (RPI) to refresh the Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) maps and data for Lake Erie. The work is expected to commence during the first quarter of FY22 and be completed by the end of the fiscal year.

SEPTEMBER 27, 2021 ─ On September 15, 2021, Andrew Mason, Pacific Northwest Regional Coordinator of the Marine Debris Program (MDP) presented on marine debris and plastics as part of the Port Townsend Marine Science Center’s virtual educational series in partnership with the Jefferson County Marine Resources Committee.

SEPTEMBER 20, 2021 ─ On September 7, the Marine Debris Program’s (MDP) Monitoring Coordinator Hillary Burgess presented on the Marine Debris Monitoring and Assessment Project to the volunteer coordinators of National Marine Sanctuaries. 

SEPTEMBER 20, 2021 ─ On September 9, Marine Debris Program staff provided a presentation on marine debris impacts to coastal and marine economies during a training for government representatives of Southeast Asian nations. 

SEPTEMBER 20, 2021 ─ On September 9, Marine Debris Program staff provided a presentation on marine debris impacts to coastal and marine economies during a training for government representatives of Southeast Asian nations. 

SEPTEMBER 20. 2021 ─ On September 8, 2021, two recently retired scientists from OR&R’s Emergency Response Division gave invited virtual presentations at a workshop, Marine Mammal Management in Oil Spill Response, hosted by the Washington State Department of Ecology.

SEPTEMBER 20, 2021 ─ This week OR&R’s Dr. Michel Gielazyn of the Assessment and Restoration Division was part of a multidisciplinary team selected to receive the EPA’s “Superfund Advancing Innovations and Sustainability in Cleanup Practice” Award for her work at the Kerr-McGee Navassa site in North Carolina.

SEPT. 13, 2021 — On Sept. 29, the Interagency Marine Debris Coordinating Committee (IMDCC) will hold a virtual public meeting. This meeting will include presentations on the Fiscal Year 2021 achievements and Fiscal Year 2022 planned activities of the participating agencies.

SEPT. 13, 2021 — On Sept. 1, 2021 the Department of Justice announced that a consent decree valued at $2.1 million was finalized to restore natural resources damaged during the Bayport Channel oil spill.

SEPT. 13, 2021 — On Sept. 7, the Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) welcomed six new undergraduate interns from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES): Tnaisha Addison, Abisola Ajayi, Sophia Anokam, Sumayyah Cravens, Semaj Fielding, and Jasmine Thompson.

AUGUST 30, 2021 ─ On August 18, Marine Debris Division staff provided a presentation on the Division’s work and the United States Government’s approach to addressing marine debris to a group of officials from twelve countries. 

AUGUST 30, 2021 ─ Prior to Tropical Storm/Hurricane Henri making landfall on August 22, 2021, FEMA gave a mission assignment to William Whitmore, the Disaster Preparedness Program’s Regional Preparedness Coordinator based out of Gloucester, Massachsetts.

AUGUST 30, 2021 — On August 17 - 18, a number of OR&R staff participated in the CLEAN PACIFIC 2021 conference, held both virtually and in-person in Renton, Washington.

AUGUST 23, 2021 ─ On August 16-17, Marine Debris Division (MDD) staff served on the U.S. delegation to the Seventeenth Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Oceans and Fisheries Working Group (OFWG) meeting. 

AUGUST 23, 2021 ─ The solicitation of nominations for the Marine Debris Foundation Board of Directors has been reopened.  The Save Our Seas 2.0 Act of 2020 established the Marine Debris Foundation (Foundation) as a charitable and nonprofit organization to support the efforts of NOAA and other entities to address marine debris and directed the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere to appoint the Foundation’s

AUGUST 23, 2021 ─ The eleventh annual Environmental Data Management Workshop organized by NOAA took place the week of the August 16. The virtual meeting covered topics that included all facets of data management from collection through archiving.

AUGUST 16, 2021 ─ On August 5, 2021, Sarah Latshaw, Southeast Regional Coordinator for the NOAA Marine Debris Program, was a guest presenter during the Sport Fishing and Boating Partnership Council (Council) meeting.  

AUGUST 16, 2021 ─ The week of August 9, OR&R held our third week long virtual Science of Chemical Releases (SOCR) Class during the COVID-19 Pandemic.  Classes were held live on-line with 40 students from multiple federal and state agencies and a few non-profit response consortiums attending from across the U.S. from Hawaii to Virginia and international participants from Canada, Panama, and England. 

AUGUST 9, 2021 ─ The Diversity and Professional Advancement Working Group (DPAWG), on which the Reyhan Mehran of OR&R’s Assessment and Restoration Division serves as a member of the executive committee, has been selected as the recipient of NOAA’s competitive Diversity Impact Award.

AUGUST 9, 2021 ─ On July 29, 2021, federal co-trustees, NOAA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released the Final Early Restoration Plan and Environmental Assessment  that calls for building a 5-acre park along the Lower Passaic River in East Newark, New Jersey.

AUGUST 9, 2021 ─ On August 5, 2021, OR&R Director Scott Lundgren represented NOAA alongside other senior agency representatives from the 15 Departments and Agencies participating in the Urban Waters Federal Partnership (external pdf factsheet).  Senior leaders from the Department of the Interior and EPA convened this meeting to build relationships and connections, provide leadership-level support for the partnership, and discuss future actions for the program as

AUGUST 2, 2021 ─ After much hard work, determination and dedication, OR&R’s Disaster Preparedness Program along with support from Genwest, completed its first ever Virtual NOAA Intermediate Incident Command System for expanding incidents (ICS 300) course on July19-22. We had 12 excellent students participating from across NOAA including three NOAA line offices (NOS, OAR, OMAO) and the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer (OCAO).

AUGUST 2, 2021 ─ On July 17, the Marine Debris Program (MDP) Director Nancy Wallace, Mid-Atlantic Regional Coordinator Christy Kehoe, and Marine Debris Monitoring Coordinator Hillary Burgess presented at a virtual 2021 Mid-Atlantic Marine Debris Summit.  The three-day Summit brought together over 475 attendees from Mid-Atlantic regional entities working on marine debris, including state and federal agencies, tribes, non-profit organizations, academia, and other groups.

JULY 26, 2021 ─ On July 17, the Marine Debris Program Education Specialist Alexandria Brake and Mid-Atlantic Regional Coordinator Christy Kehoe presented at a virtual Virginia Association for Environmental Education (VAEE) Mini-Conference Series: Summer on the Shore. 

JULY 26, 2021 ─ On July 19, the Department of Justice announced filing for public comment of a consent decree proposing a $2.1 million settlement value to restore for natural resource damages for the Bayport Channel oil spill in Texas.

JULY 19, 2021 ─ On July 14, the Marine Debris Program Education Specialist, Alexandria Brake, and Northeast Regional Coordinator, Demi Fox, led a workshop at the National Marine Educators Association 2021 Virtual Conference.

JULY 19, 2021 ─ Last week NOAA and partners concluded a comprehensive fish sampling effort to evaluate the relationship between contaminant concentrations and the growth of fish at the Portland Harbor Superfund site.

JULY 19, 2021 ─ The week of July 12, a team of NOAA scientists and partners published a new study about  juvenile Chinook salmon in the Lower Willamette River as part of our work on the Portland Harbor Superfund Site. This research shines light on the impacts of pollution on young salmon outmigrating through the Lower Willamette River enroute to the ocean from the tributaries where they were spawned.

NOAA, and the state and federal Trustees working on restoring habitat and resources impacted by the Refugio Beach oil spill near Santa Barbara, have released a Final Damage Assessment and Restoration Plan and Environmental Assessment (PDF, 183 pages). 

JULY 12, 2021 ─ 2021 marks 30 years of NOAA’s Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration (DARRP) program, a matrix program across National Marine Fishery Service’s Office of Habitat Conservation, NOAA General Counsel for Natural Resources, and OR&R’s Assessment and Restoration Division (ARD).

JULY 12, 2021 ─ On June 24, OR&R Director Scott Lundgren represented Department of Commerce/NOAA in an exercise of the Spill of National Significance (SONS) Strategic Coordination Call (SSCC) held at the Operations Deputy-level. He was joined by other program staff and NOAA and Department of Commerce operations centers. 

JULY 6, 2021 ─ On June 29, the journal Frontiers in Marine Science published an article co-authored by the Marine Debris Program. Entitled “Microplastics in Invasive Freshwater Mussels (Dreissena sp.): Spatiotemporal Variation and Occurrence With Chemical Contaminants,” the study measured microplastics and chemical contaminants in mussel tissue from Milwaukee Harbor harvested from reference locations and sites influenced by wastewater effluent and urban river discharge. 

JUNE 28, 2021 ─ On June 24, the Marine Debris Program’s (MDP) Monitoring Coordinator Hillary Burgess was featured on the National Children’s Museum podcast STEAM Daydream. 

JUNE 21, 2021 ─ For three days last week, June 15-17, 2021, OR&R staff, along with 80 other experts, participated in the National Academy of Science’s virtual “Offshore Situation Room.”

JUNE 21, 2021 ─ This week, Lisa DiPinto, OR&R’s senior scientist is working with the Coastal Response Research Center (CRRC), the EPA Office of Research and Development, and Johns Hopkins University to advance our ability to characterize surface oil slicks.

JUNE 14, 2021 ─ Emergencies can strike without warning, and unfortunately, we have too many real-life examples that remind us of the importance of being prepared. With this in mind, the Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) developed a readiness self-assessment tool explicitly designed to help the National Ocean Service (NOS) and NOS offices better prepare for emergencies and continuity events.

JUNE 14, 2021 ─ Scientists from OR&R’s Assessment and Restoration Division and NOAA Fisheries Protected Resources programs, in collaboration with our partners from the Coastal Response Research Center, led a virtual workshop to discuss ways to approach Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) for marine mammals in the Gulf of Mexico.

JUNE 7, 2021 — On May 20, Sarah Lowe, the Marine Debris Program's Great Lakes regional coordinator co-chaired a virtual marine debris session at the International Association of Great Lakes Research Conference.

JUNE 1, 2021 — Each year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) leads a nation-wide exercise designed to evaluate progress toward achieving an overall emergency preparedness culture.

MAY 24, 2021 — On May 11, the NOAA Marine Debris Program (MDP), along with the California Ocean Protection Council, co-hosted a California Ocean Litter Prevention Strategy update webinar.

MAY 24, 2021 — On May 20, the Marine Debris Program (MDP) released the 2021 Mid-Atlantic Marine Debris Action Plan. This document is the result of a productive and collaborative effort between the MDP and partners from local, state, and federal governments, nonprofits, industry, and academic institutions. 

MAY 24, 2021 — On May 20, 2021 NOAA and our partners released a Draft Restoration and Environmental Assessment plan for the Gretna/DM 932 Mississippi RIver oil spill. The plan proposes projects to restore habitats impacted by the oil spill on the Mississippi River near downtown New Orleans.

MAY 17, 2021 — On May 11, Doug Helton from ERD joined the USCG's monthly MER/IMD conference call/webinar and briefed the 100+ participants on the progress and current status of NOAA's Remediation of Underwater Legacy Environmental Threats (RULET) project.

MAY 17, 2021 — Following Earth Month, the MDP's Great Lakes Regional Coordinator Sarah Lowe has been participating in some virtual outreach!

MAY 17, 2021 — The International Oil Spill Conference (IOSC), held this year on May 10 – 14, is a highly acclaimed event inviting a diverse coalition of emergency responders and scientists spanning international governments, industry, and academic experts across many countries to tackle many response challenges and share technological advances.

MAY 7, 2021 — On April 23, NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) and Marine Debris Program (MDP) staff participated in the 2021 Earth Day Virtual Symposium of a specialized science, mathematics, engineering and technology (STEM) secondary school, Escuela Especializada en Ciencias, Matemática y Tecnología (CIMATEC), in Caguas, Puerto Rico.

MAY 7, 2021 — On April 26 - 30, 2021 we held our Second Virtual Science of Chemical Releases (SOCR) Class.  Classes were held live on-line with forty students attending from across the US and Canada, spanning geographically from Maine to St. Croix.

MAY 7, 2021 — On April 23, 202, a Consent Decree was lodged that includes $2.5 million to restore natural resources injured by releases of hazardous substances at the Oahu Sugar site at Pearl Harbor in Oahu, Hawaii. 

May 3, 2021 ─ On April 22, the Marine Debris Program’s California Regional Coordinator Sherry Lippiatt and Monitoring Coordinator Hillary Burgess presented on NOAA’s Marine Debris Monitoring and Assessment Project (MDMAP) as part of a California Trash Monitoring Webinar Series.

May 3, 2021 ─ On April 26-27, the NOAA Office of Response and Restoration’s Disaster Preparedness Program partnered with the University of Florida Center for Coastal Solutions, the National Science Foundation, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute to host the Shared Operational Research Logistics in the Nearshore Environment (SHORELINE 21) workshop.

April 26, 2021—In three separate one-on-one briefings, OR&R Director Scott Lundgren met with staff from the offices of Senators Susan Collins (ME), Lisa Murkowski (AK), and Chuck Schumer (NY) on April 15-16.

April 26, 2021—On April 20, 2021, Lieutenant Commander Faith Knighton, scientific support coordinator for the Pacific Northwest, presented an Office of Response and Restoration and Emergency Response Division overview at the virtual 29th Annual Joint Safety and Environmental Professional Development Symposium hosted by the Naval Safety and Environmental Training Center.

April 26, 2021—In March and early April, OR&R’s Emergency Response Division provided Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Technique (SCAT) training in a hybrid (virtual and field) learning environment to spill responders in the San Francisco Bay area.

April 19, 2021 — On April 15 Lieutenant Commander Faith Knighton, Scientific Support Coordinator for the Pacific Northwest, presented an Office of Response and Restoration and Emergency Response Division overview at the virtual 2021 LEPC-Tribal Conference and Hazardous Materials Workshop hosted by the Washington State Emergency Response Commission.

April 19, 2021 — On April 12-14 the Emergency Prevention, Preparedness and Response (EPPR) Working Group of the Arctic Council and the Arctic Coast Guard Forum (ACGF) held Arctic Guardian 2021, an international online emergency response exercise. 

April 12, 2021 — NOAA continues to deepen engagement with the federal Recovery Support Function Leadership Group (RSFLG), advancing the stewardship component of the agency’s mission by aiding communities in disaster recovery.

April 12, 2021 — This week, Dr. Forrest Masters, Ph. D., P. E. will present as part of the “You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know” lecture series. Dr. Masters is a professor of civil and coastal engineering in the Engineering School of Sustainable Infrastructure & Environment at the University of Florida.

April 5, 2021 — Environmental justice is the idea that all people, regardless of race, religion, national origin, or economic station, deserve fair treatment with regards to environmental laws and policy. The Urban Waters Federal Partnership works to restore and revitalize relationships between urban communities, particularly those that have been disproportionately impacted by pollution or economic distress, and local waterways.

April 5, 2021 — On March 25-26, the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve (TRNERR) hosted a virtual workshop, Binational Management of Solid Waste and Flooding, with more than 130 participants representing the U.S. and Mexico. 

March 29, 2021 — Last week, during the You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know Lecture we took a deep dive into the history of Mallows Bay and the ghost ship fleet with Maryland’s State Underwater Archeologist, Dr. Susan Langley. 

March 22, 2021 — As federal trustees for natural resources, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are initiating studies to assess natural resource injuries related to the release of hazardous substances from or near the Diamond Alkali Superfund site. The site, centered in Newark, New Jersey, includes the Lower Passaic River, Newark Bay, and other areas.

March 22, 2021 — Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Assessment and Restoration Division scientist Ken Finkelstein took part virtually in the National Ocean Science Bowl (NOSB) Northeastern Competition. The annual NOSB competition holds regional events for high school students and invites the winners to the national tournament during the spring. 

March 22, 2021 — On March 8, Peter Murphy, the Alaska for the Marine Debris Program, presented as part of an expert panel on marine litter monitoring at the International Symposium on Plastics in the Arctic and Sub-Arctic. 

March 15, 2021 — On March 2, Scott Lundgren, Director of the Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R), provided congratulatory remarks during the plenary kick-off of the 2021 Hawai‘i Marine Debris Action Plan workshop.

March 15, 2021 — Each year, the Disaster Preparedness Program leads the National Ocean Service Incident Management Team through a review of the previous hurricane season with respect to our personnel, missions, and infrastructure. The process helps NOS learn from the previous year and plan for the next. These lessons learned are collected into an After Action Report and include a plan for improvement.  

March 8, 2021 — The NOAA Office of Response and Restoration’s Disaster Preparedness Program has partnered with the University of Florida Center for Coastal Solutions, the National Science Foundation, and other partners to host the Shared Operational Research Logistics in the Nearshore Environment, SHORELINE 21 workshop on April 26-27 from 9am-5pm ET. 

March 8, 2021 — Effective March 1, William (Willie) Whitmore is the new Northeast Region Scientific Support Coordinator/Regional Preparedness Coordinator (SSC/RPC). Willie covers planning and response to spills from the Canadian border to New York, and supports USCG District One and USCG Sectors Northern New England,  Boston, Southeast New England, Long Island, and New York.

March 1, 2021 — On Monday, February 22, Scott Lundgren, Director of OR&R, had a one-on-one briefing with Washington D.C. and district staff from the office of Senator Jeanne Shaheen.  

March 1, 2021 — On Feb. 22, at approximately 1:45 p.m., a tanker truck carrying approximately 6,500-gallons of used cooking oil crashed in the median of Route 17 in Essex County, Virginia.

March 1, 2021 — On February 17, the Marine Debris Program Northeast and Mid-Atlantic Regional Coordinators Demi Fox and Christy Kehoe participated in the first virtual workshop to create the Long Island Sound Marine Debris Action Plan (MDAP). 

February 22, 2021 — On the Feb. 18 episode of You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know, we dove into the life of a veterinarian for oiled wildlife. Dr. Michael Ziccardi of UC Davis discussed how far we have come in giving the oiled wildlife in a response a chance to survive.

February 22, 2021 — OR&R staff co-authored a recent paper in the Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, Responder Needs Addressed by Arctic Maritime Oil Spill Modeling. This paper is part of a larger project, “Oil Spill Modeling for Improved Response to Arctic Maritime Spills” funded by the Department of Homeland Security’s Arctic Domain Awareness Center and facilitated by the University of New Hampshire’s Coastal Response Research Center.

February 22, 2021 — NOAA and the Natural Resource Trustees for the Hudson River PCBs Superfund Site in New York have released a Remedial Injury Determination Report.

February 15, 2021 — On February 1, the NOAA Marine Debris Program and the U.S. State Department secured project funding from the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC) for a project that will be led by the Ocean Conservancy's Global Ghost Gear Initiative (GGGI).

February 15, 2021 — On February 10, the National Ocean Service (NOS) Incident Management Team (IMT) held its monthly meeting.

February 8, 2021 — After the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, field teams collected tens of thousands of samples to analyze for oil constituents as part of a natural resource damage assessment. Care was exercised to avoid cross-contamination by cleaning equipment between samples. 

February 8, 2021 — On February 3 members of OR&R's Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) and the Marine Debris Program's (MDP) Response Goal Team met to discuss marine debris issues in post-disaster long term recovery.

February 1, 2021 — On January 28, 2021 The U.S. Department of Justice proposed a $48.4 million settlement to partially fund natural resource restoration in Superfund sites along Seattle’s Lower Duwamish River at the Harbor Island, Lower Duwamish, and Lockheed West hazardous waste sites. 

February 1, 2021 — On January 15th, the Scripps-Rady Ocean Plastic Pollution Challenge kicked off its 6-month accelerator program focused on identifying effective, evidence-based approaches to curb the flow of plastic into the California Coast.

JANUARY 25, 2021 — Over the past 2 weeks, the Arctic Council's Emergency Prevention Preparedness and Response (EPPR) Working Group held its winter meeting online. EPPR includes expert working groups on oil pollution, search and rescue, radiation emergencies, and wildfires. Normally the members meet in person, but due to the health emergency restrictions and circumpolar time zones, the meetings were held remotely for a few hours each day.

JANUARY 25, 2021 — On January 16, the Marine Pollution Bulletin published a Viewpoint article written by the Marine Debris Program.

JANUARY 19, 2021 — Per a Federal Register Notice on January 14, 2021, the Department of Justice announced that a consent decree was lodged in the hazardous waste case of DuPont Beaumont in Jefferson County, Texas.

JANUARY 19, 2021 — On January 13, OR&R’s Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) hosted the first National Ocean Service (NOS) Incident Management Team (IMT) meeting of 2021.

JANUARY 11, 2021 — On January 6, the OR&R director, Scott Lundgren, along with staff from OR&R headquarters, Marine Debris Program, Emergency Response Division, and the Coastal Response Research Center provided a briefing for the new director of the National Weather Service Ocean Prediction Center as well as senior and interested staff from the Center.

JANUARY 11, 2021 — A study led by OR&R’s Assessment and Restoration Division's Ken Finkelstein and NOAA’s National Center for Coastal Ocean Sciences Ed Wirth, titled “Acute PCB Benthic Invertebrate Toxicity Testing to Support the 2017 Chronic Dose-Response Sediment Injury Model” has been published online in the Journal of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. 

DECEMBER 21, 2020 — The OR&R Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) is excited to announce the recipients of the second annual Preparedness Lagniappe Awards. Funds were made available to National Ocean Service (NOS) program offices to fill preparedness gaps or innovate their current preparedness efforts.

DECEMBER 21, 2020 — On December 15, the Interagency Marine Debris Coordinating Committee (IMDCC) held a virtual public meeting focusing on marine debris monitoring and detection.

DECEMBER 21, 2020 — In August of 2019, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) received notification of a crude oil spill in the southern Louisiana marsh (29° 28' 33" N, 089° 38' 07" W). The oil company reported a release of 20 barrels of crude oil and an unknown quantity of produced water.

DECEMBER 14, 2020 — On Wednesday, December 9, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) SciTech Forum hosted a complimentary webinar weeks before the 2021 main event that addressed current impacts to the commercial aviation industry.

DECEMBER 14, 2020 — On December 7 and 8, Andrew Mason, Pacific Northwest Regional Coordinator of the Marine Debris Program (MDP), along with support from multiple members from both the Atlantic and Pacific MDP Teams, hosted an all-virtual workshop to allow stakeholders and community members to update the existing Washington Marine Debris Action Plan created in 2018.

DECEMBER 14, 2020 — OR&R completed the last of four workshop days focused on defining what the next generation of Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) maps should/could look like in a resource constrained environment. 

DECEMBER 7, 2020 — On November 19, the NOAA Marine Debris Program (MDP), in its role as Chair of the Interagency Marine Debris Coordinating Committee (IMDCC), hosted a webinar for IMDCC agency representatives as well as MDP staff.

DECEMBER 7, 2020 — On December 1-2, the NOAA Marine Debris Program, led by Christy Kehoe, Mid-Atlantic Regional Coordinator, hosted a series of four virtual workshops to refine and confirm objectives and actions within the draft Mid-Atlantic Marine Debris Action Plan.

DECEMBER 7, 2020 — Following the Deepwater Horizon spill, in order to significantly reduce the time required to contain a deep sea well, industry built out ready to deploy subsea containment equipment and interim subsea dispersal equipment.

NOVEMBER 23, 2020 — During the week of November 16, the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) hosted a virtual synthesis workshop titled “GoMRI Contributions to Dispersant Science.” 

NOVEMBER 23, 2020 — Last week, members of the Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) participated in the 68th annual International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) Annual Conference, which was held for the first time as a virtual event. 

NOVEMBER 23, 2020 — Ever wonder how oil spill responders come up with the ideas and suggestions for oil spill cleanups? Well, this last episode of the You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know lecture series explains it all. Dr. Tom Coolbaugh, program/facility manager of Ohmsett for the Applied Research Associates, Inc. dives into all the extraordinary studies and experiments they are conducting at Omhsett’s wave and test tank.

NOVEMBER 16, 2020 — OR&R and Coast Guard National Pollution Funds Center (NPFC) representatives met virtually on October 30th to discuss their ongoing relationship. The NPFC provides funding to support OR&R's response to oil and hazardous substance releases and initiation of natural resource damage assessment.

NOVEMBER 16, 2020 — OR&R completed the second of four workshop days focused on helping to define what the next generation of Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) maps should/could look like in a resource constrained environment. 

NOVEMBER 16, 2020 — The Hudson River Natural Resource Trustees released two data reports presenting findings on freshwater mussels in the Upper Hudson River in support of the Hudson River Natural Resource Damage Assessment.

NOVEMBER 9, 2020 — On October 20, Peter Murphy, Alaska Regional Coordinator for the NOAA Marine Debris Program (MDP), presented on Unoccupied Aerial System (UAS) efforts, observations, and opportunities at the recent Drones in the Coastal Zone Workshop.  

NOVEMBER 9, 2020 — On November 5, Charles Grisafi, Southeast Regional Preparedness Coordinator, was a guest speaker representing the NOAA Disaster Preparedness Program at a South Carolina Hurricane Task Force virtual meeting hosted by the South Carolina Emergency Management Division (SCEMD).

NOVEMBER 9, 2020 — On November 4, the Marine Debris Program released its 2020 Accomplishments Report.

NOVEMBER 2, 2020 — Over the past several weeks, members of the CAMEO® team participated in the virtual Fall 2020 National Association of SARA Title III Program Officials (NASTTPO) Conference, a meeting for members of the hazmat planning community to share best practices, hear updates on hazmat regulation and policy, and learn about tools and aids to help in hazmat management and response.

NOVEMBER 2, 2020 — With the start of school, OR&R scientists began another year of exchanging letters with "pre-scientists" around the country. This month OR&R scientists participating in the Letters to a Pre-Scientist program received their first pen pal letters.

NOVEMBER 2, 2020 — OR&R Director Scott Lundgren and Senior Scientist Lisa DiPinto joined the Canadian Multi-Partner Research Initiative (CAMPRI) Advisory Committee held virtually on Wednesday October 28. CAMPRI is part of the Canadian National Oceans Protection Plan and is mid-way through five years of research that draws upon the expertise and experience of oil spill experts in Canada and internationally.

OCTOBER 26, 2020 — On October 15, the NOAA Marine Debris Program’s (MDP) Chief Scientist, Amy V. Uhrin, provided a virtual presentation to the Pacific Islands Region Observer Program as part of their 6-month re-training meeting.

OCTOBER 26, 2020 — The Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) is pleased to announce the second annual Lagniappe Awards request for proposals. The DPP has budgeted FY21 funds to continue to support preparedness across the National Ocean Service (NOS). 

OCTOBER 26, 2020 — Did you know that harmful algal blooms (HABS) cost the U.S. economy millions of dollars each year and impact every coast in the U.S., including the Great Lakes? Last Thursday on the You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know lecture series, we were honored to have renowned scientist and HAB expert, Dr. Quay Dortch, join us.

OCTOBER 19, 2020 — The Team Member of the Year award recognizes outstanding contributions to the National Ocean Service (NOS) programs and the demonstrated exceptional and sustained effort toward accomplishment of NOS missions.

OCTOBER 13, 2020 — On the evening of September 29, ARD's Southeast Regional Manager Kevin Kirsch provided the Savannah State University's Coastal Zone Management Class an introduction to the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process.

OCTOBER 13, 2020 — Hurricane Sally made landfall at Gulf Shores, Alabama, on September 16, 2020 as a Category 2 storm with sustained winds of 105 mph and devastating storm surge. Battering the Alabama and Florida coastlines for over six hours, the storm’s impacts extended across a broad area of the northern Gulf of Mexico. 

OCTOBER 13, 2020 — On October 6, the Southeast Assessment and Restoration Division Regional Manager, Kevin Kirsch, participated in the Houston Virtual Green Job Program.  The event was organized by Citizens' Environmental Coalition, an organization out of Houston, TX that fosters dialogue, education, and collaboration on environmental issues in the Houston and Gulf Coast region.

OCTOBER 5, 2020 — On September 16, Hurricane Sally made landfall in the early morning hours at Gulf Shores, Alabama, as a strong Category 2 hurricane with sustained wind speeds of 105 mph. The storm battered the Alabama and Florida coastlines for 6+ hours. 

OCTOBER 5, 2020 — Over the past fiscal year, October 1, 2019 to September 30, 2020, OR&R's Emergency Response Division (ERD) was notified of 200 incidents and activated for 174 incidents. 82% were oil spills, 4% were chemical spills, and 14% were other incidents.

OCTOBER 5, 2020 — On September 23, Ashley Hill, the Marine Debris Program’s Florida and Caribbean Regional Coordinator, presented during the NOAA in the Caribbean Community Webinar about the Marine Debris Program’s current initiatives in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. 

SEPTEMBER 28, 2020 — On September 15, Ashley Hill, the Marine Debris Program’s Florida and Caribbean Regional Coordinator, presented on marine debris activities in Florida during a Coastal Conservation Panel as part of the Florida Master Naturalist Program (FMNP) hosted by Loggerhead Marinelife Center. 

SEPTEMBER 28, 2020 — The Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Steel Corporation are making final preparations to initiate a joint sediment cleanup in the Saint Louis River in Duluth, Minnesota. They will dredge and excavate over 780,000 cubic yards of material in and around the former U.S. Steel Duluth Works site.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020 — Did you know that NOAA is chock-full of exceptional leaders? On September 10, as part of the “You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know” lecture series, we were honored to have the Deputy NOAA Administrator and retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral, Dr. Timothy Gallaudet as our speaker.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020 — The weekend of September 12, the NOAA Marine Debris Program participated in a virtual workshop for Hawaii science fair teachers.  The workshop was developed through coordination between NOAA, Hawaii Academy of Science, and Students Corner, an online student and teacher project development platform.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020 — On September 15, the NOAA Marine Debris Program announced the FY 2021 notice of funding opportunity for Marine Debris Research projects.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020 — Recently, NOAA’s National Ocean Service (NOS) virtually deployed staff to FEMA’s National Response Coordination Center (NRCC) to support ongoing response efforts for Hurricane Laura and Tropical Storm Marco.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020 — Did you know that depending on the wind, a heavy gas could follow the terrain rather than be carried by the wind?  This is one bit of critical knowledge that was shared with responders during our week of online Science of Chemical Releases (SOCR) training. 

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020 — Just when you've finished surrounding your prey with bubbles in the classic humpback "bubble net" technique, another whale swoops in and steals the catch. 

AUGUST 31, 2020 — It is not a shark, it is not the Loch Ness Monster, it is not even a jellyfish, it is the Indo-Pacific Lionfish! An incredibly invasive species wreaking havoc on the Atlantic reef fisher community.

AUGUST 31, 2020 — OR&R recently established a new agreement with the U.S. Coast Guard to update the Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) maps for the St. Marys River, connecting Lake Superior to Lake Huron, and for the St. Lawrence River, from its start in Lake Ontario to the U.S./Canadian Border.

AUGUST 24, 2020 — At this past week’s OR&R Tuesday Technical Talks with the NOAA Scientific Support Coordinator (SSC), Steve Lehmann, Senior SSC with OR&R’s Emergency Response Division for the Northeast region, training was offered two topics: Photo-Documentation for Oil Spills, and Considerations during Urban Oil Spill Response.

AUGUST 24, 2020 — In today’s environment, the need for comprehensive continuity plans is vital.  Organizations and agencies must continue to perform essential functions and provide critical services, even when normal operations are disrupted.

AUGUST 24, 2020 — OR&R’s Ben Shorr presented at this year’s NOAA Environmental Data Management Workshop. The theme of the overall workshop was “Data to Decisions: Putting NOAA Data to Work”.

 AUGUST 17, 2020 — NOAA, and the state, federal, and Tribal Trustees working on restoring habitat and resources impacted by the Portland Harbor hazardous waste site in Oregon have released a Draft Supplemental Restoration Plan and Environmental Assessment for public comment.  

AUGUST 17, 2020 — If you ever wondered how oyster reefs are built, it involves a team of dedicated experts and a water cannon.  Over the last month, barges have blasted 100,000 bushels of small fossilized oyster shells, called oyster hash, into the Eastern Branch of Virginia’s Elizabeth River.

AUGUST 17, 2020 — NOAA’s awarding $870,592 to support a project working with recreational anglers aimed at restoring reef fish species impacted by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

AUGUST 10, 2020 — You are on the 16th fairway and having a great round, but the horizon is getting a bit dark.  Fortunately, you have a weather app on your fancy smart phone.  The red and yellow bands are still a ways in the distance and the thunder is only a low rumble.  Someone else’s problem. 

AUGUST 10, 2020 — Ken Finkelstein, Regional Resource Coordinator with OR&R’s Assessment and Restoration Division, recently attended a NOAA congressional round table for the state of Rhode Island.

AUGUST 3, 2020 — On July 21, the Marine Debris Program (MDP) participated in a National Ocean Service (NOS) career panel for the staff, AmeriCorps Fellows, and other volunteers at the Ocean Discovery Institute (ODI). 

AUGUST 3, 2020 — On July 27, the secretariat of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum approved a project submitted jointly by the Marine Debris Program (MDP) and Department of State Office of Ocean and Polar Affairs to help enable governments, researchers, and others to more effectively monitor marine debris.

AUGUST 3, 2020 — Tuesday, August 28, was a historic day in Wilmington Delaware on the Brandywine River.  American Shad were documented using a portion of the Delaware River for juvenile production that hasn't been available for centuries. 

JULY 27, 2020 — On TUESDAY TECHNICAL TALKS with the NOAA Scientific Support Coordinator this week, Kate Sampson, the Stranding and Entanglement Coordinator for National Marine Fisheries Service Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office perhaps surprised some in the Northeast with the fact that sea turtles ply these northern waters.

JULY 27, 2020 — On July 20, 2020, the Marine Debris Program participated in a virtual career night panel held by the Dauphin Island Sea Lab Science Consortium for their Discovery Hall Programs 2020 High School Marine Science Class. 

JULY 20, 2020 — The Gulf of Mexico (GOM) is the United States' largest offshore oil and gas production area. 

JULY 20, 2020 — On July 13, a Marine Debris Program (MDP) partner, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), announced 14 grants totaling $121,700 to prevent the accumulation of derelict fishing gear, or fishing gear that is lost, abandoned, or discarded in the marine environment, in port communities in U.S. coastal waters.

JULY 20, 2020 — Four out of four experts agreed that climate change is the number one threat to corals around the world.

JULY 20, 2020 — On July 15, the NOAA Marine Debris Program announced the FY 2021 notice of funding opportunity for Marine Debris Removal projects.

JULY 13, 2020 — On June 24- 25, the Marine Debris Program along with the California Ocean Protection Council, hosted the bi-annual California Ocean Litter Strategy (OLS) Workshop.

JULY 13, 2020 — On June 29, the Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) and the University of New Hampshire’s Coastal Response Research Center (CRRC) hosted their second virtual Hurricane Preparedness Summit for the National Ocean Service, (NOS) in preparation for the 2020 hurricane season.

JULY 13, 2020 — After months of preparation, NOAA's Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) held their first-ever National Ocean Service (NOS) Incident Management Team (IMT) 101 Training on Wednesday, July 8.

JULY 13, 2020 — In June, the NOAA Marine Debris Program and the National Park Service (NPS) finalized a five-year agreement to support the development and installation of outreach and educational displays or exhibits in coastal National Parks. 

JUNE 29, 2020 — On June 19, Kate Wheelock, Chief of the Disaster Preparedness Program, and Charles Grisafi, Southeast Regional Preparedness Coordinator, spoke with Washington D.C. and district staff from the office of Senator Rick Scott (FL).

JUNE 22, 2020 — On June 6, Jennifer Simms, NOAA Marine Debris Program’s Communications and Education Specialist, presented virtually to 90 Cadets and four instructors.

JUNE 22, 2020 — OR&R provided scientific support through the U.S. National Response Team (NRT) in response to the Ecuador pipeline spill that occurred in early April.

JUNE 22, 2020 — On June 12, 2020, Doug Helton participated in a “virtual” conference panel for 2020 Clean Pacific Conference on the challenges posed by abandoned and derelict vessels. 

JUNE 15, 2020 — In 2018, the Town of Beaufort in North Carolina began to clean up marine debris in the waters around the Town and the Rachel Carson Reserve with the support of a NOAA Marine Debris Program Marine Debris Removal Grant.

JUNE 8, 2020 — Oil slicks form, break apart in waves and turbulence and reform again.  Oil droplets move through the water column at the surface or rise from the ocean floor as a result of well blowouts. 

JUNE 1, 2020 — On May 20, the Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) hosted a virtual briefing for the Southeast congressional delegations.

JUNE 1, 2020 — On the list of what you didn’t know that you didn’t know, remotely controlled, fire-breathing jet skis for oil spill response would be right up there near the top.  Well, they are under development and Dr. Tim Nedwed, lead for ExxonMobil’s Upstream Research Company discussed them on May 21 as part of OR&R’s weekly lecture series, YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW.

MAY 25, 2020 — On May 15, the OR&R’s Marine Debris Program California Regional Coordinator, Sherry Lippiatt, and California Sea Grant Extension Fellow, Tanya Torres, participated in a virtual California Water Quality Monitoring Council / Trash Monitoring Workgroup meeting.

MAY 18, 2020 — On April 23, the National Ocean Service (NOS) held a virtual Hurricane Preparedness Summit in preparation for the 2020 hurricane season. The summit focused on hurricane readiness in the midst of a pandemic.

MAY 18, 2020 — Marine Debris Program Pacific Northwest Regional Coordinator, Andrew Mason, recently participated in two educational outreach opportunities with local students and volunteers.

MAY 18, 2020 — The Refugio NRDA case team held a virtual public meeting on May 13, 2019 to provide the public with a summary/overview, answer questions, and receive comments on the recently-released draft Damage Assessment and Restoration Plan (DARP).

MAY 11, 2020 — On May 8, the Marine Debris Program published a paper in Scientific Reports in which observer data from the Hawai'i-based pelagic longline fishery was used to estimate relative abundance of marine debris accidentally caught by the longlines. 

MAY 11, 2020 — The Office of Response and Restoration has rolled out a weekly lecture series called, “You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know.”  Every Thursday at 3:00 PM ET, an expert presents on a topic related to emergency response or environmental protection.

MAY 4, 2020 — Scientists from the Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC) Ecotoxicology Program and OR&R traveled from Seattle to Newport, Oregon, to join local scientists at the NWFSC Hatfield Marine Center to process more than 1400 juvenile Chinook salmon in a one day sampling intensive. 

MAY 4, 2020 — To provide a glimpse into what NOAA scientists do in the Office of Response and Restoration, two OR&R scientists—marine biologist Gary Shigenaka and chemist Charlie Henry—recently led a NOAA Live! Webinar for students, The Job of a NOAA Oil Spill Response Scientist.

APRIL 27, 2020 — Periodically over the years, U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) active duty members interested in learning more about spill science will shadow a Scientific Support Coordinator or other member of OR&R’s Emergency Response Division under the USCG Marine Environmental Response Industry Training Program. 

APRIL 27, 2020 — On April 16, the director of the Marine Debris Program (MDP), Nancy Wallace, and other MDP team members participated in a phone call with Congressional staff from the offices of Senator Kaine (VA) and Senator Murkowski (AK) to discuss derelict fishing gear removal activities.

APRIL 27, 2020 — The draft Damage Assessment and Restoration Plan for the Refugio Beach Oil Spill NRDA was released for public comment on Wednesday April 22, 2020.  

APRIL 20, 2020 — LTJG Hayley Betker recently came on board at OR&R’s Emergency Response Division (ERD) as the new Regional Response Officer (RRO) for the West Coast.

APRIL 20, 2020 — On April 10, Dr. Amy V. Uhrin, Chief Scientist for the NOAA Marine Debris Program, celebrated her 20th anniversary of working for NOAA.

APRIL 13, 2020 — Collin Buckner is a Disaster Planning Associate with the DPP. Located in Mobile, Alabama at the Disaster Response Center (DRC), Collin is responsible for coordination efforts throughout the Northeast as well as the Gulf of Mexico.

APRIL 13, 2020 — On April 9, 2020, LCDR Michael Doig presented at the 28th Annual Joint Safety and Environmental Professional Development Symposium (PDS).

APRIL 6, 2020 — On April 2, the Marine Debris Program released the 2020 Florida Marine Debris Reduction Plan.

APRIL 6, 2020 — Autumn Lotze, Natural Resource and Community Recovery Specialist, and Genwest contractor, recently participated in the Pacific Risk Management ‘Ohana Conference (PRiMO) on behalf of the Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP).

MARCH 30, 2020 — NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration and the Restoration Center are pleased to announce a new publication in the journal Shore & Beach that highlights our work and leadership on long-term data management in the Gulf of Mexico.

MARCH 30, 2020 — The NOS Disaster Preparedness Program continues to provide Incident Coordination for the NOS Incident Management Team (IMT).

On February 20, 2020, Charles Grisafi, Southeast Regional Preparedness Coordinator, and Genwest contractor, represented the NOAA Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) at the 2020 South Carolina Disaster Intelligence Workshop hosted by the South Carolina Emergency Management Division (SCEMD), in Columbia, South Carolina. 

MARCH 20, 2020 — I hope you are well during this trying time. The Office of Response and Restoration is following public health and agency guidance in the performance of our work and in our response to COVID-19. We remain open for business, delivering our mission of protecting and restoring ocean and coastal resources from the impacts of oil, chemicals, marine debris, and other hazards.

MARCH 16, 2020 — OR&R, with funding support from the NOAA North Atlantic Regional Team, partnered with the Chesapeake Bay Science and Technical Advisory Committee and several regional experts and partners to organize a technical workshop on freshwater mussel ecosystem services and restoration activities.

MARCH 9, 2020 — On February 26-27, the NOAA Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) co-hosted a 2-day Emergency Support Function (ESF) Resource Advisor Training course for the state of Florida, at the Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve.

MARCH 9, 2020 — On Thursday, February 27th, the NOAA Marine Debris Program participated in the 4th Annual Ohio Clean Marina Conference in Port Clinton, Ohio.

MARCH 9, 2020 — On March 1, the Director of the NOAA Marine Debris Program, Nancy Wallace, spoke to the Gulf States Counties and Parishes Caucus at their annual meeting during the National Association of Counties Conference.

MARCH 2, 2020 — The Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) hosted a workshop at the Disaster Response Center on February 19-20 to identify preparedness needs and scope workshop and training ideas at the national and regional levels. 

MARCH 2, 2020 — [Updated March 26] On February 5-6, at NOAA’s Western Regional Center in Seattle the Disaster Preparedness Program facilitated a devolution site coordination meeting.

FEBRUARY 24, 2020 — On January 30-31, Marine Debris Program representatives Andrew Mason (Pacific Northwest Regional Coordinator) and Shanelle Naone (Pacific Islands Regional Communications and Outreach Coordinator) attended a workshop comprised of partners from across Oregon.

FEBRUARY 24, 2020 — On February 10, NOAA’s Marine Debris Program participated in the 2020 Stormwater and Litter Workshop hosted at Randolph–Macon College in Ashland, Virginia.

FEBRUARY 24, 2020 — Did you know that on average, garments are worn only 7 times before being disposed? Or that only 1% of textiles are recycled (garment to garment)?

FEBRUARY 17, 2020 — In a few months, over 1,500 professionals from the international spill response community will gather at the International Oil Spill Conference and Exhibition (IOSC 2020) in New Orleans, Louisiana. 

FEBRUARY 17, 2020 — There’s no better place to learn about environmental resilience than the South Wilmington Wetlands project in urban Wilmington, Delaware.

FEBRUARY 10, 2020 — On Jan. 28-29 in Jacksonville, Florida, Genwest contractors Charles Grisafi, Southeast Regional Preparedness Coordinator, and Autumn Lotze, Natural Resource and Community Recovery Specialist, represented OR&R’s Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) in the Southeast and Caribbean Disaster Recovery Partnership (SCDRP) 2020 Winter Meeting.

FEBRUARY 10, 2020 — On February 5, Ian Zelo, joined Dann Karlson from NOAA’s Office of International Affairs and Jessica Levine from the NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction to discuss preparedness and response with a group of international partners participating in the State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP).

FEBRUARY 10, 2019 — The Office of Response and Restoration once again had strong participation in this year’s Gulf of Mexico Oil Spills and Ecosystem Science Conference (GOMOSES).

FEBRUARY 3, 2020 — On Jan. 29, the Marine Debris Program’s Chief Scientist, Amy V. Uhrin, and Research Analyst, Carlie Herring, participated in the United States Government Informal Nanoplastics Interest Group workshop held in Washington, D.C.

FEBRUARY 3, 2020 — Great Lakes Scientific Support Coordinator LCDR Michael Doig, was in Traverse City, Michigan, from Jan. 27-31 for the Northern Michigan Area Committee meeting and the annual No-Spills Conference. 

JANUARY 27, 2020 — On January 18, the Marine Debris Program California Regional Coordinator, Sherry Lippiatt, joined the San Francisco chapter of the Surfrider Foundation for a cigarette butt canister installation event in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco.

JANUARY 27, 2020 — On the evening of January 22, 2020, retired OR&R biologist Alan Mearns joined members of the Snohomish County Marine Resources Committee (MRC) in recovering mussel cages at three intertidal sites in Edmonds.

JANUARY 27, 2020 — Last week a small team of scientists travelled to St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands to evaluate the effectiveness of repair and stabilization actions conducted in seagrass beds damaged by Hurricane Maria response activities. 

JANUARY 17, 2020 — On January 9, 2020 the Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) announced the recipients of the first annual Preparedness Lagniappe Awards.

JANUARY 17, 2020 — This week in Silver Spring, Maryland OR&R’s Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) held a 3-day NOAA-specific Incident Command System 300 (ICS 300) Level Training.

JANUARY 13, 2020 — On January 8, a group of about 30 students from Billings Middle School in Seattle, Washington, visited the NOAA Sand Point campus to learn about impacts of climate change on the oceans, including the impact of oil spills due to increased transportation and oil exploration.

DECEMBER 23, 2019 — On December 11, the CAMEO® software team released updates of two products: Tier2 Submit™ and CAMEOfm. 

DECEMBER 23, 2019 — On November 13, Sarah Latshaw, Southeast Regional Coordinator for NOAA’s Marine Debris Program, visited a College of Charleston Introduction to Geographical Information Systems (GIS) class to talk about the issue and share marine debris data. 

DECEMBER 16, 2019 — On December 4, the Weeks Bay Foundation, in partnership with the Weeks Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve and NOAA’s Marine Debris Program wrapped up a two year derelict vessel removal project by hanging 25 “Derelict is Dangerous” signs at each of the state- or county-owned boat launches in Baldwin County, Alabama.

DECEMBER 16, 2019 — On December 3-4, 2019, the Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) joined forces with the Office for National Marine Sanctuaries and other NOAA offices to hold a functional exercise called “Shaken Sanctuaries.”