OSPR Resource Restoration Program including members of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment Team, April 2023
Video about OSPR's NRDA Program presented to the California Fish and Wildlife Commission, June 2010.
The CDFW-OSPR NRDA Program has conducted NRDAs for a wide variety of pollution and other deleterious substance incidents, including oil spills affecting marine and non-marine waters. The goal of the NRDA is to examine the natural resource injuries from oil spills or other pollution events, to quantify the injuries, and to both restore the injured resources and compensate the public for the lost interim ecological benefits and uses of those resources. NRDA claims have ranged from less than $1,000 to over $30 million throughout California. Since CDFW-OSPR’s inception, over $210 million in restoration projects have been funded through NRDA settlements.
CDFW-OSPR is one of the few state agencies in the country in which major pollution response authority and public trustee authority for wildlife and habitat are combined. This ensures that prevention and contingency planning as well as preparedness and response will provide the best achievable protection for California's natural resources.