Assessment and Restoration Division

Listen, the ocean is full of sound. From the tip-tap of scuttling shellfish, to the echoing songs of baleen whales, many kinds of marine life use sound to navigate their underwater world. For scientists, it’s sometimes easier to hear marine creatures than it is to see them.

This feature is part of a monthly series profiling scientists and technicians who provide exemplary contributions to the mission of NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R). This month’s featured scientist is Assessment and Restoration Division Southeast Branch Manager Kevin Kirsch.

On Sept. 14, 2018 NOAA and project partners took an explosive step in the Bloede Dam project. Following 10 years of planning, and three weeks after partners celebrated, the explosives were detonated. Immediately the dam was breached. Water and sediment began pouring over the giant structure. Any lingering concrete will be manually removed. The Bloede Dam removal was the largest and most complicated in NOAA’s history, and a major victory for communities along the Patapsco River.

Washington resident Kavya Varkey joined NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration for an internship this summer at the NOAA Western Regional Center in Seattle. A senior this year at Sammamish High School in Bellevue, Washington, Kavya says she’s always been drawn to science. Her interest has continued to develop and come into focus, and she plans to pursue an education that will lead to a career in environmental science.

Sitting at the mouth of the Hudson River where it empties into Upper New York Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, the New York-New Jersey Harbor is located at the center of commerce. The harbor is a multi-billion dollar port, an industrial complex, and a transportation hub — but the natural resources both in and around the harbor are often overlooked.

For many, the first thing that comes to mind when they think of oil spills is an image of great big oil sheens in the middle of the ocean, tarballs washing up on beaches, and photos of oiled wildlife on the internet. Marine pollution on the whole might also bring to mind an image of sandy beaches littered with plastic bottles and other marine debris — or perhaps even a “garbage island” floating out in open sea.

This is the fifth blog in a week-long series to highlight the importance of disaster preparedness. Follow us this week as we take a look at how NOAA prepares for natural and human-made disasters, and how you can prepare for the 2018 hurricane season. Share your #DisasterPreparedness strategy by commenting on our blog, or replying to our Twitter and Facebook.

This is the eighth in a monthly series profiling scientists and technicians who provide exemplary contributions to the mission of NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R). This month’s profile is on Assessment and Restoration Division toxicologist and Alaska Regional Resource Coordinator Sarah Allan.

Our first day of surveying intertidal habitats on the Farallon Islands was cold and wet, with gusty winds practically blowing us over while we set out our sampling plots. The Farallones, 29 miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, are a desolate cluster of seven small rocky outcrops sometimes dubbed the “Devil’s Teeth,” but other times referred to as “California’s Galapagos.” The jagged rocks are barely visible over the western horizon from the Golden Gate, but on a clear day can be seen from the more northerly Point Bonita lighthouse as gray spikes poking through an otherwise flat and expansive sea surface.