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The Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) provides critical scientific support to protect our coastal communities following natural disasters and other incidents that result in marine pollution. Within OR&R, the Emergency Response Division (ERD) provides scientific expertise and services to the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) on everything from running oil spill trajectories that model where the spill may spread, to identifying possible effects on wildlife and fisheries, and estimating how long the oil may impact coastal communities and ecology.
Supporting Clean, Healthy Coasts and Economies
Prepare • Respond • Restore • Recover
OR&R Services
Disaster and Pollution
OR&R delivers critical services to address increasing impacts from disasters and from pollution due to oil, chemicals, and marine debris. Our pollution and disaster mandates provide the backbone for our mission to the changing nature of coastal threats and hazards, which impact our coastal communities and the economies on which they rely.
Oil and Chemical Spill Response
OR&R provides scientific support to over 150 oil and chemical spills in U.S. waters annually. Spills impact lives, property, and public natural resources, as well as disrupt marine transportation with widespread economic impacts.
Oil and Chemical Natural Resource Restoration
OR&R and partners assess the impacts of oil spill and industrial pollution incidents and reach legal settlements with those responsible to fund restoration. Over the past 30+ years, NOAA and co-trustees have helped recover $10.8 billion for restoration of injured resources across the country.
Marine Debris Prevention and Removal
OR&R investigates and prevents the adverse impacts of marine debris. Since 2006, we have supported over 260 marine debris removal projects and removed more than 38,000 metric tons of marine debris from our coasts and ocean.
Emergency and Disaster Preparedness
Through planning, training, exercises, disaster coordination, and continuous improvement, OR&R ensures the National Ocean Service and its partners have the tools and information necessary to plan for and respond to disasters so commerce, communities, and natural resources can recover as quickly as possible.
Featured News
Cleaning up an oil spill and restoring the environment boils down to the science. Scientists, data managers, and emergency responders from OR&R, the Coastal Response Research Center (CRRC) at the University of New Hampshire, U.S. Coast Guard, University of Michigan, Coastal Monitoring Associates, Water Mapping, Environmental Protection Agency, State of California, and the U.S. Navy partnered to advance oil spill science using the natural oil seeps off the coast of Santa Barbara as their ‘lab’.
Funds will restore four waterways in New Jersey, Texas, and Washington.
A plastic drift card released on December 27, 1976 near Nantucket, Massachusetts was found 3,000 miles away and 48 years later on the Isle of Coll in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. Barbara Payne, a longtime resident of the Isle of Coll off the coast of Scotland, was cleaning up after a storm on October 22, 2024. The storm tossed seaweed and other debris on the track to her house. While cleaning up the road, she was careful to sort through and remove any plastic debris.