1. Oil Spill Program

2. Programmatic Goals
BROAD STROKE
Response: Document incidence of wildlife and habitat injury in association with oil spills throughout the State;
Assessment: Determine the extent of wildlife and habitat injury (acute and chronic);
Restoration: Utilize information gathered to determine appropriate means to address service losses (i.e., return resource(s) back to baseline).

3. What’s in the Toolbox?
On-site documentation (qualitative and quantitative)
“Bird in Hand”
Literature (peer-reviewed to white papers)
Life History Information
Population Status (WAP, Nature Serve, FWS)
Injury Analyses (HEA and REA)
DARP (Damage Assessment / Restoration Plans)
These tools signify the principal means for trustees to assess natural resource injury.

4. Problems
Within Louisiana – as exemplified in Deepwater Horizon, LDWF and trustees have: 1.) Limited means to quantify the extent of wildlife injury throughout the state’s diverse habitat types

5. Main Pass Block 75
Valero Refinery
Johnson Pass
Bayou Sorrel / Pharaoh Oil and Gas.
Mooringsport
Swift Energy

6. Principally limited to coastal systems
Problems
Principally limited to coastal systems
2.) Limited wildlife and habitat baseline information;
These data are critical for implementing defensible injury analyses
…which is the road map for resource restoration

7. Solutions

8. Response
Department’s procedural roadmap for documenting associated wildlife and habitat injury
Incorporating validated injury assessment methodologies
Defensible injury assessment
Timely restoration of State’s natural resources

9. Programmatic Coordination Identify Wildlife and Sensitive Areas
Contingency Plans
Geographic Response Plans (GRP)
Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) Maps
State’s Wildlife Action Plan (WAP)
Trustee Engagement

10. Assessment Informed by response injury lanes
Integrated approach (Wildlife & Habitat)
Utilizing validated and defensible sampling methodologies
Define the extent (short and long term) of associated injury

11. Development of Bioindicator Species

12. Terrapin
Coastwide Distribution and Abundance and Nesting (2012-current)
Appear to be tied to specific coastal basins for their entire life cycle
Therefore regional oiling impacts could cause significant population injury
Rarely documented within historical response activities

13. Marsh Birds Coastwide call back surveys (2011-2015)
Clapper Rail
Coastwide call back surveys ( )
Site fidelic species
Indicators of marsh health
Historically impacted by coastal spills

14. Case Study
An Incident (pipeline spill, estimated release of 4000 bbls (later upgraded to 4500 bbls) of crude oil from a 20 inch interstate pipeline (Location: near Mooringsport, LA Caddo Parish).
Released oil traveled into an unnamed upland creek before eventually being contained within Bayou Tete directly south of Caddo Lake.
Timeframe: 10/13/14 to 11/7/14

15. Response
Performed daily surveys within defined transects (search effort).

16. Taxa-Specific Efforts
Extensive numbers of dead / dying freshwater turtles were observed / brought to the designated rehabilitation center Indication as to the severity of this particular spill to resident wildlife species

17. Assessment
Turtles
Stream Delineation
Fisheries
Macroinvertebrates

18. Collectively response and assessment data are being populated
Followed by select injury analyses (ex. HEA, REA, Recreational…)
Restoration project(s) are being identified (ex, land acquisition, conservation easements, habitat restoration) to “make the public whole”

19. What sentinel species or habitats would benefit from DWH resources?
How can a LDWF and partners better facilitate those benefits?
Deepwater Horizon

20. Long-Term Wildlife Monitoring
Pre and Post Restoration Monitoring