The Deepwater Horizon Trustees continued the sixth year of post-settlement restoration in 2021. The annual financial summary and annual reports covering all of the Trustees’ restoration activities are now available. We provide these reports each year to help stakeholders and communities stay up to date on our work.
Throughout 2021, the Trustee Implementation Groups approved 3 new restoration plans and 26 new projects. In the 12 years since the spill, more than 270 different activities, including plans and projects, have been approved to restore injured Gulf resources. The combined allocated cost of restoration projects so far is $1,969,023,880.
We look forward to sharing these accomplishments at the upcoming June 16 Trustee Council Annual Public Meeting, which will be held via webinar. The meeting will include highlights from the Trustees’ first comprehensive review of restoration progress, which was released in November 2021.
2021 Annual Financial Summary Report
The Trustees 2021 Annual Financial Summary Report (PDF, 2 pg) identifies funding received and allocated for each Trustee Implementation Group through December 31, 2021. The 2016 settlement with BP included up to $8.8 billion for restoration to address natural resource injuries from the spill.
Accessing Annual Activity and Project Reports
The 2021 annual reports include information on the Trustees’ planning activities and project implementation. They show the status of each activity as of December 31, 2021. In total, there are 279 reports available, which include 232 approved restoration projects. The remaining 47 reports focus on restoration plans and other planning activities.
The updated reports can be found via each of the seven Restoration Area pages and our interactive map of Gulf Spill Restoration Projects. Go to either of those resources to find links to detailed information on individual activities.
When you’re on a Restoration Area page, direct links to each activity or project are under the “Projects” heading. Click on a project name, then you’ll be sent to its project page where the report can be downloaded by clicking on the “Print Last Annual Report” link.
If you are in the interactive map, locate a project and click on the “More Project Information” link in the pop up window. You’ll then be sent to the same project page mentioned above.
The annual reports include descriptions of the activities and projects, and Trustee staff contacts. Additionally, they may include monitoring, financial, and environmental compliance information. Although all Trustee Implementation Group restoration planning activities and “on-the-ground” or “in-the-water” projects, are listed on the Restoration Area pages, only projects are listed in the interactive map.
Updates to the Monitoring and Adaptive Management Tab
In 2021, the Trustees updated the Monitoring and Adaptive Management (MAM) section of the annual reports to improve consistency between the Monitoring and Adaptive Management Procedures and Guidelines Manual (MAM Manual) and the Data Integration Visualization Exploration and Reporting (DIVER) Portal. These updates include clarification of monitoring parameter names, and the addition of a Parameter Detail field to provide more information on the selected monitoring parameter. Additionally, the MAM section now documents each project’s Restoration Approach, as defined in the Trustee’s Programmatic Restoration Plan. As part of this update, the Trustees matched existing project MAM data to the new fields. The old fields and data can be found in previous PDF annual reports for each project. The Trustees identified the need for these updates while preparing their first Programmatic Review.
Dive Deeper into the Data
Find more advanced data exploration tools in the Data Integration Visualization Exploration and Reporting Portal, or “DIVER.” This is an easy-to-remember acronym for a powerful restoration reporting tool. You can use DIVER to search, map, and download data on all our restoration projects and related activities.