Deepwater Horizon ELI works with partners in the gulf region to facilitate the Natural Resource Damage Assessment process
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Page 50 ❧ THE ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM Copyright © 2011, Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, D.C. www.eli.org.
Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, May/June 2011
ELIReport
Making Law Work for People, Places, and the Planet
Valerie Lee addresses sherman at the Natural Resources Dam-
age Assessment workshop in Mobile, Alabama.
ELI is working with
partners in the Gulf of
Mexico, educating com-
munities about how to
participate in the restora-
tion process.
e Institute’s ocean
law and policy experts —
headed by program direc-
tor Dr. Kathryn Menger-
ink and including Jordan
Diamond, Jay Austin, John
Pendergrass, Teresa Chan,
Nina Robertson, and Zach
Jylkka — has held meet-
ings and developed ma-
terials to educate affected
groups about natural re-
source damage restoration.
“ese are complex sci-
entific and legal issues and
the communities are being
asked to provide input into
a government restoration
process that they know
little about and with mini-
mal information, at best,
about the impacts of the
spill,” said Dr. Mengerink.
As Robertson added, “e
disaster is unprecedented,
as are the number of dif-
ferent restoration and
compensation efforts
underway. Our project
aims to explain what the
law requires, what is being
done to restore the gulf,
and how communities can
help shape what restora-
tion looks like.”
e Oil Pollution Act
of 1990 requires that after
University Law School.
e workshops also feature
state and federal trustees.
ELI organized the
workshops with local
partners, including Sea-
Grant, the Mississippi
Center for Justice, the
Gulf Restoration Net-
work, and the Tulane
Institute on Water Re-
sources Law and Policy.
ELI’s experience and
non-governmental sta-
tus is critical to project
success. e Institute is
outside of the government
trustee structure, allowing
its staff to convey to par-
ticipants the big picture of
how the NRDA process
works. e team brings
a wealth of expertise and
policy knowledge across
all the silos of govern-
ment.
In addition to work-
books and fact sheets,
workshop participants are
also receiving copies of
ELI Press titles National
Resource Damage Assessment
Deskbook, A Legal and
Technical Analysis by Val-
erie Lee, as well e Art of
Commenting by Elizabeth
Mullen.
e fact sheets are now
available on the ELI web-
site in English, Spanish,
and Vietnamese at www.
eli.org/Program_Areas/
ocean_gulfofmexico.cfm
Deepwater Horizon ELI works with partners in the gulf region to
facilitate the Natural Resource Damage Assessment process
an oil spill, the responsible
parties must restore the in-
jured natural resources and
compensate the public for
lost use of those resources.
e process of assessing
the injury and planning
for restoration, known as
Natural Resource Damage
Assessment, is adminis-
tered by federal, state, and
tribal governments as pub-
lic trustees.
e public has a right to
participate in the NRDA
process; it is important for
communities to under-
stand how to engage and
why their voices are impor-
tant to the long-term suc-
cess of restoration efforts.
ELI held the first of
the workshops in March
in Alabama and repeated
them in April in Louisiana
and Mississippi. In addi-
tion to compilations of
resources for the training
sessions, ELI has produced
a series of fact sheets. e
sheets include case studies
on “NRDA in Action,”
providing lessons from
oil spill NRDAs in other
parts of the country, such
as the Exxon Valdez spill in
Alaska.
Discussions are led by
panelists with expertise in
NRDA, including Valerie
Lee of Environment Inter-
national, Ltd.; Jim Ayers,
former Executive Director
of the Exxon-Valdez Trust-
ee Council; David Pettit of
the Natural Resources De-
fense Council; ELI’s John
Pendergrass; Chris Rob-
bins of the Ocean Con-
servancy; Joe Montoya of
the Georgia Technical In-
stitute; Ajit Subramanian
of Columbia University;
and Mark Davis of Tulane
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