Damage Assessment Tracking System Now Live

Contact: Office of Restoration and Damage Assessment

Interior Department Launches New Interactive Website for Tracking Natural Resource Damage and Restoration Cases Nationwide

DARTS — The Damage Assessment and Restoration Tracking System — is now live

WASHINGTON – The Department of the Interior today announced the launch of the Damage Assessment and Restoration Tracking System (DARTS)—a new interactive website for tracking cases involving assessment of damages and restoration of natural resources that have been injured as a result of oil spills or hazardous-substance releases into the environment.

Interior’s Office of Restoration and Damage Assessment reports that the document library and interactive map, provide Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration (NRDAR) practitioners and the public with the ability to track NRDAR cases.

The interactive map identifies the locations of cases by icon shapes for incident type—oil spill, chemical, mining or other—and colors for the status of the case—assessment or restoration—linked to case descriptions. The new website brings together a comprehensive catalog of case documents related to assessment and restoration, as well as a directory of NRDAR cases.

The information on each NRDAR case begins with new case initiation and continues through damage assessment, claim resolution, restoration, monitoring and case closure.  A search for information on the famous Exxon Valdez case, for example, begins with a description of how the T/V Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska on March 24, 1989— spilling almost 11 million gallons of North Slope crude oil—and continues with documents through the 2014 update on the restoration plan.

The site was designed to assist individuals with interest in NRDAR, including officials directly involved with a case, those affected by a spill or release, and members of the public with a variety of research needs.

This revamped case document library and map are the products of a multi-agency team, which provided expertise in database development, website design, programming and hosting. Content is the result of efforts by individuals across the country throughout the NRDAR Program, from case managers, to NRDAR Regional Coordinators, to case attorneys. 

The mission of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration Program is to restore natural resources injured as a result of oil spills or hazardous substance releases into the environment. In partnership with affected state, tribal and federal trustee agencies, the NRDAR Program conducts damage assessments, which are the first step toward resource restoration and form the basis for determining how to restore the public’s loss and use of natural resources. Once the nature and extent of resource injuries are assessed and restoration options are developed, the NRDAR Program negotiates legal settlements or takes other legal actions with parties responsible for the spill or release. Funds from these settlements or actions are then used to restore the injured resources at no expense to the taxpayer.

For more information about NRDAR, visit .

For more information on DARTS, contact:

• Office of Restoration and Damage Assessment, Contact Us Form
• Daniel Pearson (USGS-Texas Water Science Center) (512) 927-3561
• Chris Henke (USGS-Columbia Environmental Research Center) (573) 876-1884

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