Coastal Response Research Center and Center for Spills and Environmental Hazards

In December 2017, for the first time ever in winter, a tanker sailed without an icebreaker through the Northern Sea Route, a shipping lane that runs along the Arctic coast of Russia. Newer, tougher ship hulls and shrinking Arctic ice are now opening up this shorter, cheaper shipping route for business. But as Nancy Kinner, director of the Coastal Response Research Center and Center for Spills in the Environment tells Living on Earth’s Jenni Doering, oil spills there could spell disaster for fragile Arctic ecosystems.

In response to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, CRRC reconvened one of the Environmental Disaster Data Management (EDDM) Working Groups​ to quickly identify the environmental sampling tools that can be used by researchers in the post-hurricane setting. The EDDM Working Groups provided information and data services that improved the quality and speed of decision making in response to environmental disasters. The Working Groups, organized by CRRC, consists of scientists and researchers, industry, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), federal and state agencies, data managers, data collectors, and data retrieval personnel. The list of environmental sampling tools than can be used in response to a hurricane is posted on the U.S. Health and Human Services National Library of Medicine Disaster Lit website.

This is to announce that the 2017 International Oil Spill Conference (IOSC) Proceedings are now available online.The IOSC body of knowledge, dating back to the inception of IOSC in 1969, is available free of charge online. 

AAAS 2017 Feb. 18, 2017 Scientific Session
"The Legacy of the Deepwater Horizon: New Science Affecting Marine Oil Development Policy" Dr. Kinner Facilitator, Speakers: Dr. Colwell, Dr. Schluter, Dr. Murawski