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 model where the spill may spread, to possible effects on wildlife and fisheries and estimates on how long the oil may stay in the environment. This month OR&R responded to 20 incidents, including oil discharges, sunken vessels, and other pollution-related incidents.
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.
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?
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 model where the spill may spread, to possible effects on wildlife and fisheries and estimates on how long the oil may stay in the environment. Here are some of May's notable incidents ...
For over 40 years, the 1973 Endangered Species Acthas helped protect native plants and animals and that habitats where they live, and many government agencies play a role in that important work. That’s one reason the United States celebrates Endangered Species Day every year in May.
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 model where the spill may spread, to possible effects on wildlife and fisheries and estimates on how long the oil may stay in the environment. This month OR&R responded to 11 incidents, including oil discharges, sunken vessels, and other pollution-related incidents ...
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 model where the spill may spread, to possible effects on wildlife and fisheries and estimates on how long the oil may stay in the environment. This month OR&R responded to 11 incidents ...
By Doug Helton, Office of Response and Restoration
Oil spills raise all sorts of scientific questions, and NOAA's job is to help answer them. We have a saying that each oil spill is unique, but there is one question we get after almost every spill: Where will the oil go? One of our primary scientific products during a spill is a trajectory forecast, which often takes the form of a map showing where the oil is likely to travel and which shorelines and other environmentally or culturally sensitive areas might be at risk ...
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). In this month’s feature meet Steve Lehmann, a scientific support coordinator with OR&R’s Emergency Response Division.
By Steve Lehmann, Office of Response and Restoration
It is true that a sports car represents the apex of transportation engineering, but that sometimes a horse is the right tool for the job. New ideas come from new minds. For the past several years, oil spill response experts from NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration have been working with undergraduates in the environmental engineering program at the University of New Hampshire to examine simple answers to a complex problem.
