Contact: Donna Lum, 601-948-3071, 601-720-4418
October 5, 2011
The Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) Trustees, comprised of representatives of the five Gulf states and two federal agencies, commend the members of the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force for their efforts in developing a preliminary strategy for long-term restoration of the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem and the Gulf Coast region.
"We share a common goal of a healthy, resilient Gulf ecosystem, and we intend to take into account the Task Force strategies and the public's input to advance this goal," said Cooper Shattuck, chair of the NRDA Trustee Council.
The Task Force was charged with creating a plan to improve the overall health of the Gulf of Mexico area and has focused on a number of stressors to the Gulf Coast ecosystem beyond those caused by the Deepwater Horizon spill. The Trustees, on the other hand, are specifically empowered by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 to assess the injuries caused by the oil spill to natural resources belonging to the public and to ensure that those injured resources are restored to their baseline conditions by the responsible parties. While the work of the Task Force has been independent from the work of the Trustees, the valuable information gathered by the Task Force will be useful to the Trustees in their restoration planning efforts.
For additional information on the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, please visit http://www.epa.gov/gcertf. For more on NRDA, please visit http://www.gulfspillrestoration.noaa.gov.