LIABILITY INCENTIVES FOR REDUCING THE COSTS OF OIL SPILLS

1995 ◽  
Vol 1995 (1) ◽  
pp. 249-254
Author(s):  
Bobbie Lively-Diebold ◽  
Paul Ameer ◽  
Gary Yoshioka ◽  
Justin Anand
Keyword(s):  
Damage Assessment ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Oil Pollution ◽  
Societal Cost ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Incentive Structure ◽  
Paper Briefly ◽  
Liability Law ◽  
Natural Resource Damage Assessment ◽  
Assessment Procedures

ABSTRACT This paper briefly reviews the economics of liability law related to oil pollution and analyzes selected federal statutes and court cases to assess how liability law has evolved over time in terms of creating incentives for potential spillers to reduce the societal cost of oil spills. Based on a review of statutes and judge-made law, it appears that prior to the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA 90), the liability provisions of statutes and judge-made law may have failed to provide spillers with sufficient incentives to invest in spill prevention and minimize the societal cost of spills. The OPA liability provisions and judge-made law related to federal government natural resource damage assessment procedures have strengthened the incentive structure by making potential spillers liable for the range of costs of oil spills. However, a sufficient body of judge-made law is not yet available to draw any definitive conclusions about the extent to which the new liability regime created in part by OPA 90 will lead to significantly different outcomes and therefore compel industry to adjust behavior accordingly.

scholarly journals A PROPOSED RESOURCE DAMAGE ASSESSMENT METHODOLOGY FOR WASHINGTON STATE1

1989 ◽  
Vol 1989 (1) ◽  
pp. 275-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Geselbracht ◽  
Jonathan Rubin ◽  
Thomas M. Leschine
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spill ◽  
Damage Assessment ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
State Legislature ◽  
State Agencies ◽  
Natural Resource Damage Assessment ◽  
Oil Spill Response ◽  
Assessment Procedures

ABSTRACT A state legislature sponsored study of Washington's oil spill damage assessment programs has revealed a number of problems. Studies designed to assess damages following major marine oil spills have not always been cost-effective and appropriate, state oil spill response activities have been difficult to fund, agencies have had difficulties spending damage recoveries in accordance with state law, and laws and regulations provide inadequate guidance on how to monetize resource damages identified. In addition, state agencies lack an alternative to field-based studies for compensation recovery in situations where damages are for all intents and purposes unquantifiable. An examination of CERCLA-based natural resource damage assessment procedures, the civil penalties in lieu of damages system employed by the State of Alaska, and other damage assessment practices had led to a recommendation for substantial changes in state marine resource damage assessment procedures. The recommended approach emphasizes the use of CERCLA-like preassessment screening to guide decisions about whether to quantify damages through field studies or to charge civil penalties in lieu of damages, as done in Alaska. In addition, emphasis is placed on direct negotiations with the responsible party to identify restoration/enhancement projects as alternatives to paying damages, and on developing capabilities to manage recovered damages and assessment costs through a new revolving fund.

scholarly journals THE SECOND GENERATION OF NATURAL RESOURCE DAMAGE ASSESSMENTS: LESSONS LEARNED?1

1993 ◽  
Vol 1993 (1) ◽  
pp. 727-731
Author(s):  
Randall B. Luthi ◽  
Linda B. Burlington ◽  
Eli Reinharz ◽  
Sharon K. Shutler
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Oil Spill ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Damage Assessment ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Oil Pollution ◽  
Economic Valuation ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
General Counsel ◽  
Natural Resource Damage Assessment

ABSTRACT The Damage Assessment Regulations Team (DART), under the Office of General Counsel of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has centered its efforts on developing natural resource damage assessment regulations for oil pollution in navigable waters. These procedures will likely lower the costs associated with damage assessments, encourage joint cooperative assessments and simplify most assessments. The DART team of NOAA is developing new regulations for the assessment of damages due to injuries related to oil spills under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. These regulations will involve coordination, restoration, and economic valuation. Various methods are currently being developed to assess damages for injuries to natural resources. The proposed means include: compensation tables for spills under 50,000 gallons, Type A model, expedited damage assessment (EDA) procedures, and comprehensive procedures. They are being developed to provide trustees with a choice for assessing natural resource damages for each oil spill.

COMPUTER MODELS FOR DAMAGE ASSESSMENT: ESTIMATES OF USE AND RESULTS1

1995 ◽  
Vol 1995 (1) ◽  
pp. 339-344
Author(s):  
James F. Bennett ◽  
Bruce E. Peacock ◽  
Timothy R. Goodspeed
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resource ◽  
Damage Assessment ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Simulation Models ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Assessment Model ◽  
Hazardous Substance ◽  
Natural Resource Damage Assessment ◽  
Damage Assessment Model

ABSTRACT Through the process of natural resource damage assessment (NRDA), certain public agencies have the authority to recover monetary damages from parties responsible for injury to natural resources from a discharge of oil or a release of a hazardous substance. Computer simulation models have been developed as simplified procedures for these natural resource trustees to use in calculating damages without undertaking extensive field studies. The revised Natural Resource Damage Assessment Model for Coastal and Marine Environments (NRDAM/CME) and the Natural Resource Damage Assessment Model for the Great Lakes Environments (NRDAM/GLE) are being developed to serve an expanding user community of public natural resource trustees. These tools may enable natural resource managers to expedite settlements and execute environmental restoration. To estimate the potential use of the NRDA models for oil spills, the authors have developed a set of candidate spill occurrences based on the historical record. Representing an estimated 337 applicable spill events in the subject year, 121 model runs generated damage figures ranging from zero to more than half a million dollars.

WHERE RESPONSE MEETS NATURAL RESOURCE DAMAGE ASSESSMENT (NRDA)

2008 ◽  
Vol 2008 (1) ◽  
pp. 1153-1155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Lehto
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Damage Assessment ◽  
Oil Pollution ◽  
Liaison Officer ◽  
Incident Command System ◽  
Incident Command ◽  
Natural Resource Damage Assessment ◽  
The Impact

ABSTRACT During oil spill incidents, NRDA and response activities may co-occur. This paper discusses those occurrences, focusing on ephemeral data collection and emergency restoration. Current laws provide some guidance for how these activities may be coordinated. The Field Operations Guide (FOG) and the National Contingency Plan (NCP) state that it is the responsibility of the Incident Commander (IC) to notify natural resource trustees of the incident and to coordinate NRDA representative's activities through the Liaison Officer. The FOG and NCP also state that it is the responsibility of the trustees to conduct their NRDA preassessment activities without hindering the response. The overlap between NRDA and response may be further complicated because many trustees may work within the environmental unit or the wildlife recovery unit for the response and also have the responsibility to work on NRDA. They may work in the Incident Command System advising the IC on response issues while also trying to initiate a damage assessment. Data collection during a response is critical for managing the incident as well as performing a thorough damage assessment. Although the types of data collected to aid the response may be similar to those used in damage assessment, often the scale and level of detail may be quite different. Even with these differences, synergies in ephemeral data collection may exist. Emergency restoration activities do sometimes occur before the response has concluded. The Oil Pollution Act regulations state that emergency restoration may occur if the action is needed to avoid the loss of natural resources, or to prevent any continuing danger to natural resources. If the trustees determine that emergency restoration is needed, they are required to consult with the IC prior to taking any such action. As an example, this paper will discuss emergency restoration actions undertaken during the Whatcom creek, WA gasoline spill to reduce the impact to migrating salmon.

scholarly journals Habitat and Resource Equivalency Analysis: 30 Years of Lessons Learned and a Look to the Future

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Wakefield ◽  
Theodore Tomasi ◽  
Angeline Morrow ◽  
Christopher Pfeifer ◽  
Heath Byrd
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resource ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Oil Pollution ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
The Public ◽  
Habitat Equivalency Analysis ◽  
Natural Resource Damage Assessment ◽  
Creative Solutions ◽  
The Future ◽  
Technical Basis

ABSTRACT Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA) is a process used to determine the amount of compensation due to the public for natural resource injuries arising from oil spills. Two models, Resource Equivalency Analysis (REA) and Habitat Equivalency Analysis (HEA), are used in essentially all OPA NRDAs to compute compensatory restoration requirements. REA is applied when members of wildlife populations are injured: usually mortality or a loss of reproduction among a species of bird, turtle, marine mammal, or fish. HEA is used when habitats are injured: usually oiling of beaches, wetlands, or sediments. The models are often implemented in a cooperative setting with input from both the Responsible Party and the Trustees. In this setting the models provide a structure for organizing negotiations and identifying the types of agreements that need to be reached before restoration can be identified and “right sized.” The models also have a technical basis in economic theory that is fully justified, but only in particular, limited circumstances. This technical basis is the only means of assuring the Trustees, RPs, and stakeholders that the NRDA process has identified an appropriate level of compensation. When the circumstances of a spill do not approximate those in which HEA and REA are defensible, creative solutions are needed to adjust the models to the circumstances of the case if they are to provide a convincing basis for scaling restoration and reaching resolution. This paper identifies the circumstances under which REA and HEA are fully defensible as well as 35 years of evolving adjustments designed to make them “work” when applied to real-world cases they do not quite fit. We also look to the future and how climate change may alter restoration scaling.

Coral Reefs Damage Assessment due to Oil Pollution in Egyptian Water

2014 ◽  
Vol 522-524 ◽  
pp. 725-728 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. H. Hegazy ◽  
Ahmed Kh. Mehanna ◽  
Mohamed Y. Omar ◽  
Heba Elkilani ◽  
Amr A. Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Coral Reefs ◽  
Damage Assessment ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Oil Pollution ◽  
Coral Cover ◽  
Live Coral ◽  
Coastal Tourism ◽  
Reef Environment ◽  
The World ◽  
Ground Damage

Coral reefs are the most biological systems productive and versatile on the surface of the planet earth, which is a source with economic and social, returns great for the country that God-given this natural wealth. Egypt is home to some of the most spectacular coral reefs and associated marine life in the world. Egypt has enacted laws and takes effective measures for the protection and management of coral reefs and associated ecosystems in the Red Sea and its Gulf to characterize these areas of the richness and diversity of coral reef environment is scarce to be repeated elsewhere in the world. The largest sub-sector for the Egyptian tourism market is the coastal tourism. Coastal tourism depends largely on intact reefs, and this is also one of the most important causes of reef degradation in Egypt. Over the last two decades live coral cover has declined in Egypt. Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA) implements its own methodology to estimate the coral reefs impacts as a result of the destruction of coral reefs due to ship aground or anchorage. This paper focuses on and presents the modelling of the destruction of coral reefs as a result of the collision and the ship ground damage assessment in case of oil spills in Egyptian coastal water referring to the EEAA methodology applied in Egypt.

A COOPERATIVE DAMAGE ASSESSMENT: LESSONS FROM THE GREENHILL SPILL1

1995 ◽  
Vol 1995 (1) ◽  
pp. 355-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Heather Warner Finley ◽  
James G. Hanifen ◽  
Pasquale F. Roscigno ◽  
Karolien Debusschere ◽  
Maura J. Newell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resource ◽  
Damage Assessment ◽  
Oil Pollution ◽  
Success For All ◽  
Oil Well ◽  
Environmental Restoration ◽  
Environmental Response ◽  
Natural Resource Damage Assessment ◽  
Early Success ◽  
The U.S

ABSTRACT Following a September 1992 natural gas and oil well blowout in Timbalier Bay, Louisiana, natural resource trustees took action under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA), Clean Water Act (CWA), and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) to restore the natural resources injured by the spill. Trustees appointed by the State of Louisiana and the U.S. Government worked cooperatively with the well owner, Greenhill Petroleum Corporation, in a natural resource damage assessment (NRDA). The resolution of the Greenhill NRDA marks an early success for all parties involved. The process was concluded in December 1993, only 14 months after the spill, when Greenhill and the trustees signed a natural resource restoration agreement. The cooperative assessment and innovative approaches used by the trustees and the well owner resulted in the rapid resolution of the case, rapid environmental restoration, and relatively low assessment costs.

Resolving Conflict in Applying the Washington State Natural Resource Damage Assessment Compensation Schedule-Spill Volume Determination in the Absence of Volumetric Methods

1999 ◽  
Vol 1999 (1) ◽  
pp. 519-525
Author(s):  
David Mora ◽  
Greg Challenger
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resource ◽  
Oil Recovery ◽  
Damage Assessment ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Volume Estimation ◽  
Volume Determination ◽  
Natural Resource Damage Assessment ◽  
Spilled Oil ◽  
Volumetric Methods

ABSTRACT Many jurisdictions rely upon compensation formulae for environmental damages caused by oil spills in lieu of protracted in situ studies. Formulae often rely on quantity and physical properties of the oil. The State of Washington Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) compensation schedule is primarily based on quantity spilled. The quantity spilled is multiplied by relative values or scaling factors related to general environmental effect and habitat vulnerability indices. Using the formula, a range of $l–$50 dollars per gallon is possible. Spill volume estimation is therefore an important and sometimes controversial issue, especially when spilled volumes are not quantifiable by conventional volumetric methods. While methods of estimating spilled oil from recovery equipment, on the water, and along the shoreline are available, quantifying oil that may be bound to items in the waste stream presents many challenges and must address difficulties such as evaporative oil loss, water bound to recovered materials, varied types of absorbent materials and oiled debris among others. Attempts to quantify recovered oil from the M/V Nosac Forest (1993), Tosco Ferndale (1997), and M/V Anadyr (1998) oil spills yielded reasonable but uncertain results. Questions remain with respect to the accuracy of oil recovery estimates and the cost-effectiveness of the approach. Utilizing assumptions is necessary in any oil volume estimation technique and can be the basis for contention. However, utilizing a collaborative investigative process, where both state and responsible party investigators participate, can alleviate many potential concerns. While uncertainty remains, a collaborative process can lead to consensus and a cost-effective approach to spilled-oil estimation techniques in the absence of conventional volumetric methods.

Quantifying the Scale of Restoration Required to Compensate for the Impacts of the North Cape Oil Spill on Fish and Invertebrates

2001 ◽  
Vol 2001 (1) ◽  
pp. 661-665
Author(s):  
Deborah P. French McCay ◽  
Carol-Ann Manen ◽  
Mark Gibson ◽  
John Catena
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Oil Spill ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Damage Assessment ◽  
Oil Pollution ◽  
The North ◽  
Natural Resource Damage Assessment ◽  
Baseline Conditions ◽  
The Impact

ABSTRACT The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA) seeks to make the environment and public whole for injury to or loss of natural resources and services as a result of a discharge of oil. This means that restoration projects implemented as part of a natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) must be of a sufficient scale to produce resources and services of the same type and quality and of comparable value to those that were lost. Services, for an NRDA, include both the ecological and human uses of the resources. Also, the loss must be quantified from the time of impact until the resource returns to baseline conditions—the level in the absence of the impact. This paper details a series of methods that may be used for scaling NRDA restoration projects and describes how these methods were used in the restoring the injuries incurred as a result of the North Cape oil spill.

THE INTRUSION OF CRIMINAL LAW ON THE NRDA PROCESS

2001 ◽  
Vol 2001 (2) ◽  
pp. 1143-1146
Author(s):  
Don A. Kane ◽  
Francis J. Gonynor
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Oil Spill ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Damage Assessment ◽  
Oil Pollution ◽  
Criminal Investigation ◽  
Natural Resource Damage Assessment ◽  
Protective Orders ◽  
The Common ◽  
Responsible Party

ABSTRACT A primary goal of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA 90) is to make the environment and public whole for injuries to natural resources that result from the discharge of oil. OPA 90 authorizes state and federal natural resource agencies to serve as trustees for natural resources and provides them with the responsibility, through a natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) process, to ensure that injured natural resources are restored. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) promulgated damage assessment regulations, and in an attempt to correct deficiencies and meet OPA 90 mandates, developed a framework intended to promote expeditious restoration. To lessen the common litigious nature of the NRDA process, the regulations encourage active participation by a responsible party in a cooperative assessment of damages. Natural resource trustee agencies also have authority to enforce criminal aspects of other statutes for impacts resulting from an oil spill. However, when agencies initiate a criminal investigation under these statutes for an oil spill, the goals mandated in OPA 90 and set forth in the NOAA regulations can be substantially undermined. There are potential solutions that could, at least partially, resolve this dilemma for the responsible party to a point where participation in the NRDA process would not unduly prejudice its position in a criminal investigation. Such solutions might include written agreements as to communications and transactional use of immunity agreements, stay of proceedings, and protective orders, which singly, or in combination, could prove invaluable in preserving a progressive NRDA process, fully inclusive of the responsible party.

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