Spills, releases, NRDA, oh my: Restoration after the storm

During natural or anthropogenic environmental disasters, human life, health, and safety are paramount to environmental investigations. Regulatory authorities such as OPA and CERCLA provide a framework for Natural Resource Trustees to pursue a Natural Resource Damage Assessment to restore injuries resulting from an oil spill or hazardous substance release. Because every restoration has the potential to inform the next damage assessment, restoration monitoring is critical to assessing project implementation and ecological performance. Streamlining decisions regarding monitoring methods and innovative technologies will be helpful to ensure Public Trust resources are adequately restored following a spill or release.