990.51—Injury assessment—injury determination.
(a) General.
After issuing a Notice of Intent to Conduct Restoration Planning under § 990.44 of this part, trustees must determine if injuries to natural resources and/or services have resulted from the incident.
(2)
(i)
An injured natural resource has been exposed to the discharged oil, and a pathway can be established from the discharge to the exposed natural resource; or
(ii)
An injury to a natural resource or impairment of a natural resource service has occurred as a result of response actions or a substantial threat of a discharge of oil.
(c) Identifying injury.
Trustees must determine whether an injury has occurred and, if so, identify the nature of the injury. Potential categories of injury include, but are not limited to, adverse changes in: survival, growth, and reproduction; health, physiology and biological condition; behavior; community composition; ecological processes and functions; physical and chemical habitat quality or structure; and public services.
(d) Establishing exposure and pathway.
Except for injuries resulting from response actions or incidents involving a substantial threat of a discharge of oil, trustees must establish whether natural resources were exposed, either directly or indirectly, to the discharged oil from the incident, and estimate the amount or concentration and spatial and temporal extent of the exposure. Trustees must also determine whether there is a pathway linking the incident to the injuries. Pathways may include, but are not limited to, the sequence of events by which the discharged oil was transported from the incident and either came into direct physical contact with a natural resource, or caused an indirect injury.
(e) Injuries resulting from response actions or incidents involving a substantial threat of a discharge.
For injuries resulting from response actions or incidents involving a substantial threat of a discharge of oil, trustees must determine whether an injury or an impairment of a natural resource service has occurred as a result of the incident.
(f) Selection of injuries to include in the assessment.
When selecting potential injuries to assess, trustees should consider factors such as:
(2)
The procedures available to evaluate and quantify injury, and associated time and cost requirements;