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You are here: Home › National Status and Trends Program (NS&T) › Integrated Response to Hurricane Katrina
NEW - Report to Congress on the Impacts of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma
NATIONAL STATUS & TRENDS PROGRAM
Integrated Response to Hurricane Katrina
Introduction
NOAA's National Status and Trends (NS&T) Program supports ecosystem-based management through an integrated program of environmental monitoring, assessment, and research to describe the current status of pollution and to detect changes in the environmental quality of our nation's estuarine and coastal waters. These interrelated activities are designed to provide national context to measures of local and regional environmental condition. Program scientists have coordinated with Federal and State partners to develop and implement a response strategy to assess the environmental impacts of Hurricane Katrina as expressed through sediment contamination concentrations and contaminant burdens measured in the tissues (meats) of the American oyster (Crassostrea virginica). Follow this link to a listing of partners, and a description of the broader coordinated Federal response focused on assessing coastal the potential contamination that resulted from hurricane Katrina.
The NS&T Mussel Watch Project has a 20-year time series for over 120 contaminants in mussels from over 300 sites nationwide, including sites shown in figure 1 (red diamonds indicate known locations of oil leakage; data source, NOAA/ORR). The extensive Mussel Watch time series provides a critical long-term baseline for contaminant levels in the affected region. Coupled with the broad spatial coverage provided by the NS&T monitoring efforts, scientists will have the quantitative information required to assess whether contaminant signatures from Katrina are significantly different from historic levels, and from neighboring regions.
Images provided on the photographs page of this site were taken by NS&T scientists and their partners during the first week of sampling. Extensive physical impacts were evident throughout the nearshore environments sampled, including damage to oil and gas processing facilities, personal property, and natural habitats.