Back to the Shore after Hurricane Sandy

GIS specialist Jay Coady, Environmental Sensitivity Index map specialist Jill Petersen, John Tarpley of the OR&R Emergency Response Division, and Jason Rolfe of the NOAA Marine Debris Program also contributed to this post.

Two boys take a break on the beach in Ocean City, Md., during the summer of 2012, before Hurricane Sandy. (Glenda Powell/all rights reserved)

With Memorial Day approaching and summer weather returning, folks in the northeast will once again be flocking to the shore, as they have for generations.  This summer season is the first since Hurricane Sandy hit the region in late October of 2012, with devastating effects to beaches from Connecticut to Virginia. Much of the damage has been repaired and many visitors likely will find their favorite beaches as enjoyable as ever, but there is much work remaining to do.

Headed for Calmer Shores

A response team formed by the Hurricane Sandy Pollution Response Unified Command prior to an overflight during which the U.S. Coast Guard worked with NOAA to map areas of possible pollution threats in New York and New Jersey. LTJG Alice Drury of OR&R is in the middle of the group. (U.S. Coast Guard)

The NOAA Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) responded immediately in the wake of the massive storm. OR&R’s Emergency Response Division provided scientific support to the U.S. Coast Guard to contain a major diesel spill at the Motiva Refinery in Sewarren, N.J., next to New York’s Staten Island and Raritan Bay. We also provided support for the many smaller petroleum product spills in northern New Jersey and southern New York.  Aerial and ground surveys helped identify and prioritize the cleanup of pollution sources from boats, displaced hazardous material containers, and other debris.

OR&R was on scene working with other state and federal agencies to lead a preliminary assessment of natural resource impacts from the oil spills for possible Natural Resource Damage Assessment claims and restoration. In addition, the Coast Guard and other responders used OR&R’s collaborative online mapping tool, Environmental Response Management Application (ERMA^®) for the Atlantic Coast, as the “common operational picture,” that is, the official “big picture” tool for coordinating pollution response activities.

Atlantic ERMA, which is customized for New York and New Jersey waters, was involved in mapping the Hurricane Sandy response and recovery efforts since before the storm hit land. In the days leading up to landfall, OR&R started populating Atlantic ERMA with storm-specific data, such as predicted storm surge models, hurricane track and wind speeds, and NOAA facility locations.

A partially submerged vessel in Navesink River, N.J., Nov. 10, 2012. Boom was placed around the vessel to mitigate pollution during the response efforts. (U.S. Coast Guard)

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, Atlantic ERMA served as the common operational picture for the Hurricane Sandy pollution response. It aided the NOAA Scientific Support Coordinators (our pollution first responders), U.S. Coast Guard, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the removal and cleanup of identified pollution sources and threats.

Atlantic ERMA integrated these response efforts with environmental data (like locations of sensitive habitat) to give responders a better idea of how to deal with pollution threats while minimizing environmental damages.

As the common operational picture, ERMA provided a single platform for responders to view all of the storm-related data and imagery as well as various cleanup efforts by the states and other federal agencies. Our team of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) specialists working on ERMA also helped provide data management support in tracking the progress made by the pollution response field teams.

Making it Safe to Get Back in the Water

In the Hurricane Sandy Relief Bill, Congress provided the NOAA Marine Debris Program with funds to address marine debris issues resulting from Sandy. In addition, funds were allocated to OR&R’s Emergency Response Division to update our Environmental Sensitivity Index maps on the east coast, with particular emphasis on areas affected by Hurricane Sandy and other coastal storms over the past several years. These maps identify coastal shorelines, wildlife, and habitat that may be especially vulnerable to an oil spill and also include the resources people use, such as a fishery or recreational beach.

Click on this map to view the complete Environmental Sensitivity Index map, created by OR&R’s Emergency Response Division. The map shows sensitive habitats and species that are typically present in the Staten Island area in November and December, the months following Hurricane Sandy. (NOAA)

Marine debris can be found in concentrations across the impacted region both on the shoreline and below the water surface.  These items pose potential hazards to navigation, commercial fishing grounds, and sensitive ecosystems.

We are using Atlantic ERMA to provide mapping support and tools to show aerial imagery, debris dispersion models, and identified marine debris locations supplied by stakeholders. Our mapping support also helps with the planning efforts for debris cleanup.

A combination of aerial, underwater, and shoreline surveys are necessary to assess the quantity and location of marine debris in the impacted coastal areas.  These assessments will allow NOAA to estimate the debris impacts to economies and ecosystems, identify priority items for removal, support limited removal efforts, and help bring our northeastern shores back to a sunnier state.

Read about more examples of our work protecting and restoring the shores the nation loves to visit.

For Accidents of Chemistry, a NOAA Tool to Help Predict and Prevent Disaster

This is a post by Vicki Loe with OR&R chemist Jim Farr.

On April 10, 1995, at Powell Duffryn Terminals, Inc. in Savannah, Ga., a chemical tank storing turpentine exploded, triggering a scenario similar to our hypothetical example. The facility stored hundreds of thousands of chemicals in tanks. The explosion resulted in widespread public evacuations and extensive damage. Here, black smoke rises from the fire. (NOAA)

Imagine you’re a chemical engineer in charge of safety at a chemical storage facility supporting the pulp and paper industry. You’re having a normal day when—suddenly—there has been an explosion. It has affected three of the large tanks on the property.

One tank, containing sodium hydrosulfide (NaHS), is damaged and leaking. Sodium hydrosulfide is a chemical used to break down cellulose, the fibrous ingredient in plant cell walls, into pulp, making it a key chemical in the paper industry.

The tank next to it, also damaged by the explosion and now leaking, holds a tank-cleaning solution that contained the corrosive chemical hydrochloric acid (HCl). The third tank, the one that caught on fire and caused the explosion, contained a petroleum distillate material. It damaged the first two tanks, causing their contents to drain into a common area and resulting in a combination of sodium hydrosulfide and hydrochloric acid.

The Chemical Reactivity Worksheet

How would you communicate this scenario—and its potential dangers—to the emergency responders who are on their way to the scene? During chemical accidents, there are frequently many unknowns: What was released? Did it mix with anything? What might happen?

Responders at the 1995 incident caused by a turpentine tank explosion at Powell Duffryn Terminals, Inc. storage facility in Savannah, Ga. (NOAA)

NOAA’s Chemical Reactivity Worksheet is a free software program you can use to find out about the chemical reactivity of thousands of common hazardous chemicals and predict the hazards associated with mixing two materials together. (Reactivity is the tendency of substances to undergo chemical change, which can result in hazards—such as heat generation or toxic gas byproducts.)

By consulting the Chemical Reactivity Worksheet, you, the safety officer, would quickly learn that when sodium hydrosulfide and hydrochloric acid combine, hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) gas could result. That gas is both toxic and highly flammable—possibly creating a very dangerous situation. To protect public safety, the affected area would require immediate evacuation.

Updating Software for Chemical Safety

A new version of the Chemical Reactivity Worksheet (version 3.0) has just been released and is available for download from NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration website: http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/reactivityworksheet. The latest version is a combination of the latest reactivity information and expert knowledge from NOAA and Dow Chemical.

The free software predicts potential hazards from mixing chemicals and is designed for use by safety planners and the chemical industry.  It is a tool that is intended to help to prevent accidents at chemical facilities and, once an accident occurs, to give valuable information about the possible hazards associated.

The work was done as part of NOAA and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s joint development of the CAMEO software suite, which provides valuable emergency response and planning tools for releases of hazardous materials. The Center for Chemical Process Safety also contributed to the project.

What Do Hanford’s Latest Nuclear Waste Leaks Mean for Environmental Restoration?

This is a post by Vicki Loe and Charlene Andrade.

Some of the older nuclear waste storage tanks at Hanford in southeast Washington. (U.S. Department of Energy)

This past February, the U.S. Department of Energy confirmed that six additional nuclear waste storage tanks are leaking at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in southeast Washington. This revelation has drawn attention once again to the ongoing challenges of assessing, cleaning up, and restoring the environment around a massive nuclear waste site.

To understand how these six aging nuclear waste tanks might affect salmon, the sagebrush-filled desert ecosystem, and nearby Columbia River, it helps to understand more about Hanford’s history. In 1943, the Hanford Site was developed by the U.S. Government for the production of plutonium as part of the Manhattan Project that developed atomic bombs during World War II. The site continued to produce plutonium as well as nuclear energy until the last reactor stopped operating in 1987. The weapons production and nuclear energy operations at Hanford left dangerous and environmentally harmful solid and liquid waste, creating one of the largest and most complex cleanup projects in the U.S. That effort has been in progress since 1989.

Hanford’s 177 total storage tanks, some of which date from the 1940s, hold more than 50 million gallons of radioactive waste. These six leaking tanks are among 149 older “single-shell” tanks, which only have one liner. (Tanks constructed more recently feature “double-shells.”) However, these older tanks were designed for a lifespan of only about 20 years. According to Washington Governor Jay Inslee, “This certainly raises serious questions about the integrity of all 149 single-shell tanks with radioactive liquid and sludge at Hanford.”

One of the older waste storage tanks under construction at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. (U.S. Department of Energy)

While tanks at the site have leaked in the past, news of these recently discovered leaks again raises concerns about the condition of the tanks and underscores the ongoing complexities of this assessment and cleanup.

The six leaking tanks pose no immediate threat to natural resources because they are located 200–300 feet above the groundwater table. The State of Washington indicates that there is no immediate or near-term health risk as the leaking tanks are located more than five miles from the Columbia River. In addition, measures are being taken to prevent contamination currently in the soil from entering the river.

While this latest discovery affects the ongoing cleanup, it does not change the focus of the Hanford Natural Resource Damage Assessment because the Hanford Natural Resource Trustee Council is already evaluating harm from contamination flowing into the Columbia River, which borders the site and is home to Chinook salmon and sturgeon. The council includes representatives from NOAA, three tribal organizations, the States of Washington and Oregon, and two other federal agencies. It is tasked with characterizing the cumulative impacts from decades of releases and contamination to the fish, wildlife, and the habitats they rely upon, and determining the cumulative restoration needed to replace, restore, and offset the total decades of damage.

Discovery of the additional leaking tanks illustrates the challenge of that task: to be able to measure the harm over time, even as new sources of contamination are discovered and await cleanup. Each source  can add to the cumulative impact and ultimately to the amount of restoration that will eventually be needed to offset damages.

For more information about the work of the Hanford Natural Resource Trustee Council, view the Hanford Natural Resource Damage Assessment Injury Assessment Plan, which describes how the council will characterize and quantify the past, ongoing, and future environmental impacts.

Eyes in the Sky to Boots on the Ground: Three Powerful Tools for Restoring the Gulf of Mexico

Volunteers. The Internet. Remote sensing. NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration has been using all three to deal with the environmental aftermath of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. At Restore America’s Estuaries’ recent conference on coastal restoration [PDF], three of my colleagues showed how each of these elements has become a tool to boost restoration efforts in the Gulf.

Managing Data

OR&R scientist George Graettinger explained how responders can use remote sensing technology to assess damage after a major polluting event, such as the Deepwater Horizon/BP spill. He has helped develop tools that allow both Geographic Information Systems (GIS) specialists and responders to visualize and manage the onslaught of data flooding in during an environmental disaster and turn that into useful information for restoration.

Here, the ERMA Gulf Response application displays information gathered by SAR remote sensing technology to locate oil in the Gulf of Mexico following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon/BP incident. (NOAA) Click to enlarge.

The principle tool for this work is OR&R’s ERMA, an online mapping platform for gathering and displaying environmental and response data. During the Deepwater Horizon response, ERMA pulled in remote sensing data from several sources, each with its own advantages and disadvantages:

• MODIS and MERIS, NASA satellite instruments which each day captured Gulf-wide oceanic and atmospheric data and photos during the Deepwater Horizon response. While very effective in the open ocean, these sensors do not perform well in coastal waters [PDF].
• AVIRIS, another NASA sensor which took high-resolution infrared imagery from a plane to estimate the amount of oil on the water surface. Its disadvantages included being able to cover only a small area and being limited by weather conditions.
• SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar), a satellite radar technology with super-fine spatial resolution. This technology actually transitioned from experimental to operational during the 2010 oil spill response in the Gulf of Mexico. While very effective at “seeing” through cloud cover to detect ocean features, SAR does not allow easy differentiation between thinner and thicker layers of oil on the water surface.

Managing People

Volunteers plant vegatation to restore a section of Commencement Bay, WA which was injured by hazardous releases from industrial activities. (NOAA)

“If you spill it, they will come,” declared Tom Brosnan, scientist and communications manager for our Assessment and Restoration Division, at his presentation. “They” were the hordes of volunteers offering their eager help after the 2010 well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico caused the largest oil spill in U.S. waters.

Brosnan outlined some of the many challenges of using volunteers productively during an oil spill: legal liability, safety, technical training, logistics, reliability. The National Response Team, a federal interagency group coordinating emergency spill response, has taken a strategic approach to these challenges by creating guidelines for incorporating volunteers into response activities [PDF].

Brosnan also pointed out other great opportunities for harnessing the energy of concerned citizens for environmental restoration. One example was partnering with Citizens for a Healthy Bay in Tacoma, Wash. This is a community group soliciting and overseeing volunteer efforts to maintain already completed restoration projects making up for the decades of industrial pollution around Tacoma’s Commencement Bay.

Managing Communications

And no less important, explained NOAA communications specialist Tim Zink, is keeping people engaged after an oil spill is out of the public eye. For the Deepwater Horizon/BP spill, this has been a challenge particularly during the environmental damage assessment process. Zink described the difficulties of continuing to communicate effectively after initial interest from the media has diminished, of many different government trustee organizations trying to speak with one unified voice, and of the need for communication with the public to be framed carefully within the legal and cooperative aspects of the case.

He cited something as simple as a well-run online presence: the Gulf Spill Restoration website. This is a joint effort representing no fewer than three federal government departments (Commerce, State, and Interior) and five state governments. Well-organized and user-friendly, this website serves as a one-stop source of information about the ongoing effort to evaluate and restore environmental injuries in the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon/BP spill.

Among the closing speakers at the conference, Dr. Dawn Wright, chief scientist at GIS software company Esri, reinforced the importance of communicating “inspired science” to policymakers, communities, and other stakeholders throughout the restoration process. As a GIS specialist, she spoke to the many types of sophisticated spatial analysis that are available to anyone with a smartphone. The average person now has unprecedented access to geographic data on earthquakes, flu epidemics, and sea level changes. However, it is up to us to decide how we use these data-rich maps—and other tools—to understand and tell the story of environmental restoration.

Photos and Reactions from a NOAA Responder Living through Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy caused flooding in the streets of this neighborhood along coastal New Jersey. (Frank Csulak)

Here in Seattle, like people all over the country, I was concerned to hear about Hurricane Sandy heading straight towards the East Coast, especially the New Jersey shore where I have enjoyed going to the beach for my entire life. My thoughts were with all the people I know in the area, including my colleague, NOAA Scientific Support Coordinator (SSC) Frank Csulak. He has worked for the NOAA Office of Response and Restoration in New Jersey for much of his career.

Raised on the New Jersey shore, he is the primary scientific adviser to the U.S. Coast Guard for oil and chemical spill planning and response in the area. Scientific Support Coordinators are technical advisers to the U.S. Coast Guard and Federal On-Scene Coordinators. He and fellow SSC Ed Levine work in U.S. Coast Guard District 5, which includes New Jersey and New York’s Atlantic coast. While Frank’s office is in Highlands, N.J., he has a house at the shore in Beach Haven, on Long Beach Island, the second barrier island to the north of Atlantic City. Before and after Hurricane Sandy hit, Csulak and Levine were hard at work, but we received the following message from Frank the morning after the storm passed over New Jersey, on Tuesday October 30. It captures the sense of emergency and the extraordinary nature of this particular storm.

October 30, 2012

“Well, made it through the storm, power went out around 6:00 p.m. last night, remains out. The winds had to be in the 80-90 mph range. Trees down all over.  Power outages all over.  Large tree fell on neighbor’s house going right through roof, injuring owner who was then hospitalized due to possible heart attack. At the height of the storm there was an unbelievable thunder and lightning storm like I had never experienced before, something out of a sci-fi movie.

Just starting to get light out, so will go survey my property. Plan to head back to beach house as soon as evacuations lifted. That ride should be interesting. Reports were that there were several areas where ocean and bay were connected and southern portion of island, Holgate, washed away, which is mostly U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refuge area.

My bikes, cars, and trucks are all okay. Max, my dog is okay. Daughter and parents okay.  So, all is good. Now I just need a hot cup of coffee. Want to thank everyone for their thoughts and well wishes throughout this ordeal. Will let you know how the beach house made out probably tomorrow.”

Later, Frank made it down to Beach Haven and sent us these photos of the storm’s aftermath in the area surrounding his house.

Hurricane Sandy caused flooding in the streets of this neighborhood along coastal New Jersey. (Frank Csulak)

Ocean waters flood the streets of Long Beach Island, N.J., during Hurricane Sandy.(Frank Csulak)

A fire truck attempts to make its way through flood waters in Long Island Beach, N.J., during Hurricane Sandy. (Frank Csulak)

A porch’s autumn decorations don’t escape Hurricane Sandy’s flood waters, which covered the streets of Long Beach Island, N.J. (Frank Csulak)

Someone braves the flooded streets of Long Beach Island, N.J., during Hurricane Sandy. (Frank Csulak)

Watching from above as the ocean comes ashore in Long Island Beach, N.J., during Hurricane Sandy. (Frank Csulak)

Surveying the wreckage after Hurricane Sandy’s flood waters receded from Long Beach Island, N.J. (Frank Csulak)

Response personnel walk down the sand and debris-covered streets of Long Beach Island, N.J., after Hurricane Sandy’s flood waters left. (Frank Csulak)

Today, on November 1, he took time out again to bring us the following update.

November 1, 2012

“All the neighbors where my parents live are all helping each other out with removing trees and debris from yards, pumping out basements. Power still out. Mile-long lines of cars at gas stations. Most stores remain closed due to power outage. Although somehow Dunkin Donuts is open. What is their slogan, “America runs on Dunkin”?  Well, certainly appropriate here at the Jersey shore!”

For more photos of the storm’s impacts along the New Jersey coast, check out the first round of Hurricane Sandy damage assessment imagery now available from NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey.

OR&R Responds to the Aftermath of Hurricane Sandy

New Jersey National Guard drives through the streets of Beach Haven, a community on Long Beach Island, New Jersey, on October 31, 2012.

As water levels recede and access improves after the major East Coast storm, the U.S. Coast Guard is getting more reports of pollution incidents and port damage. OR&R is actively supporting U.S. Coast Guard efforts with emergency responders and GIS experts on scene in New York. Recovery after hurricanes such as Sandy can take a very long time and OR&R will likely be active in the efforts to promote recovery in the months to come.

One of the challenges facing communities after a devastating weather event is information management. ERMA® (Environmental Response Management Application) is a web-based Geographic Information System (GIS) tool that assists both emergency responders and environmental resource managers in dealing with environmental impacts. OR&R scientists are ensuring that Atlantic ERMA is prepared to aid in the effort. See the latest updates on pollution response to Hurricane Sandy at IncidentNews.

For more information from NOAA on the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, see NOAA Storm Central 2012.

A screen capture from ERMA, showing Hurricane Sandy’s progression over the East Coast of the United States.

Let’s Get Chemical: What Is Oil?

This is a post by Vicki Loe with OR&R chemist Robert Jones. Technical review by Robert Jones and OR&R biologist Gary Shigenaka.

Emulsified oil from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon/BP spill remains on, and pooled below, vegetation in Pass a Loutre, La., following a previous week’s storm. Image shot on May 22, 2010. (NOAA)

I recently began an ongoing conversation on this blog about our relationship with oil and oil products and the large part oil plays in all of our lives. Walking through just the first hour of a typical day for me, I managed to list 20 products I use that come from oil. But for something that we all depend on every day, how much do we really understand about what it is and why it’s so useful?

As most of us know, oil comes from beneath the ground. It is made of dead animal and plant matter, buried deep under layers of sedimentary rock. Pressure and heat cause oil deposits to form over long periods of time. But what is oil at its most basic?

A diagram of the molecular structure of benzene, an aromatic hydrocarbon and component of oil.

Oil is a complex mixture of molecular compounds.  A molecule is the smallest unit of a substance that retains the substance’s characteristics. Molecules, in turn, are composed of atoms.  There are only 90 naturally occurring types of atoms on earth; these form the basis of the innumerable types of molecules found in nature.

Crude oils, while mixtures of thousands of types of molecular compounds, are predominantly composed of only two types of atoms: hydrogen (H) and carbon (C). Molecular compounds composed exclusively of these two elements are called hydrocarbons.

Petroleum hydrocarbons are predominantly one of two types, aromatics or alkanes. Aromatics, which are based on a 6-carbon ring, tend to be the molecular compounds in oil that are the most toxic to marine life. A notable case is polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which have multiple carbon rings and can also be quite persistent in the environment. Alkanes, on the other hand, tend to be less toxic and are much more readily biodegraded naturally; most can be ingested as food by some microorganisms.

For example, the oil spilled from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon/BP well blow-out was relatively high in alkanes and relatively low in PAHs. But, like all crude oils, it contained benzene, toluene, and xylene, which belong to the single-ring aromatic group. Benzene is very toxic and known to cause cancer but is not as persistent as PAHs.

Oil in marsh vegetation during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill. (NOAA)

Refining crude oil to produce fuel oils like gasoline and diesel does not significantly alter the molecular structure of the oil’s components. So fuel oils usually contain the same types of molecular compounds that are found in their parent crude oils.

Different chemical compounds can be extracted from crude oil and then recombined or altered to make what are called petrochemicals. Petrochemicals are used to make a vast array of products, including acetic acid, ammonia, polyvinyl chloride, polyethylene, lubricants, adhesives, agrochemicals, fragrances, food additives, packaging, paint, and pharmaceutical products. And that’s just the start!

NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration is the primary science adviser to the U.S. Coast Guard during a major oil spill. Knowledge of the chemical make-up of the particular oil, whether it is a crude oil or refined fuel oil, is critical in making response decisions when there is spill. Among the scientists that work in OR&R’s Emergency Response Division are chemists that are experts in this field.

Crude oil is predominantly a mixture of hydrocarbons, but every crude oil is a unique mixture of molecular compounds. There are thousands of named crude oils in use around the world. Our chemists make recommendations by determining the source of the spill and the optimal cleanup methods and safety issues, based on the unique properties of the oil released.

The next blog post in this series will delve into the toxicity of oil and the harm it can cause when accidentally released into the marine environment. Look for it coming soon!

Robert Jones

Co-author Robert Jones is a chemist in OR&R’s Emergency Response Division. He is a member of the spill response team and is involved in the development of computer models used to predict the fate and transport of oil and other chemicals in the environment. Robert received his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Indiana University. Prior to joining NOAA in 1990, Robert taught chemistry at Western Washington University.

NOAA at the Jersey Shore

Lifeguards prepare for another day of keeping swimmers safe on Brigantine. (NOAA)

Imagine your first trip to the ocean: walking along a sandy beach, listening to the sounds of waves and shorebirds, appreciating the smell of salt in the wind.  I was surprised to read recently that beaches only gained popularity as places to relax and enjoy during the past century. Before that, according to author John Gillis, the coast was associated with ship wrecks, danger, and the hard labor accompanying fishing and maritime industry. This trend changed when beaches became more accessible, and people began to see the shore as a refuge and even “sanctuary.”

My family vacationing on Brigantine in the 1960s. (Vicki Loe)

I still return to the same beach in Brigantine, New Jersey, which I visited every year as a child. I am happy to say that, in spite of the increased residential development of that island, it seems not much has changed since I started vacationing there in the 1960s. However, the future of our beaches is uncertain when faced with threats such as climate change and sea level rise, severe hurricanes, overdevelopment, oil spills, and marine debris.

With all of this in mind during my annual visit there last week, I looked at the Jersey shore with new eyes. I realized how appreciative I am of the work that NOAA and other organizations do to preserve our beaches so that future generations can continue to enjoy them the way I have been able to.

A little girl takes tentative steps into the surf while holding on to mom’s hand. (NOAA)

Brigantine is only one of the many small ocean communities that generations of Americans look forward to visiting along our coasts each year. It is a barrier island just north of Atlantic City. Settled in 1890, it is now home to nearly 9,500 residents.  The island is less than seven miles long, with the entire northern third of the island devoted to a wildlife refuge.

Uninhabited by humans, the refuge is composed of sand dunes, maritime forest, and tidal marsh. During the summer visitors can see a variety of endangered birds, including Piping Plover, Black Skimmer, American Oystercatcher, and Least Tern. When I was there last September, I watched a pod of bottlenose dolphins playing near the shore. That was shortly after Hurricane Irene made landfall near Brigantine on the morning of August 28, causing significant beach erosion and flooding.

A young girl goes surf fishing with her father in the early evening. (NOAA)

In the developed area to the south, most of the beaches are guarded during the day in the summer to keep swimmers safe. In the evenings, after people have gone home with their umbrellas and beach chairs, the remainder surf, fish, and walk the beach. Boating and recreational fishing are a big part of life on the bay side of the island.

What does NOAA do to protect coastal areas like this around the country? The National Weather Service provides valuable information on weather conditions, including severe weather warnings.

Recently, they helped guide the development of a smartphone application that gives the U.S. Coast Guard, beach lifeguards, and researchers a way to report and receive up-to-date warnings on dangerous rip currents, which have been a particular problem for swimmers this past year.

NOAA also provides nautical charts for the coastal waterways surrounding islands like Brigantine to ensure safe navigation for commercial and recreational boating and fishing as well as commercial shipping.

Kids play in the sand the same way they have for generations. (NOAA)

NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration works closely with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on hazardous waste sites in coastal areas to protect human health and minimize damage to NOAA marine resources. When an accident or hazardous substance release occurs, NOAA’s Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program works to assess injury and implements rehabilitation and restoration.

Additionally, the Office of Response and Restoration has customized an online mapping tool called ERMA^® (Environmental Response Management Application) for this part of the Atlantic coast. ERMA integrates data such as ship locations, weather, and ocean currents, in a centralized, easy-to-use format for environmental responders and decision makers. This tool would be especially valuable in the case of an oil spill, for example.

Guidelines for visitors reduce the risk of injury or stress to the North Brigantine Natural Area. (NOAA)

The NOAA Marine Debris Program provides education on the harm caused by man-made litter polluting the ocean and coasts. Even this year, beaches not far from Brigantine reported sightings of medical waste washing up near the shore. The program also provides valuable information to fishers on the proper disposal of monofilament fishing line, which can entangle and injure birds and other wildlife.

Through a partnership with NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service, the Marine Mammal Stranding Center (based on Brigantine) responds to marine mammals and turtles in distress along all of New Jersey’s waterways and oversees their rehabilitation and release back into the wild.

NOAA Scientific Support Coordinator Frank Csulak.

Frank Csulak is a good example of one of the many individuals who has devoted his career to the preservation of our coastal resources. Csulak is NOAA’s Scientific Support Coordinator and has worked for the Office of Response and Restoration in New Jersey for years. Raised on the New Jersey shore, he is the primary scientific adviser to the U.S. Coast Guard for oil and chemical spill planning and response in the area. Through his tireless work, he helps reduce the influence of pollution on the waterways and shores of the Mid-Atlantic states.

So, the next time you visit the Jersey shore, you can thank Frank Csulak, NOAA, and our many partners for delivering another beautiful day at the beach.

Waking up to our Relationship with Oil

When I think about oil consumption, I immediately think of gasoline and how much I drive. And I often feel pretty good about it because I drive a relatively fuel-efficient car. But oil is part of plenty of other products in our lives too.

Seattle, the city in which I live, recently has banned plastic bags, which are made from oil, and also prohibits restaurants and grocery stores from using Styrofoam (oil-based) containers for take-out food. A lot of people would agree that society’s heavy dependence on oil has some negative consequences, which means we are happy about improving fuel efficiency and avoiding Styrofoam cups.

Credit: derek_b; used under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) License

But when I look over a list of everyday items made from oil, I am struck by how many of them we might use just in the first hour of a typical day. For starters, the pillow I sleep on likely contains oil products. I wake up every day to the sound of my iPhone alarm at 6:30 a.m., and the phone’s parts and the plastic encasing it wouldn’t exist without oil. It’s a similar story for my shower curtain, shampoo, and bath soap. My toothbrush, toothpaste, and the container that holds my floss are made of oil. Same goes for my deodorant and moisturizer. My hair dryer and brush are plastic, so we can add them to the list. Lots of cosmetics contain oil, so if I wear lipstick or nail polish, there’s another one. If the clothes I put on contain synthetic fibers or my shoes have rubber soles, they too contain oil.

So I grab my sunglasses (made of plastic) and head for my car, which has plastic parts, enamel, and tires that all were derived from oil, and—we can’t forget—the gasoline that still powers it, however efficiently. By now, it’s 7:30 a.m., and I have used at least 20 products that are manufactured with oil, and I haven’t even made it to the coffee shop yet, where, thankfully, my coffee will come in a paper cup (but with a plastic lid).

Credit: Lisle Boomer; used under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0) License.

Because oil plays such a huge role in most of our lives in the U.S., companies are drilling and transporting a lot of it in marine waters. That means that when accidents happen, oil can—and does—get spilled into the marine environment.

Scientists at the Office of Response and Restoration prepare for and respond to these oil spills: forecasting the movement and behaviors of spilled oil and chemicals, evaluating the risk to natural resources, and recommending the best cleanup measures. That means that we need to understand oil in order to deal with it properly.

Our society’s relationship with oil is complex. For something that is so pervasive in our lives, many of us actually do not know much about it. In a series of blog posts over the next several months, stay tuned as we delve into a variety of topics, including what oil actually is, what makes it so useful, and why it can be so toxic in the marine environment.

Restoration Amid Nuclear Waste and the Largest Environmental Cleanup in the U.S.

The front face of Hanford’s B Reactor, where uranium fuel slugs were loaded into the reactor when it was operating. The reactor began operating in September 1944; it was shut down from 1946-1948, and then went back into service until 1968. (Dept. of Energy)

Recently I had the opportunity to tour the U.S. Department of Energy’s Hanford Nuclear Reservation with a NOAA staffer working on the Hanford Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA). The goal of the Hanford damage assessment is to restore the natural resources affected by contamination from decades of nuclear defense activities at the Hanford Nuclear Site.

Spent fuel rods are stored underwater at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. (Dept. of Energy)

Between 1944 and 1987, Hanford, located in eastern Washington state, produced plutonium for atomic weapons, starting with the “Fat Man” bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945. During the Cold War years, the facilities grew to include nine nuclear reactors and associated processing plants.

While producing plutonium for the U.S. defense program throughout the Cold War, billions of gallons and millions of tons of nuclear waste were generated, contaminating the ground around waste sites, the reactor and processing facility buildings, and groundwater. The site accounts for two-thirds of all the high-level radioactive waste in the entire country (by volume). There are 149 large eroding tanks filled with old nuclear waste that is in the process of being transferred into new tanks and eventually will be mixed with glass, a process called vitrification, for stability and permanent storage.

Since 1989, Hanford has been in cleanup mode and is the largest environmental cleanup in the U.S., employing about 11,000 people. Technicians work to mitigate contaminated groundwater before it reaches the Columbia River, which borders the site for 51 miles. They work on demolishing facilities, encasing (“cocooning”) old reactors, and burying tons of waste material into huge pits that are lined to prevent contaminants from leaching into the soil. A new waste treatment plant is underway that will handle the vitrification process for the nuclear waste currently stored in tanks. The process of cleaning up is likely to continue for decades.

Hanford High School as it looks today. It is the only building left from the original town of Hanford, Wash. (Dept. of Energy)

While touring Hanford, I was struck by the enormity of the site as well as the magnitude of the problem and the range of cleanup activities in progress. The 586-square-mile area is a desert steppe ecosystem mostly covered in grasses and sagebrush, with very few trees. For the most part nothing breaks the horizon but the now sealed-up, tall, windowless, nuclear reactors.

There are rolling hills and bluffs along the Columbia River, as well as the sites of two former small towns: Hanford, which gave the larger site its name, and White Bluffs. Both towns were evacuated permanently to make way for the top-secret nuclear project in 1943.

Two members of the Hanford High School baseball team in 1925. (Dept. of Energy)

All that’s left of them is the burned-out cement shell of Hanford High School, outlines of where sidewalks and streets once were, and a bank that had been in downtown White Bluffs. Some former residents return in the summer for a picnic on the site of the vanished communities.

For thousands of years before these two small towns existed, the area was inhabited by Native American people who gathered mussels, spear-fished salmon, and hunted the bison that previously roamed there.  The site is still important as a cultural meeting place and fall fishing ground for descendants of the Native people. Also of concern to the Native American people are the more than 600 archeological sites that have been discovered within the Hanford Nuclear site.

Three Tribes, as well as representatives from the states of Washington and Oregon, the U.S. Departments of Energy and Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and NOAA are all involved in the environmental damage assessment. This collective group of trustees operates by consensus to replace lost or injured resources. They face diverse interests as they continue to collaborate throughout this process. In future blog posts here, we’ll look at a particular challenge of interest to NOAA, which is whether to initiate environmental restoration in the Columbia River before the full cleanup and damage assessment is complete.

For more information on tours of the Hanford Nuclear Site, see the U.S. Department of Energy Hanford Site Tours.