Coastal Pollution: Response and Restoration

NOAA’s Center of Expertise for coastal environmental threats

By Craig Collins

The sheen of oil was first noticed by a NOAA satellite, just off the coast of New York’s Long Island, in 2015, and seen sporadically for the next four years. NOAA had been monitoring a few dozen shipwreck sites in U.S. waters for years, and this one – where the Coimbra, a British tanker filled with 2.7 million gallons of oil, had been sunk by a German U-boat on January 15, 1942 – had increased, and was now visibly leaking onto the ocean surface.

Scientists from NOAA’s Office or Response and Restoration (OR&R), after collecting and analyzing samples from this sheen, confirmed that it was bunker and lubrication oil. In May of 2019 a dive team was dispatched to assess the wreck, and the Coast Guard’s Atlantic Strike Team determined that the amount of oil remaining in eight of the Coimbra’s tanks – one of which was leaking – posed a risk to natural resources, and needed to be removed.

The removal project involved more than 100 government, industry and environmental specialists. It was led by the Coast Guard and New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, with guidance and support from NOAA’s ocean scientists at the OR&R – who provided, for example, analyses of potential spill trajectories in case any oil was released during the operation. By July, more than 450,000 gallons, as much as 99 percent of the recoverable oil, had been removed without a major leak.

Platform supply vessels battle the blazing remnants of the offshore oil rig Deepwater Horizon. NOAA experts assessed the damage, rescued wildlife, and led restoration efforts.

NOAA, with the nation’s leading ocean scientists, is a natural leader for this kind of work. OR&R became a center of expertise in the 1970s, when an oil tanker grounded off the coast of Massachusetts. Now the lead science agency for coastal spills, OR&R provides scientific and technical support to federal, state, and local authorities through all stages of a hazardous event: preparing for and responding to oil and chemical releases; assessing damage; and restoring polluted marine and coastal ecosystems.

These responsibilities cover the entire spectrum of NOAA’s mission of science, service, and stewardship – and the event that probably best illustrates the fullest range of NOAA’s response and restoration capabilities is the ongoing response to the largest oil spill in U.S. history, when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and, over the next 87 days, discharging 134 million gallons of oil from its damaged wellhead into the Gulf.

Over the next several years, OR&R scientists helped to assess damages to coastal ecosystems in quantifiable terms: how much oil was in the environment; where it was going; what resources, including mammals, birds, fish, and turtles, would be harmed by the oil; how long it would take those resources to recover; and which types of restoration would be needed – and how much those restoration projects would cost. The Deepwater Horizon restoration effort, with many projects still under way, remains the largest environmental restoration project in history.

Graphic representation of the Coimbra wreck on April 30, 2019. The Coimbra was a supply ship owned by Great Britain when the ship was sunk off the coast of Long Island during World War II by a German U-boat.

From the earliest moments of the crisis, NOAA experts were on the scene, providing critical information to guide the emergency response. One of their first actions was to close fisheries in contaminated or threatened areas. Within a few weeks, NOAA scientists helped to build a web portal (https://response.restoration. noaa.gov/maps-and-spatial-data/ environmental-response-management-application-erma) to provide the public with the latest information on these closures, as well as about the extent and movement of the spill, shipping lane closures, the status of wildlife, and the positions of research and response vessels.

Divers securely drill into and access the oil tanks of the wreck of the British-flagged tanker Coimbra, May 8, 2019.

This battery of assessments from samples of soil, sediment, water, and living organisms revealed effects to more than 1,300 miles of shoreline – the driving distance from New Orleans to New York. The restoration projects launched from these assessments, led by NOAA scientists, include the restoration of coastal dune, beach, and marsh habitats; oyster reefs; and deep-sea coral habitats. In December of 2019 the trustees overseeing the Deepwater Horizon restoration authorized another 18 projects – enough to keep NOAA’s restoration experts busy for the foreseeable future, but a fraction of the work yet to begin, which will keep them busy through 2030 and beyond.