The Lake Barre Oil Spill Nrda: From Response To Restoration

ABSTRACT A release of approximately 6,561 barrels of crude oil from a Texaco pipeline into Lake Barre in May 1997 injured marsh, birds, and aquatic fauna. Texaco was proactive in dealing with the trustees in the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process and stayed directly involved throughout; resulting in a cooperative assessment. The trustees focused quickly on the key injuries that required assessment. There was early agreement to conduct a cooperative, restoration-based NRDA, and to design field studies for the injured marsh to provide inputs for scaling using habitat equivalency analysis (HEA). It also was agreed that for this incident, field studies to assess bird and aquatic faunal injury would not be cost-effective or likely improve the accuracy of injury estimates. Although agreement on a common quantification approach for faunal injury was not reached, the two sides agreed on how much restoration was appropriate. The parties developed an extensive list of restoration alternatives, and al...