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The $1.4 Million Question: What’s the Best Way to Clean Up an Oil Spill?
That’s the lucrative question the X PRIZE Foundation is asking and one of up to ten innovative teams may help answer this summer in the Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE. “This X CHALLENGE was...
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Oil No Longer Mixes With Water for Winners of the Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE
A major push for innovation in cleaning up oil spills has reached its conclusion: The winners of the 2011 Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE have been announced [leaves this blog]. Office of...
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Five Coming Innovations in Arctic Science
Scientific tools have come a long way from the simple, leather-bound journals 18th century naturalists were toting on expeditions into uncharted lands. But hundreds of years later, we are still asking...
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From Research to Response, the Evolving Role of Science in Oil Spills
It’s now been 35 years since NOAA began its first major coordinated response to an oil spill, jumping to the aid of the wrecked tanker Argo Merchant near Nantucket Island, Mass., and launching what...
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How Social Media Is Already Changing Ocean Science
All links leave this blog. As threats to the environment continue to grow, so is people’s thirst for information about these issues. Today, perhaps more than ever, scientists and their institutions are...
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Changes Over Time: How NOAA’s Mussel Watch Program is Adapting to the Needs...
The following is reposted from NOAA’s Coastal Ocean Science Blog. All links leave this blog unless otherwise noted. By Gunnar Lauenstein, PhD, Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment, National...
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What Is Plastic Doing in My Face Scrub?
Recently, I was surprised to find out that the little beads in my expensive tube of exfoliating face cleanser weren’t made of some beneficial ingredient that dissolved as it was used—they’re actually...
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How Would Chemical Dispersants Work on an Arctic Oil Spill?
This is a post by John Whitney, OR&R’s Scientific Support Coordinator for Alaska. If there were a huge oil spill in the Arctic, would chemical dispersants work under the frigid conditions there?...
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NOAA Awards $500,000 to Research Projects Exploring Impacts of Chemical...
The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science in Baltimore, Md., has been awarded $150,000 to study the effects of dispersants and dispersed oil on the commercially important blue crab, a...
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Submit Your Comments: Studying Decades of Environmental Injuries at the...
This is a post by OR&R’s Charlene Andrade, Mary Baker, and Vicki Loe. Nuclear reactors line the riverbank at the Hanford Site along the Columbia River in January 1960. The N Reactor is in the...
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What Are the Increased Risks From Transporting Tar Sands Oil?
This is a guest post by University of Washington graduate students Robin, Terry, Shanese, Jeff, Ali, and Colin. In July of 2010, an Enbridge-owned pipeline spilled oil — which later turned out to be...
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From Rubber Ducks to Dog Food, Spilling Everything But Oil
Sometimes when responders can’t spill oil, they spill rubber ducks. (Credit: Jason Ahrns. Used under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.) What do...
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NOAA, Dow Chemical Collaborate on Update to Federal Chemical Safety Software...
A train derailment in Paulsboro, N.J. in November 2012 released 23,000 gallons of toxic vinyl chloride gas. (NOAA) NOAA has partnered with chemical industry experts from the Dow Chemical Company to...
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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...
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When Studying How to Clean Oiled Marshes, NOAA Scientists Have Their Work Cut...
This is a post by Office of Response and Restoration Biologist Nicolle Rutherford. Oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill oozes out from beneath a vegetation mat in a marsh in Barataria Bay’s Bay Jimmy,...
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NOAA Hosts Forum Exploring Oil Sands and the Challenges of When They Spill
Water and sediment sampling on Morrow Lake near Battle Creek, Mich., during the response to the Enbridge pipeline spill of oil sands product. August 2, 2010 (U.S. Coast Guard) Unless there is a big...
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Watching Chemical Dispersants at Work in an Oil Spill Research Facility
The Ohmsett facility is located at Naval Weapons Station Earle, Waterfront. The research and training facility centers around a 2.6 million-gallon saltwater tank. (Bureau of Safety and Environmental...
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Arctic-bound: Testing Oil Spill Response Technologies Aboard an Icebreaker
Editor’s Note: September is National Preparedness Month. It is a time to prepare yourself and those in your care for emergencies and disasters of all kinds. The following story shows one way NOAA’s...
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After Sandy, Adapting NOAA’s Tools for a Changing Shoreline
Editor’s Note: September is National Preparedness Month. It is a time to prepare yourself and those in your care for emergencies and disasters of all kinds. NOAA and our partners are making sure that...
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Above, Under, and Through the Ice: Demonstrating Technologies for Oil Spill...
This is the third in a series of posts about Arctic Shield 2013 by the Office of Response and Restoration’s Zach Winters-Staszak. Read his first post, “Arctic-bound” and his second post, “Breaking...
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