In Fiscal Years 2005 and 2006, OR&R received appropriations from Congress to consult with and provide assistance to the U. S. Department of Defense, Department of the Interior, and Environmental Protection Agency in carrying out their cleanup responsibilities in Vieques. This enabled NOAA to initiate a number of projects that are facilitating remediation of the island and protection and restoration of its natural resources:

• Assisting in work to identify, assess, and potentially restore injuries to sensitive marine habitats
• Sampling for the presence of contamination in soil and fiddler crabs to support evaluations of the site’s potential human health and ecological risks by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Environmental Protection Agency, and Navy.
• Developing the Vieques Island Database and Mapping Project to support NOAA's natural resource trustee role and partner activities
• Updating regional Environmental Sensitivity Index maps to provide essential resource and habitat information needed to support future natural resource protection and restoration activities
• Conducting a pilot underwater survey to show the effectiveness of current technologies (side scan and multibeam sonar, and video mosaic) in identifying remaining ordnance and other debris around Vieques
• Assessing the link between fish community structure and habitat to identify those habitats that are of most value to fisheries in Vieques
• Characterizing the health of coral reef ecosystems in Vieques
• Conducting a pilot-scale coral reef restoration project
• Building upon existing community education and outreach activities in Vieques