[Federal Register Volume 67, Number 185 (Tuesday, September 24, 2002)]
[Notices]
[Pages 59827-59828]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 02-24223]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration


Availability of a Final Damage Assessment and Restoration Plan 
and Environmental Assessment for Natural Resource Injuries and Service 
Losses Associated With the Fort Lauderdale Mystery Oil Spill in Florida

AGENCY: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 
Commerce.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that a document entitled, ``Final 
Damage Assessment and Restoration Plan and Environmental Assessment for 
the Fort Lauderdale Mystery Oil Spill'' (Final DARP/EA) is available. 
This document has been prepared by the state and Federal natural 
resource trustee agencies (Florida Department of Environmental 
Protection, FDEP, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration, NOAA) to address natural resource injuries and resource 
service losses resulting from a mystery oil spill in the Fort 
Lauderdale area. This Final DARP/EA presents the trustees' assessment 
of the natural resource injuries and service losses and their final 
plan to compensate for those losses by restoring natural resources and 
services. The trustees provided the public an opportunity to comment on 
a public review Draft DARP/EA. The Draft DARP/EA was released on June 
24, 2002 and was announced in local newspapers and the Federal Register 
(June 24, 2002; 67 FR 42538). The trustees received two public comments 
on the Draft DARP/EA, both were in support of one of the restoration 
projects. As a result, there are no significant changes in the 
evaluation or selection of restoration projects since the Draft DARP/
EA.

ADDRESSES: Requests for copies of the Final DARP/EA should be directed 
to Tony Penn of NOAA, 1305 East West Highway, Station 10218, Silver 
Spring, MD 20910, e-mail: [email protected]. The Final DARP/EA is also 
available electronically at http://www.darp.noaa.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For further information contact: Tony 
Penn, at (301) 713-3038 x197, e-mail: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On Tuesday morning, August 8, 2000, oil tar 
balls and oil mats were observed on beaches in the area of Fort 
Lauderdale, Florida. Within the next few days, approximately 20 miles 
of high-use recreational beaches, from North Miami Beach northward to 
near Pompano Beach (primarily Broward County beaches), were oiled; some 
were closed for cleaning. The origin of the oil is unknown. The United 
States Coast Guard, the lead response agency for the incident, 
classified the spill as medium, and the trustees have estimated the 
amount of oil stranded on the shoreline to be approximately 15,000 
gallons.
    Natural resources or their services impacted as a result of the 
incident include threatened and endangered sea turtles and their 
habitats, marine surface waters and their biota including fish, birds, 
and recreational use of beaches. Response actions removed the majority 
of the shoreline oil within a few days of oiling. These response 
actions did not prevent natural resource impacts from occurring nor did 
these actions restore or rehabilitate natural resource and service 
injuries that resulted from the incident.
    Natural resource trusteeship authority is designated according to 
section 1006(b) of OPA, Executive Order 12777, October 22, 1991 (56 FR 
54757), and Subpart G of the National Oil and Hazardous Substances 
Pollution Contingency Plan, 40 CFR part 300. Federal trustees are 
designated by the President, and state trustees by the Governor. Acting 
on behalf of the public as trustees for the living and non-living 
resources in the coastal and marine environments of Florida, the 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Florida 
Department of Environmental Protection, are responsible for assessing 
injuries to trust resources resulting from oil spill incidents, and for 
developing and implementing a plan for the restoration, rehabilitation, 
replacement, or acquisition of the equivalent of injured natural 
resources and their services.
    Pursuant to section 1002(a) of OPA, each party responsible for a 
vessel or facility from which oil is discharged, or

[[Page 59828]]

which poses a substantial threat of a discharge of oil, into or upon 
the navigable waters of the United States or adjoining shorelines, is 
liable for natural resource damages from incidents that involve such 
actual or threatened discharges of oil. The measure of damages to 
natural resources is the cost of restoring, rehabilitating, replacing 
or acquiring the equivalent of the injured natural resources, 
compensation for the diminution in value of those natural resources 
pending restoration, and the reasonable costs of assessing such 
damages. All recoveries for the first two elements are to be spent 
implementing a restoration plan developed by the trustees. In this 
case, there is not an identified responsible party to pay damages. When 
there is not a responsible party, the Federal Oil Spill Liability Trust 
Fund is available to pay claims for the costs of assessing natural 
resource damages and for developing and implementing restoration plans.
    The trustees quantified injury to sea turtles, fish and 
invertebrates, seabirds, and recreational beaches for inclusion in a 
claim for restoration costs. The trustees determined that their 
selected alternative to address injuries and losses of sea turtles is a 
combination of active primary restoration (to return sea turtle 
resources and services to baseline) and compensatory restoration (to 
compensate for interim losses pending recovery to baseline). The 
primary restoration consists of augmenting lighting ordinance 
enforcement activities that will return sea turtles to baseline by 
preventing mortality of turtle hatchlings due to disorientation. The 
selected compensatory restoration also augments lighting ordinance 
enforcement, which will provide additional turtle hatchlings to 
compensate for the interim turtle losses. The compensatory component of 
the enforcement project will be of sufficient scale to provide 
compensatory ecological services approximately equivalent to those that 
will be lost from the injured turtles pending recovery to baseline.
    No primary restoration actions are necessary for the fish and 
invertebrate, and seabird injuries. However, the trustees have selected 
projects as compensation for an acute kill of fish, invertebrates, and 
seabirds. The trustees will create mangrove habitat in order to provide 
the fish and invertebrate biomass that was lost.
    To replace the birds that were killed, the trustees will save birds 
from future injury. The trustees will install signs at a fishing pier 
that warn anglers from cutting their lines and that demonstrate how to 
free birds from fishing lines and hooks, which will prevent 
entanglement and provide seabird rescue in the event of entanglement.
    The impacted recreational beaches were returned to baseline 
conditions through incident response actions, however there was a 
period of lost use during the response phase. The selected compensatory 
restoration projects are to plant sea oats to build dunes, construct 
dune walkovers, provide handicapped carts, and provide shade areas that 
together will maintain beaches for future use, provide access to the 
beach, and improve the quality of the beach experience.

    Dated: August 16, 2002.
Jamison S. Hawkins,
Deputy Assistant Administrator for Ocean Services and Coastal Zone 
Management.
[FR Doc. 02-24223 Filed 9-23-02; 8:45 am]
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