Restoration

If you ever wondered how oyster reefs are built, it involves a team of dedicated experts and a water cannon. Over the last month, barges have blasted 100,000 bushels of small fossilized oyster shells, called oyster hash, into the Eastern Branch of Virginia’s Elizabeth River. Oyster hash is normally shipped abroad for use as chicken feed, but now it’s laying the foundation for a restoration project that will help the river recover from pollution.

Water pollution comes in many forms, from toxic chemicals to trash. The sources of water pollution are also varied, from factories to drain pipes. In general, NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) classifies water pollution into two categories; point source and non-point source pollution.

Despite an effort to use plain language, government agencies often use jargon that only makes sense to insiders. Here is list of common words that can become head-scratchers when used in the context of spill response.

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster spread spilled oil deep into the ocean’s depths and along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, compromising the complex ecosystem and local economies. The response and the natural resources damage assessment were the largest in the nation’s history. In this 2017 blog, learn more about the natural resources injured by the Deepwater Horizon spill, and how our team assessed those injuries. 

The 2010 explosion on the DeepwaterHorizon Macondo oil well drilling platform triggered a massive oil release polluting over 1,300 miles of shoreline along the Gulf of Mexico. The harm from the spill to coastal salt marsh habitat was extensive, and in some instances, permanent. NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration along with other federal and state agencies measured the spill’s effects and created a restoration plan as part of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA).

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill began on April 20, 2010, with a blowout of BP’s Macondo drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico. In addition to the death of 11 men, the spill resulted in the largest mobilization of resources addressing an environmental emergency in the history of the United States. The size of the spill required the Emergency Response Division to refine tracking subsurface oil, flowrate calculations, and long-term oil transport modeling. Data and information management became a paramount issue ...

For most of us, welcoming in the new year is a time of celebration, reflection, and making resolutions to eat healthier and finish forgotten projects! Here at NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration, our New Year’s resolutions are a little different. As we enter into a new decade, we’ve prepared some resolutions specific to pollution and our commitment to keeping the coasts clean from threats of oil, chemicals, and marine debris. In 2020, we will ...

Canoeing down the Kalamazoo River under the shade of trees, watching small fish dart through the shallows, you wouldn’t guess you’re paddling through a hazardous waste site. Michigan, in many ways, is defined by freshwater. It borders four of the five Great Lakes, and Michigan’s interior boasts thousands of inland lakes and river systems.
 

During National Water Quality Month, NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration shares some of the ways we preserve and improve water quality through cleanup and restoration. 

NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration develops scientific solutions to keep the coasts clean from threats of oil, hazardous waste, and marine debris — all of which are major pollutants that can hugely affect the water quality of our coastal natural resources.