scientific support

When oil spills or hazardous waste releases damage or close our favorite parks and beaches, NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) works to quantify the loss to the public. Leveraging new technologies, OR&R economists are exploring mobility data from smartphones to get a more complete picture of how community recreation is impacted after environmental disasters.

Ship grounding refers to a vessel unintentionally making contact with the seabed, a waterway side, or underwater structures. Despite advances in navigation, ships of all sizes can still run aground in U.S. waters. Groundings can result from storms, mechanical failures, or even human error. NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) provides scientific support to the U.S. Coast Guard which handles the immediate incident and vessel aspects. OR&R may be called in to address the environmental consequences of the grounding, from initial scientific assessment during the response to long-term restoration of affected habitats.

When the Argo Merchant ran aground on Nantucket Shoals off Massachusetts early on Dec. 15, 1976, and spilled nearly 8 million gallons of heavy fuel oil, it became the worst marine oil spill the United States had seen. It also led to the eventual creation of the Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R).

In 1974, as work began on the Alaska pipeline, NOAA scientists and academics realized there were important unanswered questions about oil spills.

Disasters often spark major changes. The sinking of the Titanic led to increased international requirements for lifesaving equipment, and the Exxon Valdez led to double-hull tankers and a host of other safety improvements. The 1976 grounding of the Argo Merchant led to the creation of the Scientific Support Coordinator (SSC) program that today is the backbone of the marine spill response.

On Sept. 5, 2016, a marsh excavator operated by Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company tracked over pipeline while performing restoration activities in Bay Long, a sub-estuary of Barataria Bay, discharging approximately 5,300 gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The pipeline was shut in and is no longer leaking. The incident occurred at an active restoration site for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The cause of the incident is still under investigation.

When you’re in the business of emergency response, you need to be prepared for all kinds of disasters and all kinds of scenarios. Being a NOAA Scientific Support Coordinator, the disaster scenarios I’m usually involved with have some connection to the coast or major U.S. waterways.

As a sea kayaking enthusiast who enjoys paddling the waters of Washington’s Puget Sound, I need to have up-to-date information about the currents I’m passing through. Accurate predictions of the strong tidal currents in the sound are critical to safe navigation, and kayak trips in particular need to be timed carefully to ensure safe passage of certain regions.

As a NOAA oceanographer and modeler, I also depend on accurate information about ocean currents to predict where spilled pollutants may travel in the marine environment.

NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration is supporting the U.S. Coast Guard response to an oil spill in the Green Canyon oil reserve area in the Gulf of Mexico. We are providing oil spill trajectory analysis and information on natural resources potentially at risk from the oil. The NOAA Scientific Support Coordinator has been on-scene.