MAY 20, 2024 — The NOAA Marine Debris Program Chief Scientist, Amy V. Uhrin, attended the first meeting of the Social Cost of Plastic Pollution Working Group of the National Center for Environmental Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS).
OR&R Weekly Report
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March 2015
MARCH 3, 2015--Drs. Adriana C. Bejarano and Alan Mearns are pleased to announce that a new paper, Improving Environmental Assessments by Integrating Species Sensitivity Distributions into Environmental Modeling: Examples with two hypothetical oil spills, is in press this week and available online at the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin.
February 2015
FEBRUARY 27, 2015--During the week of February 16, 2015, Peter Murphy, the NOAA Marine Debris Program's Alaska Regional Coordinator, presented on marine debris and local partnerships to research and prevent its impacts on our oceans at the Alaska Forum on the Environment (AFE).
FEBRUARY 27, 2015--Every two years, California’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR) teams up with Chevron to host an Oil Spill Response Technology Workshop to expand responders’ understanding of existing and emerging technologies and help them achieve the best available protection for California waters.
FEBRUARY 27, 2015--On March 10, 2015, Doug Helton of the OR&R Emergency Response Division will present, “Oil dispersants in the Arctic: What does the science say about efficacy and tradeoffs?”
In the Great Lakes, monofilament fishing line is an entanglement hazard for wildlife. This is especially true in areas such as the Maumee River in Ohio, which are popular recreational fishing spots.
Congratulations to our 2015 “Keep the Sea Free of Debris” art contest winners!
ENS Rachel Pryor is the new Assistant Scientific Support Coordinator (SSC) for the West Coast. On February 18, 2014, ENS Rachel Pryor attended the Snohomish County Marine Resources Advisory Committee monthly meeting at the County Administration building in Everett, WA.
The 17th annual Alaska Forum on the Environment (AFE) was held in Anchorage during the week of February 9, 2015.
USCG Sector Miami is holding a series of county focused updates for the local area contingency plan that started on February 11, 2015, in Broward County.
JUNE 14, 2019 — Ben Shorr, OR&R Physical Scientist with the Assessment and Restoration Division’s Spatial Data Branch, presented on NOAA’s data management and query tools developed and used for the Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) at the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science conference in Houston, TX.
On February 16, 2015, a CSX oil train derailed and caught fire in West Virginia near the confluence of Armstrong Creek and the Kanawha River.
The Pacific Northwest Environmental Response Management Application (ERMA) team and NOAA Fisheries, West Coast Region Protected Resource Division have collaborated to make the final Rockfish Critical Habitat designation under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) available through Pacific Northwest ERMA concurrent with the publication of the final rule in the Federal Register.
Sarah Latshaw is the new Southeast Regional Coordinator for the NOAA Marine Debris Program, based in Charleston, SC. She joined the Marine Debris Team at the end of October and is working with government, non-profit, and academic partners in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and the east coast of Florida to address marine debris issues on a regional scale.
Drawing on NOAA's expertise in emergency management for marine incidents, a delegation from a maritime security research team at Korea Institute for Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST) visited OR&R's Silver Spring office on Monday, February 9, 2015.
The Marine Debris Program staff participated in the inaugural conference of the Citizen Science Association in San Jose, CA, on February 11-12, 2015.
The Pacific Northwest Environmental Response Management Application (ERMA) team is pleased to announce a collaboration with Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to identify and update the online mapping tool ERMA with spatial data layers from the Oregon Geospatial Enterprise Office.
On February 3, 2015, several OR&R employees received NOAA Bronze Medals and Distinguished Career Awards, presented in Silver Spring, Maryland.
The Consulate General of Japan in Seattle recently recognized contributions to Japan-United States relations. In a ceremony held during the New Year's Reception at the Official Residence, recipients, including one from the NOAA Marine Debris Program, were awarded the Consul General's Commendation.
January 2015
On Friday January 23, 2015 the $5.15 billion settlement with Anadarko Petroleum Corporation for environmental and tort claims went into effect.
Ian Zelo is currently the acting NW and Great Lakes branch chief for the Assessment and Restoration Division.
Last year, students and teachers at Del Norte High School in Crescent City cleaned and returned a small boat to Takata High School in Rikuzentakata, a city in Japan.
In the National Ocean Science Bowl's (NOSB) first ever "Ask an Expert" Google+ Hangout, NOAA's OR&R experts answered on live-streaming video questions about oil in the marine environment from students across the country.
A NOAA Arctic Coordination Workshop was held in Seattle on January 15 and 16, 2015. The goal of the meeting was to strengthen coordination and planning across NOAA on the Arctic to focus on key thematic areas to be addressed over the next two years building on the NOAA “Arctic Vision and Strategy” and “Action Plan.”
Commercial fishermen spent three days removing "ghost pots" this week from North Carolina's waters as part of a two-year grant from the NOAA Marine Debris Program (MDP) to clean up the crab pots and re-purpose them into oyster reefs. Jason Rolfe, the MDP's Mid-Atlantic regional coordinator participated and said they were on pace to exceed last year's removal numbers.
OR&R collaborated with the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) and EPA to present a full day course, “Introduction to Oil Spill Response for Firefighters and Public Safety Personnel,” at the Florida Hazardous Material Symposium for firefighters from Florida.
A contingent of OR&R staff and scientists joined 800 attendees at the 2015 Alaska Marine Science Symposium in Anchorage, January 19-22, 2015.
NOAA is in London, UK, the week of January 19, 2015, as part of the Pollution Prevention and Response (PPR) subcommittee of the larger Marine Environmental Protection Committee (MEPC) at the International Maritime Organization.
Marine debris is a global problem, and marine debris items are found on beaches all over the world. But how can we tell how much debris washes up on the beach, and when?
This week a series of guidelines for collecting ephemeral data for oil spills in the Arctic to support Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) were released.