Case studies & Incidents

NOAA Office of Response and Restoration.

Looking Back to a Major Spill in Tampa Bay—30 Years Ago this Month. (2023) By Doug Helton, Office of Response and Restoration.

A Look Back on the Year in Emergency Response (2025). By Doug Helton, Regional Operations Supervisor, Emergency Response Division

Incident Responses for February 2024 (2024). During February, OR&R provided response support for 26 incidents, including 15 new incidents in ten different states, Puerto Rico, and an international incident in the Red Sea.

Advances in Pollution Response and Assessment Science. (2023). These studies have different goals, but all advance OR&R’s ability to respond to, assess the impacts of, and restore the environment after oil spills, chemical accidents, hazardous waste, and marine debris pollution.

The Oil Pollution Act of 1990: A History of Spills and Legislation (2020) By Gary Shigenaka, Office of Response and Restoration.

NOAA Incident News

https://incidentnews.noaa.gov/

This site has news, photos, and other information about selected oil spills (and other incidents) where NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (OR&R) provided scientific support for the incident response. It contains information on thousands of historical incidents spanning 30 years of OR&R spill response. 

Long-term ecological impacts from oil spills: comparison of Exxon Valdez, Hebei Spirit and Deepwater Horizon (2020). Each of the three spills differed in magnitude and duration of oil released, environmental conditions, ecological communities, response and clean up measures, and ecological recovery. 

Case study for Bhopal Gas Tragedy (2020). Bhopal disaster, chemical leak in 1984 in the city of Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh state, India. At the time, it was called the worst industrial accident in history.

Multi-sensor assessment of accidental oil spills in the Bay of Campeche (2025). The Bay of Campeche in the southern Gulf of Mexico is abundant with oil reservoirs and is also full of oil platforms and oil seeps. Accidental oil spills occasionally occur, as was the case with the most recent one linked to an explosion on the Nohoch Alfa platform on 7 July 2023, which was captured by multi-sensor satellite imagery (including radar, optical, and thermal data).