Clean up spilled oil at all costs? Not always

Posted Fri, 06/26/2020 - 03:57

This week, NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration is looking at some common myths and misconceptions surrounding oil spills, chemical releases, and marine debris.

The images of an oil spill—brown water, blackened beaches, wildlife slicked and sticky—can create such an emotional response that it  leads to the myth that oil is so hazardous it’s worth any and all environmental trade-offs to get it cleaned up.

How to Test for Toxicity

Posted Fri, 06/19/2020 - 07:11
By Alan Mearns

What is toxicity? Most definitions would explain it as the degree to which a substance is poisonous.

Knowing a substance’s toxic levels is particularly important to federal agencies that use the information to test potential risks posed to people’s health and to the environment.

So how do scientists know how toxic something is and whether or not that substance—be it oil, chemical treating agents or toxic metals—will be toxic when introduced into marine or coastal waters?

On Sea Turtles, Seaweed, and Oil Spills

Posted Tue, 06/16/2020 - 12:22

The young loggerhead sea turtle, its ridged shell only a few inches across, perches calmly among a floating island of brown seaweed called sargassum. Suddenly, a shadow passes overhead. A hungry seabird? Taking no chances, the small sea turtle dips beneath the ocean surface. It dives through the sargassum's tangle of branches and bladders filled with air, which keep everything afloat. Open ocean stretches for miles around the free-floating sargassum mats — which provide critical refuge to juvenile sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico — as they drift slowly with the currents. Unfortunately, these currents can just as easily push floating oil. This puts sargassum and all the creatures it supports in the path of oil spills.

Exercises Play a Vital Role in Disaster Preparedness

Posted Thu, 06/11/2020 - 11:46
By Katie Krushinski, Office of Response and Restoration Disaster Preparedness Program

A core pillar of the Disaster Preparedness Program (DPP) is designing and implementing exercises. Exercises play a vital role in preparedness by enabling NOAA and the National Ocean Service (NOS) to test and validate plans and capabilities, and identify and address gaps and areas for improvement. The DPP leads exercise programs to improve NOS’s preparedness posture and emphasize the value of the exercise cycle.