AUGUST 24, 2015--The week of August 17, 2015, OR&R said thanks to the Oil Pollution Act for 25 years of oil spill prevention, cleanup, and environmental restoration.

We celebrated this historic legislation by sharing its successes in restoring the environment after oil spills.

On August 18, 1990, a little more than a year after the Exxon Valdez disaster, the Oil Pollution Act was passed and signed into law. This historic and timely legislation gave NOAA and other agencies the authority to address impacts to natural resources caused by oil spills in navigable U.S. waters and shorelines.

The law is designed to prevent oil spills, ensure cleanup if they occur, and restore the natural resources impacted as a result of spills. Those responsible for the spill must restore the environment and compensate the public for its lost uses (like beach and recreational fishery closures), from the time of the incident until those natural resources fully recover.

NOAA has been working to protect and restore impacted natural resources at hazardous waste sites and oil spills since the early 1980s. In 1992, shortly after the Oil Pollution Act came into effect, NOAA created the Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program (DARRP) . The program was established as the central location for expertise in NOAA to assess, restore, and protect coastal environments damaged by oil spills, hazardous waste releases, and ship groundings.

For a closer look at the sites that DARRP has worked to restore, check out https://darrp.noaa.gov. Too look back at our week-long celebration, search the hashtag #Thanks2OilPollutionAct .

For further information, contact Katie.Wagner@noaa.gov.

Go back to OR&R Weekly Report.