Preventing and Preparing for Oil Spills in the Arctic

Posted Thu, 05/11/2017 - 17:51

Talking with NOAA Scientist Amy Merten about her time chairing the Arctic Council’s Emergency Prevention, Preparedness and Response working group.

As rising temperatures and thinning ice in the Arctic create openings for increased human activities, it also increases the potential for oil spills and chemical releases into the remote environment of the region.

Using Dogs to Find Oil During Spill Response

Posted Mon, 05/08/2017 - 17:57

NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration’s Emergency Response Division returned to Prince William Sound to use some of the old buried oil from the Exxon Valdez oil spill to improve how we can find oil on the shoreline in the future.

This time, the key player was an enthusiastic black Labrador retriever named Pepper. This project is to validate and better understand the capabilities of trained oil detection canines to locate and delineate subsurface stranded oil. The results of the study have a high probability of immediate, short-term applications and long-term real benefits in the design and implementation of shoreline cleanup and assessment technique surveys for stranded oil.

Oil Spill Incident Responses for April 2017

Posted Tue, 05/02/2017 - 18:08

Oil spills come in all sizes from a pleasure boat’s small leak, to an oil platform explosion that results in environmental devastation, like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon incident.

Every month our Emergency Response Division provides scientific expertise and services to the U.S. Coast Guard on everything from running oil spill trajectories to where the spill may spread, to possible effects on wildlife and fisheries, and estimates on how long the oil may stay in the environment. Our Incident News website has information on oil spills and other incidents where we provided scientific support.

Sea Grant Reports: Dolphins, Sea Turtles and the Impacts from Deepwater Horizon

Posted Tue, 04/25/2017 - 19:02
By Tara Skelton

Two popular marine animals—dolphins and sea turtles—are the focus of new publications from the Sea Grant Oil Spill Science Outreach Team. In the aftermath of the largest oil spill in history, many expressed concern about its impact on these long-lived, slow-to-mature creatures. Now, almost seven years after the spill, scientists have a better understanding of how they fared. The team examined this research, synthesizing peer-reviewed findings into two easy-to-understand outreach bulletins.

Meet the New CAMEO Chemicals Mobile App

Posted Thu, 04/06/2017 - 19:21

The joint NOAA-Environmental Protection Agency hazardous chemicals database is now available as a mobile app.

Named CAMEO Chemicals, the database has information on thousands of chemicals and hazardous substances, including response recommendations and predictions about explosions, toxic fumes, and other hazards. Firefighters and emergency planners around the world use CAMEO Chemicals to help them prepare for and respond to emergencies.

From Toxic Dump to Wetland in Florida

Posted Thu, 04/06/2017 - 19:17

How do you return a  dumpsite to a natural area with productive wetlands? With the hard work of scientists, and federal and state officials.

The Raleigh Street Dump Site is located in an industrial area of Tampa, east of McKay Bay. The low-lying land was once pocked with sinkholes and littered with battery casings, furnace slag, trash, and construction debris dumped at the site from 1977 to 1991

Closing Down Damage Assessment After Deepwater Horizon

Posted Wed, 04/05/2017 - 19:28
By Greg Baker

The environmental toll from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster was enormous, demanding a massive deployment of people and materials to measure the adverse effects.

Federal and state agencies worked quickly to scale up the emergency response, clean up the spill, mount a large-scale effort to assess the injuries to wildlife and other natural resources, and record how these lost resources adversely affected the public.