MAY 20, 2024 — The NOAA Marine Debris Program Chief Scientist, Amy V. Uhrin, attended the first meeting of the Social Cost of Plastic Pollution Working Group of the National Center for Environmental Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS).
OR&R Weekly Report
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June 2014
On June 10-12, 2014, several NOAA presenters spoke about Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) and successful approaches to integrate injury assessment and early restoration actions at contaminated sites.
Jessica Winter and Bob Haddad, of OR&R's Assessment and Restoration Division, presented their paper entitled "Ecological Impacts of Dilbit Spills: Considerations for Natural Resource Damage Assessment" at Environment Canada's Arctic and Marine Oil Spill Program conference last week.
On May 31, Dr. Mark Whittington and Mr. Miguel Patel of the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation (ITOPF, based in London) arrived in Seattle for a two-week exchange with NOAA scientists.
The NOAA Marine Debris Program (MDP) hosted a marine debris strategy development meeting in St. Petersburg, Florida from May 20-22, 2014.
Plastics and other litter, abandoned vessels, and derelict fishing gear have been a long-standing problem for the Great Lakes.
U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) District 7 held a four-day workshop in Tampa/St. Petersburg, at USCG's Airstation at Clearwater and the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Southeast Regional Office in St. Petersburg to focus on the use of various spatial data management and mapping tools to support a variety of all-hazards and response needs.
May 2014
NOAA has released a short video highlighting recently completed river restoration near Seattle, WA implemented by the Boeing Corporation.
On May 21-22, 2014, a large-scale industry-led oil spill drill was conducted involving the collision of a container ship and a Chevron tanker 30 miles off the coast of Oceanside, CA.
On May 21-23, 2014, the Disaster Response Center partnered with the National Weather Service to provide a NOAA-only tabletop exercise called Tropical Storm Topaz.
All of us hope that it will never happen again, but... If years from now, a major disaster generates large amounts of debris, and the floating debris is carried away by ocean currents and wind to North America, the response community will benefit from the experience and lessons learned accumulated during the response to the Japan Tsunami Marine Debris (JTMD) event, which still on-going today.
NOAA OR&R Assessment and Restoration Division and NOAA Restoration Center will be attending a June 3, 2014 Restoration Symposium in New York City hosted by the New Jersey Harbor and Estuary Program and the Hudson River Foundation.
The NOAA Marine Debris Program coordinated a meeting to identify and discuss solutions for Florida marine debris issues.
OR&R's Emergency Response Division provided perspectives on NOAA's emergency response roles related to marine debris issues during hurricanes and oil spills.
On May 20, 2014, 13 OR&R employees received NOAA Bronze Medals and Distinguished Career Awards, presented in Silver Spring, Maryland.
OR&R Scientific Support Coordinator Ed Levine hosted NOAA leaders for a boat tour of New York Harbor, which included discussion of a variety of local topics of interest to NOAA, ranging from changes at the Panama Canal to post-Sandy efforts.
OR&R collaborated with the EPA to develop a new Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Techniques (SCAT) training course for surveying inland bodies of water.
Toddlers in Athens, Georgia, recently became the youngest group of citizen scientists to use the Marine Debris Tracker, collecting and recording trash they found outside their school.
The 2014 International Oil Spill Conference (IOSC) On-Water and Aerial Technical Demonstration provided a great opportunity for the international oil spill response community to observe a simulated oil spill response that used enhanced communication systems, remote observation tools, and leading edge response technologies.
In early May three NOAA Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program (DARRP) team members, Greg Baker, Natalie Cosentino-Manning, and Chris Plaisted, were lauded along with representatives from multiple federal and state agencies as part of a larger team that successfully completed the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) for the 2007 Cosco Busan oil spill in the San Francisco Bay and central coast of California and have been implementing restoration following settlement of this case.
Because of the similar missions and capabilities between the International Tank Owners Pollution Federation (ITOPF) and OR&R, a month-long exchange program was developed and initiated in 2012.
In mid-May, OR&R will host two ITOPF staff members for one month in Seattle, Washington.
Local fishermen on Vieques Island have expressed concern to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico that contamination related to underwater munitions are impacting the southeastern shore of the island and are negatively affecting fish catch.
NOAA will be conducting a fish study during the summer of 2014 to help inform this issue.
Here is a breakdown of the 2014 International Oil Spill Conference and OR&R’s involvement, by the numbers:
The Virginia Institute of Marine Science's Center for Coastal Resources Management estimated that 900,000 blue crabs are killed each year in derelict pots in Virginia. Commercial fishers removed about 32,000 lost and abandoned blue crab pots from 3,300 km2 of Virginia's Bay bottom over four consecutive winters through the Blue Crab Fishery Resource Disaster Relief Plan, a program funded through NOAA.
On May 1, 2014, NOAA Marine Debris Program staff participated in a round-table panel on "The Future of the Great Lakes" at the Water Institute Research Symposium at the University of Waterloo in Ontario.
So, what exactly do you do?
How many times have you been asked this question and tried to distill the subtleties of ocean currents or oil chemistry into something a local reporter or your neighbor could understand?
The International Oil Spill Conference 2014 was held in Savannah, Georgia, during the week of May 4. The conference included almost 2000 participants from 67 countries.
The NOAA co-sponsored International Oil Spill Conference 2014 occurs every three years and is always a valuable place for OR&R's oil spill responders and scientists to network, exchange information, and learn about the state of oil spill response in the U.S. and around the world.
Throughout the U.S. and its territories, thousands of abandoned and derelict vessels clutter our harbors and waterways.
To celebrate Earth Day NOAA Fisheries staff led the first NOAA Restoration Day on April 24, 2014, at NOAA’s Western Regional Campus (WRC) on the shores of Lake Washington in Seattle, WA.
On May 2, 2014, OR&R Senior Scientist Alan Mearns presented a talk at the session "Spill prevention, preparedness and response issues in the Salish Sea and Pacific Northwest" on uptake and depuration of PAHs in mussels following the May 2012 DeepSea diesel spill in Penn Cove, Washington.
This Earth Month volunteers have been diving deep into tons, literally tons, of spring cleaning for our planet.