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Using This Site

This website is designed to serve the general public as well as response and educational communities. Here you can access information related to current and historical incidents spanning over 30 years.

This website contains information provided and approved by the Unified Command for specific spill incidents. The Unified Command is the group responsible for conducting response operations at the scene of an incident. It is usually comprised of the U.S. Coast Guard Federal On-Scene Coordinator, the State On-Scene Coordinator, and a representative of the responsible party.

Information will be posted on this site as it becomes available. The timing of updates depends on the nature of each spill and resources available to post the material. The date of updates is noted on each page. During rapidly evolving events, the site might be updated several times per day. In the later phases of a response, the site might be updated once per week.

This site is maintained by the Emergency Response Division, Office of Response and Restoration, National Ocean Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Unauthorized attempts to add or modify information on this website are strictly prohibited and may be punishable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act.

FAQs

Q. Where should I send comments or questions about a particular incident response?

A. Look under the Public Advisories and Press Releases section for the incident. Whenever possible, we show the contact information for the Joint Information Center (JIC) for the incident in this section. Contact the JIC directly with you comments or questions.

Q. For some incidents I see sections on press releases or after-incident documents, for other incidents I only see a summary, why is that?

A. For many incidents, very little information is available. The amount of information you will see on an incident depends on the scale of the government or NOAA response and the amount of information available to NOAA. Prior to 2007, none of the incidents will have press releases because NOAA did not capture that information. As of June 2007, we are beginning to fill in the after-incident documents. However, this "filling in" will be a long, slow process. Most incidents will not have this information.

Q. Some of the reports have a lot of acronyms and unfamiliar terms in them. Where can I find more information about what these terms mean?

A. On the left hand side of this websites' home page, there is a link to a Glossary. The glossary is a good place to start in helping decipher some of the spill response acronyms and terms. Another place to look for more discussion on what specific terms mean is the "Spill Science" link on the left hand side of this website.

Q. May I use the photographs I find on this website?

A. You are welcome to download and use any of the photos on any of our incident pages that were taken by NOAA, Coast Guard, or other U.S. Government agencies; these photos are in the public domain, and are not copyrighted. We ask that you credit the appropriate agency or person when using photos from this site. Photographs from private sources, such as newspapers, are copyright-protected. To use a photo from a private source, we recommend that you contact the source directly to obtain permission to use their photo.

To download a photo,

Q. Where should I send comments or questions about information in this website or about this website itself?

A. You may send your comments or questions to us at ORR.Incidentnews@noaa.gov.

Q. Where should I report a problem with this website?

A. Please send problem reports to us at ORR.Incidentnews@noaa.gov.

Q. May I link to your site?

A. You are welcome to make a link to this website; you do not need to request our permission.

Q. Would you link to my site?

A. We limit our links to other websites to only those that aid us in performing our mission.

Our website contains links to websites of other government agencies, research and educational institutions, and, in a few cases, to websites run by private organizations.

Links to other websites do not imply that NOAA endorses the opinions or ideas expressed on those sites, and do not guarantee the validity of the information provided on those websites. Links to commercial sites are in no way an endorsement by NOAA of any vendor's products or services.

We will not provide links to other websites if such links would appear to provide an official endorsement of fundraising efforts, commercial activities, or lobbying for a political agenda.

Contacts

If you have questions or comments...

...about a current incident response, please check the bottom of the incident page for a Joint Information Center (JIC) contact.

...about this website, please contact ORR.Incidentnews@noaa.gov.

Please report broken links or other problems with this website to ORR.Incidentnews@noaa.gov.