People of all ages were able to learn about NOAA’s work, including these kids trying on survival suits, at the 2013 Seattle Science Festival EXPO Day. (NOAA)

Do you know the difference between a seal skull and a sea lion skull?

Have you walked under a bottom trawl net used for fishery science?

Have you ever seen an ocean wave glider used to collect oceanographic data?

Have you ever held a piece of a dock that floated across the Pacific Ocean?

Visitors to the 2^nd annual NOAA Open House in Seattle, an event held in conjunction with the Seattle Science Festival, can answer “Yes!” to these questions, and many more. On June 14, NOAA’s Seattle Sand Point campus opened its doors to the public.

Four tours were offered that focused on different aspects of NOAA’s mission: Marine Mammal Science—featuring the bone collection; Fisheries Surveys—showing off the net loft; Physical Science—including ocean engineering, the dive center, and the weather forecasting floor; and a Shoreline Restoration walk emphasizing the connection between aquatic environments and our everyday lives.

NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration highlighted our work in marine debris at the 2013 NOAA Open House, featuring pieces of concrete, metal, and Styrofoam from the two Japanese docks that came ashore in Washington and Oregon after the 2011 tsunami. (NOAA)

The Open House also featured exhibit booths, a movie room, and a kid’s corner. Over 500 visitors attended, ranging from families with school-aged children to a bus full of retirees.

Visitors had the chance to meet NOAA scientists and managers at exhibit booths highlighting NOAA programs that weren’t featured on the tours, including the work of the NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center whose campus is located 3 miles away.

The 2013 Seattle Science Festival was an 11-day celebration of science and technology that happened in our community from June 6-16, 2013.

Kids learn about marine debris with NOAA at the Seattle Science EXPO Day. (NOAA)

It featured luminaries from the science world in opening and closing night events, a free Science EXPO Day featuring hands-on activities and special stage programs at the Seattle Center, and a variety of Signature Programs at venues around the region and occurring throughout the Festival.

In addition to our Open House, NOAA had a large presence at the Seattle Science Festival Expo day at Seattle Center where at least 2,000 visitors learned about NOAA through hands-on activities. Almost 100 NOAA staff across all line offices participated in these Seattle Science Festival activities to bring NOAA science to kids of all ages.

Lost or discarded fishing nets frequently get lodged on corals and smother or break the corals underneath them. Here, a diver removes them from a reef near Midway Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. (NOAA)

The sea life around Hawaii’s remote Midway Atoll is swimming easier after NOAA recently removed 14 metric tons of debris from its waters (A metric ton equals about 2,204 pounds.). The removal team, consisting of members of the NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Division, spent 19 days collecting debris both from along the shoreline and in the water around Midway Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. As usual, the bulk of the items recovered were abandoned fishing gear and plastics.

During the 2013 cruise, the NOAA team discovered and hauled away a 23-foot-long boat that was confirmed to have been washed away from Japan during the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. (NOAA)

Notably, the team also removed a 23-foot-long derelict vessel weighing close to three-quarters of a metric ton. This vessel was confirmed as having been lost from Japan during the 2011 earthquake and resulting tsunami. (Learn more about marine debris from the tsunami.)

This current round of marine debris removal efforts began in 2011 when a plan was put in place to help restore the environment injured after the research ship M/V Casitas ran aground on the coral reefs of Pearl and Hermes Atoll in 2005. This atoll is located in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands in what is now the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. Our office, along with our partners, undertook a Natural Resource Damage Assessment for this ship grounding. This process resulted in a legal settlement which provided NOAA with funds to conduct marine debris removal projects over several summers, starting in 2011. The 2011 efforts removed 15 metric tons of marine debris while the 2012 cruise brought in 52 metric tons. Since 2011, NOAA has collected a total of 81 metric tons or 178,000 pounds of debris from the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

The 2013 NOAA team collected 14 metric tons of fishing gear, plastic, and other debris from the shoreline and waters around Midway Atoll. (NOAA)

Marine debris, particularly discarded and lost fishing gear, is a substantial source of coral damage in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. Fishing nets frequently get lodged on corals and smother or break the corals underneath them. NOAA and our partners determined that removing nets from coral reefs in this area would prevent similar injuries to corals as those that occurred during the M/V Casitas grounding and subsequent response.

Learn more about efforts to restore coral reefs after this ship grounding [PDF].

In spring of 2013, the transformation of the polluted Atlas Tack Superfund site into vibrant coastal habitat is hard to miss. Here, you can see the new freshwater marsh with the town of Fairhaven, Mass., in the background. (NOAA)

For much of the 20^th century, the Atlas Tack Corporation was the main employer in the historic coastal town of Fairhaven, Mass., a place settled in the 1650s by Plymouth colonists. But the presence of this tack factory, shuttered in 1985, left more than a history of paychecks for the area’s residents. It also left saltwater marshes so stocked with cyanide and heavy metals that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) listed the location of the factory as a Superfund site in 1990 and slated it for three intensive rounds of cleanup.

A Brief History of Atlas Tack

Atlas Tack Corporation became one of the nation’s largest manufacturers of wire tacks, bolts, shoe eyelets, bottle caps, and other small hardware. Unfortunately, these decades of production left a toxic legacy for Fairhaven’s coastal marshes. January 17, 1955. (Spinner Publications/All rights reserved)

Henry H. Rogers, Standard Oil multimillionaire and friend of famed American author Mark Twain, formed the Atlas Tack Corporation after consolidating several tack manufacturing companies in 1895. The Fairhaven company became one of the nation’s largest manufacturers of wire tacks, bolts, shoe eyelets, bottle caps, and other small hardware.

However, decades of acids, metals, and other chemical wastes oozing through the factory floor boards and being dumped in building drains, the nearby Boys Creek marsh, and an unlined lagoon left the property contaminated with hazardous substances. Found in the soils, waters, and surrounding marsh were volatile organic compounds, cyanide, heavy metals such as arsenic, pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (a toxic oil compound).

EPA led the Superfund cleanup (referred to as a “remedy”) of this hazardous waste site, and the Office of Response and Restoration, through NOAA’s Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program, contributed scientific and technical guidance to the EPA during the cleanup and restoration of the site’s coastal marshes.

Determining the Remedy: Scalpel vs. Cleaver

Before restoration: A June 2007 view of the area north of the hurricane dike, following the removal of contaminated sediments. (NOAA)

The original cleanup goals would have required excavating the entire marsh—ripping out the whole thing, despite some areas still functioning as habitat for the area’s plants and animals. As a result, NOAA, EPA, and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were reluctant to excavate the entire wetland. Instead, the agencies took a more targeted approach, beginning in 2001 and 2002.

First, they completed a bioavailability study to determine where natural resources were adversely exposed to contaminants from the old tack factory. This study determined which areas of the existing marsh could be preserved while removing the toxic sediment that posed a risk to human health and the environment.

The next part of the remedy was undertaken in three phases from 2006 to 2008. Phase one included demolishing several buildings, sheds, and the power plant and excavating 775 cubic yards of contaminated soil and sludge from 10 acres of the designated commercial area of the manufacturing site. Phase two excavated and disposed off-site 38,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris.  With NOAA’s scientific and technical assistance—and later with help from the Army Corps—EPA, as part of phase three, excavated and later restored 5.4 acres of saltwater and freshwater marsh.

More Than a Remedy: Working Toward Revitalization

After restoration: A newly created northern salt marsh, shown in June 2013, at the site of the former Atlas Tack factory. Bare spots are filling in but a fully covered wetland landscape is likely still a few years away. (NOAA)

While planning to remove the contaminated wetland sediments, we recognized that the culvert running under the hurricane dike prevented the nearby Atlantic Ocean’s tide from replenishing the upstream native saltwater marsh. As a result, invasive reeds were taking over the marsh above the dike.

Reconstructing the culvert would have cost millions of dollars, so the agencies got creative. They designed a new strip of land that would divide the existing, poorly functioning saltwater marsh into a smaller, productive saltwater marsh that could be supported with the existing saltwater supply and a new freshwater wetland supported by rainfall and groundwater. The agencies also removed contaminated sediment from and then replanted a salt marsh south of the dike. Across all three marshes, more than 14,000 native marsh plants were planted, providing valuable habitat for birds and other animals.

By working together, NOAA, EPA, and Army Corps created an effective cleanup solution for the polluted factory site while enhancing the environment by returning this contaminated marsh to a functioning and sustainable habitat, a process known as ecological revitalization. Today, NOAA, along with the EPA, Army Corps, and Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, is helping observe and monitor the success of the restoration projects. A recent visit revealed that two of the marshes already are brimming with healthy plants and wildlife, while the salt marsh which had contaminants removed is showing considerable improvement.

A sunset viewed from Kure Atoll, located near Midway Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. An atoll is an island of coral that encircles a lagoon partially or completely. (NOAA)

June 8 is World Ocean Day, a time to celebrate the ocean which covers most of our planet.

The ocean—it’s blue, deep, and full of strange-looking forms of life. But beyond its natural beauty and mystery, the ocean is useful to have around for many practical reasons, such as: past ocean life produced enough oxygen to make this planet a nice place to live; it affects the atmosphere, and therefore, the weather and climate; it is full of food humans like to eat; it is fun to play in; and it has lots of materials and mineral resources we use for energy, manufacturing, and transportation.

What is the best way to give your thanks for the many benefits the ocean offers us? By protecting it and keeping it clean, of course.

Here are a few suggestions for a keeping a healthy and pollution-free ocean:

• Avoid plastic in your face scrub—those tiny micro-scrubbing beads are likely made of plastic and may end up in the ocean.
• Learn about your relationship with oil—and the many forms it takes in your everyday life.
• Get cigarette butts off the beach—all 52.9 million of them.
• Volunteer for the International Coastal Cleanup in September, find a local World Ocean Day event, or join or organize a beach cleanup at a lake, river, or shoreline near you.
• Make for happy salmon and other fish that live in both the ocean and rivers by supporting community-based habitat restoration where you live.

What are other ways you could protect and celebrate the ocean?

Follow the countdown to World Ocean Day with NOAA’s Ocean Service.

On August 28, 2005, Hurricane Katrina was in the Gulf of Mexico, where it powered up to a Category 5 storm on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, packing winds estimated at 175 mph. (NOAA)

June is here, and with it comes the start of the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season.

Last week I was at a regional emergency response meeting in Addison, Texas, and sat next to Greg Pollock, Deputy Commissioner for the Texas General Land Office. During the meeting, Greg nudged my shoulder, showing me an email alerting him of the potential for Hurricane Barbara to cross from the Pacific Ocean into the Bay of Campeche—making it a potential threat to the Gulf of Mexico.

We were in the last week of May and threats to the Gulf of Mexico are rare this early. I hadn’t even started my hurricane season routine of checking the NOAA National Hurricane Center’s website every morning before even driving to my office at NOAA’s Gulf of Mexico Disaster Response Center.

Following Greg’s prompt, I went online and read the updated forecast from NOAA. Hurricane Barbara would impact southern Mexico but likely dissipate crossing it (which is exactly what happened to this tropical storm). At the time, the threat to the Gulf of Mexico was low, but still something to keep an eye on.

Ready to Help Before, During, and After a Disaster

On the front line is NOAA’s National Weather Service, the trusted, round-the-clock source of information about severe weather threats. Emergency managers and the public alike depend on them to provide accurate and timely storm predictions and forecasts. I use their online information daily to stay up-to-speed on what storms may be developing for the Gulf of Mexico.  The Disaster Response Center provides NOAA with additional support and coordination during natural and manmade disasters. We put our effort into being prepared to respond.

This year, NOAA predicts a worse-than-normal year for tropical storms. “Worse” is my personal way of stating the official forecast of a more-active-than-average or extremely active season, as predicted by NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. Yet, it only takes one storm to bring significant destruction to the coast. For example, in 1992, Hurricane Andrew, a category 5 hurricane, blew in during a less active tropical storm season and struck Florida and Louisiana. The result was 65 people killed (both directly and indirectly) and some $26 billion in damage, mostly in Florida. Only three other hurricanes in U.S. history have cost more in damages: Katrina (2005), Ike (2008), and Sandy (2012).

Living in or on the edge of the coastal zone in Louisiana and Alabama most of my life, I do not take hurricane season lightly. This weekend, I’ll spend time checking on the status of my hurricane supplies (find out what you should have in your disaster supply kit) and ensuring my daughter, who attends college in New Orleans, has thought through her plans of when and where to evacuate should a storm threaten southeast Louisiana. Coming home to be with her dad in Mobile, Ala., may not be her best option. The many other NOAA emergency response staff and I likely would not be evacuating, but rather positioning ourselves and our resources to help with the consequences of a severe tropical storm or hurricane. Every year, we hope for the best and plan for the worst. We can’t control nature, but we can control how prepared we are for what it throws at us.

Are You Prepared?

If you haven’t made your hurricane preparedness plans yet, you shouldn’t wait any longer now that the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season has officially started.

The National Hurricane Center recently hosted National Hurricane Preparedness Week, and their website has a wealth of resources to help you get ready for this summer’s hurricane season. You can also watch a NOAA video on how to increase your chances of surviving a hurricane and learn more about how to prepare for all types of hazards on the NOAAWatch website.

Restoring a wetland in Louisiana. (NOAA)

The federal agencies and states acting as natural resource trustees* have announced new opportunities for the public to engage in restoration planning for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. We plan to prepare a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, or PEIS, to evaluate the potential environmental effects of early restoration projects. We have initiated the public scoping process to assist in preparing the PEIS.

The PEIS will include an evaluation of the potential effects of restoration types—and specific projects—proposed as part of future phases of early restoration. It will also look at the cumulative impacts of early restoration.

Early restoration was initiated by the April 2011 $1 billion Framework Agreement with BP. Projects could include:

• creating or improving wetlands.
• restoring barrier islands and beaches.
• restoring and protecting bird, fish, turtle and other wildlife habitat.
• enhancing recreational experiences.

Read a list of the next phase of early restoration projects to be proposed.

The development of the PEIS for early restoration begins with a public scoping period, from June 4 to August 2, 2013. The trustees will hold meetings—one in each of the Gulf states and one in Washington, DC. We are asking for public input on the scope, content, and any significant issues we should consider in developing the PEIS for early restoration.

You can also comment on the PEIS for early restoration online, via e-mail, or by sending your comments to:

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
P.O. Box 2099
Fairhope, AL 36533

We initiated development of a comprehensive Gulf Spill Restoration PEIS in February 2011, and work on that PEIS is ongoing. The PEIS announced today is focused specifically and more narrowly on early restoration.

Check back often for progress updates and to submit your own restoration project ideas.

This story was originally posted on www.gulfspillrestoration.noaa.gov.

*Editor’s note: This statement originally included “Indian tribes” but no tribes are involved in this damage assessment case.

Here’s hoping your backyard doesn’t look like this: debris scattered on the ocean floor near the Pacific Islands. (NOAA)

Check out NOAA’s Marine Debris Blog for their ongoing series, Marine Debris in Your Backyard, which examines the unique challenges of marine debris and its impacts on various parts of the United States.

Join them as they “journey across the nation, looking at the nine different regions the NOAA Marine Debris Program spans and the most common types of debris found in them, and how it may have ended up there.”

So far, they have visited the following places:

• Alaska, where remote beaches, rough seas, and limited fair weather mean volunteers have only a few months each year to remove anywhere from one to 25 tons of debris per mile of shoreline.
• Great Lakes, where 21 percent of the world’s surface fresh water resides, discarded fishing lines often entangle wildlife, and rumors of a plastic-filled “garbage patch” are beginning to appear.
• Pacific Islands, where Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and a whole lot of open ocean make up the largest region NOAA supports, but where there is so little space for landfills that NOAA helped establish a public-private partnership in Hawaii to turn abandoned fishing gear into a local electricity source.
• California, where its 1,100 miles of shoreline vary from coastal mountains in the north to well-populated, sandy beaches in the south, and where the nation’s first “Trash Policy” will attempt to control the flow of garbage in California’s waterways.

Stay tuned as they continue working their way around the shores of the United States, and ask yourself, what does marine debris look like where you live? How do you help keep it out of the ocean?

And remember, even if you live hundreds of miles from a beach, a piece of litter such as a cigarette butt (which actually contains plastic) or a plastic bag can still make its way through storm drains and rivers to the ocean. This makes marine debris, no matter where you live, truly everyone’s problem.

George Washington crosses the Delaware River, a turning point in the Revolutionary War. (Public Domain, Emanuel Leutze)

You may know the Delaware River only as the partially frozen river George Washington and his troops crossed to victory late at night during the American Revolution, surprising enemy forces based in New Jersey. But many other people—approximately 15 million—know it as their source of water for drinking supplies, industrial uses, irrigation, commerce, and recreation.

The Delaware is one of our nation’s most important rivers. As the longest undammed river east of the Mississippi, it extends from upstate New York to Delaware Bay, where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. And historically, transportation on the Delaware River was critical to the early development of Philadelphia, Penn.; Wilmington, Del.; and Trenton and Camden, N.J.

However, population and industrial growth took their toll on urban areas along the Delaware. Until the mid-20^th century, human and industrial waste received inadequate treatment before flowing into the river, contributing to extensive water pollution problems. This pollution had the effect of draining the river’s waters of the oxygen needed for fish and other aquatic life to survive. Following the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972, conditions have improved, but water quality remains a problem along this river, especially in urban areas.

Over the years, the land around the river has increasingly changed from a natural to an urban setting, losing many of the benefits of nature that the river can offer and at times replacing them with pollutants and failing sewers. Urban infrastructure and abandoned and polluted sites began to claim the riverbanks, severely restricting access to the river.

A Partnership to Reclaim the River

Yet, the outlook for this river appears hopeful. The Delaware River and the land around it, which includes the greater Philadelphia area, is one of 11 places across the U.S. recently welcomed into the Urban Waters Federal Partnership. In order to restore degraded waterfronts and to revitalize economically depressed areas along the river, this partnership will join forces with state, regional, and local organizations to address economic and environmental problems along the river through Philadelphia. NOAA is one of the federal partners coordinating this effort and Office of Response and Restoration staff in the area will be working to ensure the program’s success.

A train crossing over the Delaware River on the Benjamin Franklin Bridge from Philadelphia, Penn., to Camden, N.J. (Creative Commons, Bob Snyder, Rights reserved)

The Urban Waters Federal Partnership furthers the work of other national efforts, such as the Partnership for Sustainable Communities and America’s Great Outdoors Initiative. This partnership focuses on a broad range of projects that will protect community investments while also improving erosion and flood control, water quality, economic and environmental health, and access to waterways.

One of the specific ways the partnership and NOAA will benefit the region is by supporting the Camden County Municipal Authority’s development of Phoenix Park, a community park along the Delaware. This project will involve waterfront and shoreline restoration and will be the centerpiece of a larger project to restore the Camden waterfront. Meanwhile, in Wilmington, the partnership will be able to offer additional support for Fox Point State Park, a relatively new public area created on a former Brownfield property.

On another front, NOAA, the National Park Service, and the U.S. Forest Service will lead an Urban Waters Federal Partnership effort to address remaining water quality issues in the river. These problems stem from a history of habitat loss from past dredging and filling on the shoreline, underutilized and contaminated waterfront property, failing infrastructure (including sewers), and threats from climate change. A compelling reason for dealing with these issues is that several species of fish that were caught commercially and recreationally in the urban part of the Delaware River are threatened, such as Atlantic and shortnose sturgeon, shad and river herring, and eel. Furthermore, the Urban Waters Federal Partnership projects will focus on reconnecting underserved communities to their waterfronts.

A History of Restoration

These efforts will complement NOAA’s longstanding efforts to clean up and restore the Delaware River from the impacts of oil spills and hazardous waste sites. You can view a map (click to zoom to Delaware) depicting the more than a dozen sites that NOAA is actively working on along the Delaware River and its tributaries. The NOAA Restoration Atlas has additional information about restoration projects in the region that NOAA has helped to support.

Once a bustling ferry terminal on the Delaware River during the industrial revolution, Lardner’s Point had fallen into disrepair over the years. Then, in 2004, a tanker released more than 265,000 gallons of oil into the Delaware, exposing this area and hundreds of other miles of shoreline to spilled crude oil. Today, Lardner’s Point features a clean and welcoming waterfront public park, with newly restored shorelines. (NOAA)

One notable example, among many, is Lardner’s Point, a newly established waterfront park in Philadelphia, which NOAA, the Urban Waters Federal Partnership, and the Delaware River City Corporation have helped transform from a disused, concrete blight to a vibrant, natural gem. The restored shoreline there is the foundation for continuing revitalization along the central and northern Philadelphia waterfront, as well as community renewal efforts in Chester, Penn., around the Commodore Barry Bridge.

Washington Crossing State Park, north of Philadelphia. (Creative Commons, Nancy Dowd, Rights reserved)

Diverse activities and communities along the Delaware River make clear its importance and value to the people who live near it. Visible from Philadelphia’s major bridges to New Jersey, the Port of Philadelphia is one of the largest freshwater ports in the world, and it shares the urban riverfront with parks and recreational areas.

To the north, along the banks of historic towns such as New Hope, Penn., and Lambertville and Stockton, N.J., favorite river activities include fishing, rafting, tubing, and canoeing. Even further north, the Delaware is classified as a National Wild and Scenic River. While to the south, the Delaware Bayshore is home to swimming, boating, and commercial fishing.

But for too long, the urban populations along the Delaware River have had limited opportunities to enjoy the river right where they live and work. Fortunately, that is changing. NOAA and the Urban Waters Federal Partnership are building on that momentum, aiming to return to the area and its people the renewed benefits of a healthy, accessible river—one that they can be proud to claim again as their own.

On May 14, 1942, the U.S. Army Air Corps photographed the location of the burning tanker Potrero del Llano. (National Archives)

Over the past couple years I’ve talked about the threat of oil spills from historic shipwrecks, including the S/S Edmund Fitzgerald in the Great Lakes and the S/S Montebello off southern California. But we know that these wrecks are just the tip of the iceberg.

The past century of commerce and warfare has dotted our waters with shipwrecks, many of which have never been surveyed. Since 2010, my office, working with the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries and the U.S. Coast Guard, has been systematically looking at which of these wrecks might pose a substantial threat of leaking oil still on board. This work is part of NOAA’s Remediation of Underwater Legacy Environmental Threats (RULET) project.

We used a tiered approach to develop an initial priority list of vessels for risk assessment. This process narrowed down the estimated 20,000 vessels in U.S. waters to 573 that met the initial criteria. The ships had to be over 1,000 gross tons (making them about 200 feet or longer), built to carry or use oil as fuel, and made of a durable material such as steel.

Understanding how a shipwreck site formed helps explain why vessels, like the Dixie Arrow which initially carried approximately 86,136 barrels of crude oil, but was demolished during World War II, no longer remain intact and are no longer potentially polluting shipwrecks. (NOAA)

Additional research revealed the actual number posing a substantial pollution threat was lower because of the violent nature in which some ships sank (many were lost in World War II). This is because, for example, a ship hit and sunk by torpedoes would be less likely to still have intact tanks of oil. And other vessels were taken off our radar because they have fallen apart or were demolished because they were navigational hazards.

We also used computer models to predict the environmental and economic consequences of oil spills from these vessels. Those results then helped us sort out which wrecks might pose the biggest risks.

A map showing the name, location, and priority level of shipwrecks recommended to the U.S. Coast Guard for further pollution assessment. (NOAA)

On May 20, we released both an overall report describing this work and our recommendations and 87 individual wreck assessments. The individual risk assessments highlight not only concerns about potential ecological and socio-economic impacts, but they also characterize most of the vessels as being historically significant. In addition, many of them are grave sites, both civilian and military.

The national report and the 87 risk assessments are available at http://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/protect/ppw/.

On January 10, 1910, the famous Lucas gusher, named after the persistent oil explorer who drilled the well, struck oil at Spindletop Hill in a geyser that launched more than 100 feet in the air for nine days. This kicked off the Texas oil boom and was the impetus for opening the nearby Gulf Oil Company refinery. (John Trost)

About five miles from the Texas-Louisiana border sits what was once the Gulf Oil Company’s refinery. It’s now owned by Valero, by way of Chevron. But this century-old refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, has been operating since a year after the famous discovery of oil at Spindletop in 1901, which came in the form of a more than 100-foot-high, nine-day-long oil gusher.

Spindletop is the salt dome oil field that sparked the oil boom in Texas, ushering in the exploration of oil in the region that has persisted to this day. It also paved the way for oil to become a significant energy source.

Oil Boom not Necessarily a Boon

With the oil boom came a number of hazardous substances to the former Gulf Oil refinery site and its surrounding areas. Historically, the refinery produced jet fuel, gasoline, petrochemicals, and a variety of other oil and chemical products. But this took a toll on the site’s soil, water, and aquatic habitats. Ecological risk assessment studies led by the state of Texas have revealed the presence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs, a toxic component of oil), lead, zinc, nickel, cadmium, copper, and more in the water and sediment on the site.

In 2004, NOAA, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Texas natural resource trustees, working cooperatively with Chevron, determined that the public was owed ecological restoration for the contaminated surface water, soil, and sediments at the former Gulf Oil refinery [PDF]. Our assessment showed that we could accomplish this by constructing 83 acres of tidal wetland and 30 acres of coastal wet prairie and improving 1,332 acres of coastal wetlands via new water control structures in the Sabine Lake/Neches River basin.

A black-necked Stilt and Snowy Egrets in the restored wetland habitat.
(Photo provided courtesy of Chevron.)

Based on this information, the natural resource trustees negotiated with Chevron (which assumed the legal responsibility of the former Gulf Oil site) a $4.4 million settlement of state and federal natural resource damage claims related to the site. This money would go toward implementing the environmental restoration.

The settlement included three projects meant to restore coastal habitat to compensate the public for natural resources lost or injured by historical contamination from the refinery. Two of the projects involved restoring a natural hydrology to coastal wetlands by installing water flow enhancement structures and berms. The third project aimed to create intertidal estuarine marsh and coastal wet prairie by using nearby dredge material.

These projects were a significant undertaking for Chevron and their contractors. They involved several different restoration techniques, some of which had to be modified in the middle of construction to adapt to changes in the field.

Clumps of planted marsh grass in restored estuarine marsh, looking towards Bridge City. February 1, 2013 (NOAA/National Marine Fisheries Service/Jamie Schubert)

Building Marsh out of Mud Pancakes

In 2002, Chevron set up a pilot project to determine the feasibility of constructing marsh habitat by placing local dredge material into open-water habitat. The resulting constructed marsh terrace was able to maintain the necessary elevation for native marsh vegetation to take root.

Based on the successful pilot, the full-scale project for building marsh planned to mix dredge material with water, forming slurry that could then be pumped into open water to form mounds and terraces. Once they reached the suitable elevation, the mounds and terraces would later be planted with native marsh grasses. On the other hand, the coastal wet prairie would be constructed by removing dredged sediment to lower the elevation and make it suitable for supporting vegetation found in that habitat type.

Established estuarine marsh in the Old River South marsh complex. Note the elevated mounds of mud beneath the marsh grass. (NOAA/National Marine Fisheries Service/Jamie Schubert)

Full-scale construction for the projects kicked off in 2007. This timeline was pushed back a few years from the pilot project because in 2005 Hurricanes Katrina and Rita increased demand for the heavy equipment used in the marsh environment and also damaged habitat and vegetation at the project site.

Another challenge came after Chevron pumped the dredged sediments into the open water to create marsh mounds. Unlike during the pilot project, when the pumped-in sediment stacked well, the sediment used in the marsh construction spread out and formed pancakes instead of the desired mounds. To prevent the sediment from spreading, the restoration team tried changing the pump’s spout, but spraying the dredge slurry into mounds was still a challenge. The mounds became mudflats.

Changing the construction technique again, they next pumped in dredged sediments and then excavated mounds and terraces. This technique had greater success, but in the end, it was still necessary to pump in additional sediment to some areas to achieve the necessary elevations. Because the team was using so much more dredge material than originally planned, they had to find an alternative sediment source from a nearby canal. If they continued taking sediment from the original source, they would have risked lowering the elevation of the area, which was adjacent to the coastal wet prairie and could affect its hydrology.

View of Rainbow Bridge from restored estuarine marsh. (NOAA/National Marine Fisheries Service/Jamie Schubert)

Despite a number of setbacks, the restoration projects were finished in 2009 and after a monitoring period, the trustees certified them as successfully completed in February of 2013. These projects will improve the fish and shellfish abundance in this part of southeast Texas, provide habitat for wildlife and fish, increase recreational opportunities for bird watching and fishing, and improve the habitat for waterfowl (a benefit for hunters).

The area is also highly visible for anyone driving south through the Beaumont-Port Arthur area. Just look out your window as you cross the Neches River and you’ll see the marsh mounds, coastal wet prairie, and maybe even a few Snowy Egrets on display.

Jessica White.

Jessica White is a Regional Resource Coordinator with the Assessment and Restoration Division of NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration. She has been working with NOAA in the Gulf since 2003 and recently relocated to the Gulf of Mexico Disaster Response Center. Jessica has assessed and restored Superfund sites in Texas and Louisiana and has supported oil spill and marine debris cleanup. She has a B.S. in Biology from Texas Tech University and a M.S. in Environmental Science from the University of North Texas.