A review of several major oil spills and how NOAA's roll in response to these events has evolved with time.
On December 15, 1976, the tanker Argo Merchant ran aground near Nantucket Shoals in Massachusetts and broke in half several days later. The entire 7.7 million gallons of heavy fuel oil it carried spilled into the Shoals, threatening damage to the famous fishing grounds. Over the days and weeks that followed, NOAA began its first major coordinated oil spill response activity.
As a result of the disaster, NOAA put additional resources towards spill response, including creating a hazardous material response division to provide scientific expertise during a spill, placing scientific support coordinators around the country, and developing methods to assess and model oil trajectories.
Today, nearly 50 years later, NOAA’s role in oil spill response has evolved, shaped by several major events in our nation’s history — including the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010.
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