348
when demonstrating that injuries have occurred, must consider the baseline condition of the resources—that is, the condition the resources would have been in, in the
absence of the release in question. Injuries are defined in the NRDA regulations as
“an observable or measurable adverse change in a natural resource or impairment of
a natural resource service” (15 C.F.R. 990.30). Trustees often rely on research, data,
and information that have been collected prior to the spill and aim to leverage this
information during the assessment. Consequently, representative resources typically include resources that have been studied previously. In the case of the deep
benthos, in spite of challenges in this regard, these same considerations ultimately
guided the selection of key resources assessed by the Trustees.
Given the unique nature of the releases of oil and dispersant at depth, the Trustees
spent substantial effort characterizing: where the oil traveled subsurface, concentrations and changes in oil composition, microbial breakdown, and eventual deposition
of the oil in the benthos if it did not remain on the water surface or strand on shorelines. Similarly, the Trustees spent a significant amount of time and energy simply
trying to identify the presence or absence of resources within affected areas.
Fortunately, the Trustees were also not the only entities conducting research postspill. Teams of scientists, including academics and experts from various government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and industry, leveraged GoMRI (the Gulf of
Mexico Research Initiative) and other sources of funding to spearhead investigations to understand the impacts of the spill on the deep sea. The Trustees devoted
considerable time in monitoring, reviewing, and utilizing information from these
independent efforts. In a number of cases, different lines of evidence generated by
the NRDA and independent scientists were combined to assemble clearer understandings of environmental fate and transport processes or impacts. One key example of such cooperation was the pairing of information on elevated marine snow
quantities within the geographic area of the spill observed in sediment cores taken
on two oil spill response cruises directed by Dr. Paul Montagna (Fig. 21.3) with in
situ observations and laboratory-based experiments by Dr. Uta Passow. The research
and hypotheses promoted by Dr. David Hollander (Passow 2014; Passow et al.
2012; Stout and Passow 2015; Brooks et al. 2015) were critical to understanding
and interpreting the pathways that oil traveled and where it deposited in the benthos.
Together, disparate lines of evidence clearly painted a picture of marine snow as an
initially overlooked but significant driver of impacts to the deep sea, with an estimated 6.9–7.7% of the 3.19 million barrels of oil spilled being deposited into the
sediments surrounding the wellhead (Stout et al. 2017).
The Trustees ultimately must balance a number of factors, including the strength
and volume of underlying research, legal strategy considerations, public interest,
and regulatory constraints to assemble a defensible claim for natural resource restoration. This is because the Trustees bear the burden of demonstrating how the individual lines of evidence fit together and tell a compelling and consistent story about
what happened as a result of the spill. Ideally, the story that emerges from the
research performed during the NRDA will fit with the conceptual models; but if
inconsistences arise, then the conceptual models may need to be changed, data sets
scrutinized, or data gaps filled.
C. G. Lewis and R. W. Ricker
when demonstrating that injuries have occurred, must consider the baseline condition of the resources—that is, the condition the resources would have been in, in the
absence of the release in question. Injuries are defined in the NRDA regulations as
“an observable or measurable adverse change in a natural resource or impairment of
a natural resource service” (15 C.F.R. 990.30). Trustees often rely on research, data,
and information that have been collected prior to the spill and aim to leverage this
information during the assessment. Consequently, representative resources typically include resources that have been studied previously. In the case of the deep
benthos, in spite of challenges in this regard, these same considerations ultimately
guided the selection of key resources assessed by the Trustees.
Given the unique nature of the releases of oil and dispersant at depth, the Trustees
spent substantial effort characterizing: where the oil traveled subsurface, concentrations and changes in oil composition, microbial breakdown, and eventual deposition
of the oil in the benthos if it did not remain on the water surface or strand on shorelines. Similarly, the Trustees spent a significant amount of time and energy simply
trying to identify the presence or absence of resources within affected areas.
Fortunately, the Trustees were also not the only entities conducting research postspill. Teams of scientists, including academics and experts from various government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and industry, leveraged GoMRI (the Gulf of
Mexico Research Initiative) and other sources of funding to spearhead investigations to understand the impacts of the spill on the deep sea. The Trustees devoted
considerable time in monitoring, reviewing, and utilizing information from these
independent efforts. In a number of cases, different lines of evidence generated by
the NRDA and independent scientists were combined to assemble clearer understandings of environmental fate and transport processes or impacts. One key example of such cooperation was the pairing of information on elevated marine snow
quantities within the geographic area of the spill observed in sediment cores taken
on two oil spill response cruises directed by Dr. Paul Montagna (Fig. 21.3) with in
situ observations and laboratory-based experiments by Dr. Uta Passow. The research
and hypotheses promoted by Dr. David Hollander (Passow 2014; Passow et al.
2012; Stout and Passow 2015; Brooks et al. 2015) were critical to understanding
and interpreting the pathways that oil traveled and where it deposited in the benthos.
Together, disparate lines of evidence clearly painted a picture of marine snow as an
initially overlooked but significant driver of impacts to the deep sea, with an estimated 6.9–7.7% of the 3.19 million barrels of oil spilled being deposited into the
sediments surrounding the wellhead (Stout et al. 2017).
The Trustees ultimately must balance a number of factors, including the strength
and volume of underlying research, legal strategy considerations, public interest,
and regulatory constraints to assemble a defensible claim for natural resource restoration. This is because the Trustees bear the burden of demonstrating how the individual lines of evidence fit together and tell a compelling and consistent story about
what happened as a result of the spill. Ideally, the story that emerges from the
research performed during the NRDA will fit with the conceptual models; but if
inconsistences arise, then the conceptual models may need to be changed, data sets
scrutinized, or data gaps filled.
C. G. Lewis and R. W. Ricker