Mission - What We Do and How We Do It

The primary mission of the Office of Restoration and Damage Assessment (ORDA) is to restore natural resources injured as a result of oil spills or hazardous substance releases into the environment. The ORDA accomplishes this by supporting the Department of the Interior’s (Interior) Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration (NRDAR) case teams by developing and issuing policy, guidance, and regulations (43 CFR Part 11); providing funding and technical support; coordinating with Interior bureaus and offices, other Federal agencies, states, Tribes, non-governmental organizations, and industry; and performing oversight and evaluation duties of the NRDAR Program. 

In partnership with affected state, tribal and federal trustee agencies, the NRDA Restoration Program conducts damage assessment(s), the first step toward resource restoration, which are used to provide the basis for determining restoration needs.

Once the damages are assessed, the NRDAR Program negotiates legal settlements or takes other legal actions against the responsible parties for the spill or release. Funds from these settlements are then used to restore the injured resources at no expense to the taxpayer. Settlements often include the recovery of the costs incurred in assessing the damages. These funds may also be used to fund damage assessments in future incidents. All actions taken by the NRDAR Program on behalf of citizens of the United States are done with the goal of restoring injured natural resources.

This web site is designed as a guide to information about the ORDA and NRDAR Program:

  • Organizational makeup;
  • Authorities that govern the program;
  • Damage assessment cases;
  • Restoration projects;
  • Program overview;
  • Informational library containing tools and links to sources of information for the field of natural resource damage assessment and restoration.

Further Reading

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