April 18, 2012 - An estimated $60 million in early restoration projects soon will begin along the Gulf Coast following the nation’s largest oil spill, the Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) Trustee Council announced.

With finalization of the “Deepwater Horizon Phase I Early Restoration Plan & Environmental Assessment” (ERP/EA), eight restoration projects will be implemented. The projects provide for marsh creation, coastal dune habitat improvements, nearshore artificial reef creation, and oyster cultch restoration, as well as the construction and enhancement of boat ramps to compensate for lost human use of resources.

The ERP/EA is the first early restoration plan under the unprecedented April 2011 agreement with BP to fund $1 billion in early restoration projects. The funding enables the trustees to begin restoration before the completion of damage assessment activities.

The week of April 2nd, a plan was released to provide restoration to offset a portion of the environmental injuries caused by the Kalamazoo River Superfund Site in Michigan. This Draft Restoration Plan/Environmental Assessment (Draft RP/EA) presents proposed restoration actions to address public natural resource losses caused by the release of hazardous substances from the Allied Paper Property. It was released by Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, Michigan Attorney General, USFWS, and NOAA. This Draft RP/EA provides information regarding the affected environment, the natural resource injuries caused by releases of hazardous substances from property, the restoration actions proposed to compensate for these injuries, and the anticipated impacts of the restoration actions. This RP/EA does not address restoration projects to compensate for injuries resulting from releases from the rest of the Kalamazoo River Superfund Site; such efforts will be conducted in the future. The purpose of this Draft RP/EA is to inform and solicit comments from members of the public, which are due by June 1, 2012. Learn more about how to submit comments and public meeting information.

In September 2011, NOAA and our partners reached a settlement for the 2007 M/V Cosco Busan oil spill, which dumped 53,000 gallons of oil into San Francisco Bay. Now, we are ready to start restoring the habitat and other natural resources that were affected by the spill.

After the settlement was reached, we asked for public comment on our restoration plan. We—along with our federal and state partners—revised the plan based on those comments. Now, we have a final restoration plan in hand and we are ready to get to work.

The oil killed thousands of birds, impacted the bay’s 2008 herring spawn, oiled thousands of acres of shoreline habitat, and closed the bay and area beaches to recreation and fishing. More than $32 million of the settlement funds will go toward restoration projects to address these impacts.

Read the press release about this announcement or listen to NOAA experts in a recent podcast about the effort to restore the environment in the aftermath of this spill.

March 1, 2012 -- NOAA and other agencies will start planning restoration efforts to address the impacts from a 2010 oil spill into Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River. After a 30-inch diameter pipeline owned by Enbridge Energy failed, approximately 819,000 gallons of crude oil were released into a tributary creek of the Kalamazoo River in southern Michigan. Oil traveled approximately 40 miles downstream in the Kalamazoo River.

The discharged oil injured aquatic organisms, birds, wildlife, and habitat, while also impacting recreational use of the river. NOAA along with other agencies will evaluate these environmental injuries to determine the amount of restoration needed as a part of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment process. During this process, there will be multiple opportunities for the public to comment on proposed restoration activities.

For a closer look at how NOAA scientists are investigating the environmental impacts of this spill, read a post on our Response and Restoration Blog.