WRITTEN TESTIMONY OF
DAVID KENNEDY
DIRECTOR, OFFICE
OF RESPONSE AND RESTORATION
NATIONAL OCEANIC
AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION
OVERSIGHT HEARING
ON
THE OIL POLLUTION
ACT OF 1990
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
COAST GUARD AND MARITIME TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND
INFRASTRUCTURE
APRIL 27, 2006
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, for the opportunity to testify on the role of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in response, restoration, and research under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (33 U.S.C. 2701-2761; OPA). I am David Kennedy, Director of the Office of Response and Restoration within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The Exxon Valdez oil spill taught us a valuable
lesson. Our Nation must be prepared to
respond to major oil spills. Some time
has passed since a domestic spill rivaled the Exxon Valdez in size. However, the near simultaneous Athos I (Delaware River) and Selendang Ayu (
OPA created a comprehensive prevention, response, liability, and compensation regime to respond to these types of oil pollution incidents from both vessels and on-shore facilities. Under OPA, NOAA acts on behalf of the public as a natural resource trustee for coastal and marine resources regarding the discharge or threatened discharge of oil into the environment. These responsibilities include:
· Working through the National Response Team and the Regional Response Teams to ensure the most appropriate response and cleanup actions are taken to protect resources from further injury;
· Working with our co-trustees to assess and restore injured natural resources and the services they provide;
·
Carrying out oil spill research and development
under Title VII of OPA; and
·
Participating on the Interagency Coordinating
Committee on Oil Pollution Research, which coordinates research and development
efforts among industry, universities, and others.
When a spill occurs, a multi-agency interdisciplinary scientific response team provides and coordinates advice on response, cleanup, and natural resource issues. NOAA has Scientific Support Coordinators (SSCs) in U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) offices, to assist the USCG in its role as Federal On-Scene Coordinators when a spill occurs in the coastal zone. The SSC supports the Incident Command System, which is the organization that coordinates incident response among the several response agencies. SSCs lead a team of scientists who provide support in areas including pollutant fate and transport, resource identification and protection strategies, shoreline cleanup assessment, and natural resource trustee coordination. NOAA also provides weather forecasts and emergency survey and charting capabilities to assist response efforts.
NOAA’s response to each incident is dependent upon the spill’s characteristics. Scientific coordination is critical. Using experience, expertise, and state-of-the-art technology, NOAA forecasts the movement and behavior of spilled oil, evaluates the risk to resources, and recommends protection priorities and appropriate cleanup actions.
Effective spill response depends on effective planning and preparation. NOAA promotes preparedness by working closely with Regional Response Teams to develop policies on dispersant use, best cleanup practices, communications, and response organization. In addition, NOAA enhances the state of readiness by developing better response tools including trajectory models, fate models, and integration of improved weather data and data from ocean observing systems into spill trajectory forecasts.
Regulations
promulgated by NOAA under OPA provide a framework for conducting natural resource
damage assessments. NOAA scientists and
economists work with other trustees and responsible parties to ensure that
coastal and marine resources injured by oil spills are restored.
NOAA
experts follow the practical guidance provided by the regulations for conducting
natural resource damage assessments. The
regulations describe these steps:
1) Preassessment – Trustees
evaluate data on impacts to natural resources to determine whether natural
resources and their associated services have been injured;
2) Restoration Planning –
Trustees quantify injuries to natural resources and their services and use that
information to determine the type and scale of restoration activities that
fully compensate the public for the injures; and
3) Restoration Implementation –
Trustees, often working with those responsible for the release, implement
restoration actions.
Cooperative
Assessments
NOAA has long been interested in promoting cost effective and efficient natural resource damage assessments. One approach is a cooperative assessment process where trustees work with responsible parties to design and implement appropriate assessment efforts, thereby avoiding duplicative, often competing studies, and reducing costs and the risk of litigation. Cooperative assessments expedite restoration, encourage innovative approaches, strengthen partnerships, and provide meaningful public involvement. Cooperative assessments also offer industry the opportunity to play a greater role and have some control over the timing of restoration actions, without undermining the natural resource trustee responsibilities.
One example of a cooperative assessment occurred at
Based on NOAA’s successful experiences
in cooperative assessments, NOAA is promoting this approach through national
and regional dialogues. Over the last five
years, NOAA has carried out a number of cooperative
damage assessments, resulting in restoration that has contributed to the program
total of over 4000 acres of coastal and marine habitat protected or restored
under NOAA’s damage assessment and restoration activities.
OPA also addresses the need for research. Even though the number of large spills from vessels has decreased over the last decade, the total number of vessel spills has not changed significantly. The ability to mitigate the effects of oil spills on these coastal and marine resources is dependent upon the availability of relevant, strong scientific data needed to make decisions regarding response and restoration options.
NOAA has been a leader for many years in on-the-ground
research in spill response. We work with
other federal agencies, states, industry and academia to develop methods for
improving efficiency and minimizing environmental impact, lessening the time
between cleanup and environmental recovery.
As part of this coordination, we participate on the Interagency
Coordinating Committee on Oil Pollution Research, which was established by OPA
to coordinate efforts to address oil pollution research and technology
development. Another example of
coordination is NOAA’s partnership with the
· Transport and fate of submerged oil; and
· Transport of oil in ice-infested waters
NOAA also undertakes a variety of activities designed to develop and strengthen techniques and methods for natural resource damage assessment and restoration. These activities allow NOAA to improve our ability to assess the impact of oil on natural resources and increase timeliness and effectiveness of efforts to restore our trust resources. A few examples of on-going activities include:
· Evaluation of the toxicity of oil components to larval fish;
· Relative productivity of different habitat types;
· Economic value of coral habitats; and
· Innovations in using new remote sensing technologies to produce high resolution maps showing oil exposure and impacts to shoreline habitats and sensitive natural resources.
On
NOAA responded to this incident in several ways as mandated under OPA. The SSC led the Unified Command’s Environmental Unit, which coordinated the environmental aspects of the spill. Through the SSC, NOAA provided its traditional support: oil trajectory analysis, weather forecasts, identification of sensitive resources at risk, coordination of shoreline impact assessment, recommendations on environmentally appropriate cleanup techniques, seafood safety consultation, risk communication and public outreach. The NOAA Navigation Response Team conducted emergency NOAA navigational surveys to locate the objects responsible for the incident and to identify potential sunken oil collection points. NOAA also led state and federal trustees in efforts to initiate natural resource damage assessment.
The USCG suspended vessel traffic through this major
The Athos I incident is a reminder that while the threat of large tanker spills has diminished, it has not disappeared; there is still a need to sustain an integrated spill response and restoration research program. NOAA’s response to the Athos I spill highlighted the need for improved understanding of the transport and fate of submerged oil, and the need to develop more efficient technologies for submerged oil detection, tracking, and modeling. The Athos I response also highlighted the need for additional research on ways to collect submerged oil and/or protect locations from it. Without reliable technologies for prediction and detection, the Federal On-Scene Coordinator and his science staff are placed in the position of “proving a negative” to the public in order to assure no continued threat. Such “proof” adds time and expense to the response and can substantially raise the overall costs of cleanup. NOAA’s research efforts continue to address these concerns.
As a natural resource trustee for coastal resources, NOAA
continues to work closely with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the
States of New Jersey,
On December 7-8, 2004, the cargo vessel M/V Selendang
Ayu lost power, ran aground and broke in half on the
During the initial response, NOAA participated in aerial
observations and mapping of floating and shoreline oil, as well as provided
on-scene weather information, including the establishment of an emergency
remote weather station and the provision of a dedicated on-scene meteorologist.
To give an example of the difficult
nature of the work involved, a heavy-lift helicopter was used to remove the remaining
140,000 gallons of fuel from the wreck by transporting seventy, 2,000-gallon
fuel canisters, one at a time, through the mountains, 25 miles to
The SSC coordinated environmental issues for the Unified Command, including technical matters related to potential dispersant use and trajectory forecasts for the residual oil onboard. The SSC reviewed satellite data and remote sensing information and assisted the USCG prioritizing search areas for the flight recorder from the downed helicopter.
NOAA conducted shoreline and aerial surveys and helped
prepare a comprehensive map of shoreline contamination. NOAA also worked with the USCG and State of
The Port of Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island is the largest
fishing port in the
NOAA continues to work with the other natural resource
trustees (USFWS and the State of
Hurricane Aftermath
The magnitude of the impacts to the environment in the
aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita is unprecedented. Over 9 million gallons of oil were released and
thousands of vessels, mostly in ports and inland waterways, were sunk or
stranded. The number of incidents,
magnitude of the spills, and devastated regional infrastructure made for an
extraordinary emergency.
NOAA was one of the first federal agencies to respond on-scene, staffing
multiple command posts, providing the USCG, the Environmental Protection
Agency, and states with critical scientific information to support clean up and
recovery. This included the assessment,
prioritization, and mitigation of over 1000 hazardous materials releases. NOAA provided essential information,
graphically documenting pollution cases, waterway closures,
NOAA staff collected data at the larger spill sites for damage assessment and restoration purposes. This work was accomplished by dedicated NOAA scientists with unique skills and experience, working in areas with little or no infrastructure. Assessment work continues at the largest oil spills in order to address injuries to natural resources.
The actions of NOAA resulted in a more effective and efficient clean up, thereby mitigating environmental impacts. NOAA identified hundreds of pollution incidents. Through careful monitoring and coordination, clean up was conducted effectively, enhancing the potential for environmental recovery and restoration.
Thank you for the
opportunity to talk about NOAA’s important role under OPA. NOAA’s
expertise is critical to prevent further harm, restore adverse effects on
natural resources, aid planning and response decision-making, and document
damages associated with oil spills. I look forward to any questions that you may
have.