Restoration Planning

(JACKSON, Miss.) -- The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality today announced its initiation of the restoration planning phase of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process in the wake of the Deep Horizon oil spill.

Further signaling the state’s continued efforts in restoring the Mississippi Gulf Coast, MDEQ
also published a Notice of Intent to conduct restoration planning. The state’s action was mirrored by other state and federal entities who also filed a Notice of Intent in recent days.

That document is available for review on the MDEQ web site:
http://www.deq.state.ms.us/MDEQ.nsf/page/NRDA_NRDAPlanning2010?OpenDocument.

“This important assessment phase of the NRDA process marks our next step in ensuring
that the State of Mississippi is made whole from the damages caused by the oil spill.
Through this process, we will assure that all of the damages to our natural resources are
fully documented, and that we are ultimately fully compensated,” said Trudy Fisher,
MDEQ Executive Director and the state’s designated trustee of natural resources.

“Simply put, the Oil Pollution Act requires that the entity or entities who caused the
damage to our natural resources bear the cost of restoring them. Our goal since the spill
has been to make Mississippi whole and today’s announcement marks a meaningful step
on that path,” she said.

NRDA is a restoration oriented legal process by which the public is made whole for harm
caused to natural resources and use of those resources by incidents such as the Deep
Horizon Oil Spill. A formal Notice of Intent indicates that the federal government and
the five affected Gulf states (Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, and Texas) are
well underway in the identification and documentation of impacts to their natural
resources and the development of a comprehensive restoration strategy.

“While the full extent of potential injuries to our Gulf Coast resources may take some
time to define and understand, trustees have both the authority and the duty to move as
quickly as possible to develop potential restoration projects,” said Fisher, Mississippi’s trustee. “The public will be an important partner in identifying restoration projects, and we look forward to interacting with them as this important discussion moves forward.”