The Open Ocean Trustee Implementation Group held its annual public meeting, and a special session on mesophotic and deep benthic communities projects, all via an interactive webinar on October 28, 2021. More than 100 people were in attendance.

During the annual meeting, we presented information on Open Ocean Restoration Area projects and monitoring and adaptive management activities. The presentation was followed by a question and answer period where attendees’ questions were answered by Trustee staff.

Following the annual meeting, Trustee staff working on the Mesophotic and Deep Benthic

The Alabama Trustee Implementation Group for the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill will host an annual public meeting via a video presentation/webinar, December 9, 2021. The video presentation will include information on the Alabama Trustee Implementation Group’s ongoing work implementing restoration projects.

The video presentation will be available on the State of Alabama's Coastal Restoration YouTube page on December 9, 2021 from 12:00 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. CT and can be viewed an unlimited number of times.

The public may also provide comments related to the presentation topics until December 9

The Florida Trustee Implementation Group will hold its annual public meeting via webinar on December 7, 2021, at 5:00 p.m. ET. During the meeting we will present an update on Florida Restoration Area plans, projects, and activities. After the presentation, we will provide an opportunity for attendees to give verbal public comments. The webinar is open to everyone and we encourage your attendance and participation.

• Date: December 7, 2021
• Time: 5:00 p.m. ET
• Registration: Please register for the webinar at: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1036784908257904396

After registering

The “Reducing Impacts to Cetaceans during Disasters by Improving Response Activities” (Marine Mammal Disaster Response) project kicked off in 2020. It focuses on restoring dolphins and whales and has taken significant early steps toward achieving its objectives. Originally approved in the 2019 Open Ocean Restoration Plan 2, the trustees have approved two minor changes to the project, initiated a data gap study to improve future responses to oil spills, and established the Disaster Response Working Group, which recently gathered for the first time. 

Project Change Updates

The Disaster

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill Natural Resource Damage Assessment Trustee Council has released the 2021 Programmatic Review (PDF, 97 pages) of its Gulf restoration work. The Trustees have committed to periodically re-examining the restoration program through programmatic reviews. This is the first of these efforts, and includes data collected from their work through 2020.

Written for a broad audience, the document, and complementary story map (an interactive web-based summary), are the products of an in-depth review of the Trustees’ progress restoring natural resources injured by the 2010 De

The Mississippi Trustee Implementation Group will hold its annual public meeting on November 9, 2021, to provide updates on Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) restoration activities. The NRDA updates will be presented during the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality 2021 Restoration Summit to be held in person and via a Facebook Live virtual broadcast.

The Restoration Summit will provide an update on Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality’s restoration planning efforts across all funding streams and the summit will provide stakeholder engagement opportunities. We

The Texas Trustee Implementation Group will hold its annual public meeting via a webinar on December 1, 2021 at 6:00 p.m. CT. During the meeting, we will present an update on Texas Restoration Area plans, projects, and activities. We will provide opportunities for attendees to submit questions as part of the webinar registration process, and during the Webinar via chat. The webinar is open to everyone, and we encourage your attendance and participation.

• Date: December 1, 2021
• Time: 6:00 p.m. CT
• Registration: Please register for the webinar at: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register

The Open Ocean Trustees are bringing together a wide range of deep-sea experts and stakeholders to participate in restoration planning for injured mesophotic and deep benthic communities. The convenings are supporting restoration projects approved in the 2019 Open Ocean Restoration Plan 2. That plan approved approximately $126 million for four projects (PDF, 2 pages) to restore these communities impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

There are many challenges to restoring these habitats. There is limited information about the species that make up these communities, and limited

The Mississippi Trustee Implementation Group is continuing implementation of the Restoring Living Shorelines and Reefs in Mississippi Estuaries project, a Phase IV Early Restoration project approved in 2015. The project initially included construction of up to 4.1 miles of living shoreline and breakwaters, approximately 267 acres of subtidal reef habitat creation, and 5 acres of intertidal reef habitat creation.

In September 2018, the Trustee Implementation Group released a Notice of Project Change, cancelling the following three components of the Project:

• The St. Louis Bay Living