How NRDAR and Response Work Together

How response and NRDA activities work together?

When a spill or release of oil or hazardous substances occurs, NRDAR trustees are notified through the Incident Command by the federal or state on scene coordinator. The notification provides NRDAR trustees with all information that is presently known of the spill or release. That information will contain such things as spill location, type of product spilled or released, the amount spilled or released, etc.

The types of information that are collected by responders and useful to a NRDAR are:

  • Oil transport, fate, and trajectories
  • Oil observations from overflights or shoreline clean-up assessment techniques (SCAT) data
  • Known resources at risk

The benefits of a coordinated response include:

  • Minimizes injuries to natural resources and human uses
  • Maximizes likelihood of successful protection, mitigation, and restoration
  • Avoids duplicative efforts and expenses
  • Maximizes utilization of resources and data/information sharing
  • Avoids conflicts, misunderstandings and interference

For perspective, below is a comparison of approaches of responders and trustees during a response:

Response NRDA
  • Directed by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or US Coast Guard (USCG)
  • Any release
  • Focus on “actionable” oil
  • Endpoint is clean up
  • Shorter timeframe
  • Directed by trustees 
  • Only for some spills
  • Focus on proving injury
  • Endpoint is restoration
  • Longer timeframe

(Source: Natural Resource Damage Assessment Activities during an Emergency Response. NOAA Office of Response and Restoration/Assessment and Restoration Division. Sarah Allan. December 2016.)

Responders evaluate a spill or release to determine whether it is actionable for cleanup, while NRDAR trustees evaluate a spill or release in terms of what can cause an injury, even if at the molecular level. Even if a spill or release is not feasible to clean up, there may still be natural resource injuries. While NRDAR activities may overlap with the response in time and space, they need not interfere with the response.

The types of information that NRDAR trustees are looking for to quantify injuries during the preassessment phase include:

  • Identify natural resources and services at risk and determine if injuries are occurring or likely to occur
  • Collect ephemeral data to support the decision to conduct a full injury assessment. Ephemeral data are types of information that change rapidly over time and may be lost if not collected immediately. Examples of ephemeral data include:
    • Oil or contaminant spilled or released, water, sediment, tissue samples for chemical analysis and fingerprinting
    • Carcass collection
    • Documentation of fisheries closures/advisories
  • Document conditions of resources prior to exposure to the contaminant
  • Confirm the presence of the contaminant

Common Misconceptions

Some common misconceptions can cause problems for notification, early coordination, and information sharing between responders and NRDAR trustees during an emergency response.

Maybe you thought… Actually…
  • NRDAR is only done for big spills or releases
  • Not all spills require NRDAR but,
    • Trustees decide if/when to conduct NRDAR
    • There is no predefined threshold
  • If the spill or release doesn’t require cleanup, then it doesn’t require NRDAR
  • Even if there is no emergency response, there may be a NRDAR
  • NRDAR may be done for spills or releases that cannot be cleaned up (for instance no recoverable oil)
  • If the spill or release doesn’t impact the shoreline then there is no need for a NRDAR
  • Natural resources can be injured even when the spill never impacts the shoreline
  • NRDAR may be done for spills or releases with or without shoreline impacts

(Source: Natural Resource Damage Assessment Activities during an Emergency Response. NOAA Office of Response and Restoration/Assessment and Restoration Division. Sarah Allan. December 2016.)

Trustees Responsibilities during Response

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