Restoration selection—developing restoration plans.
15 C.F.R. § 990.55
in effectEffective: 2024-07-01(a) General. OPA requires that damages be based upon a plan developed with opportunity for public review and comment. To meet this requirement, trustees must, at a minimum, develop a Draft and Final Restoration Plan, with an opportunity for public review of and comment on the draft plan.
(b) Draft Restoration Plan. (1) The Draft Restoration Plan should include:
(i) A summary of injury assessment procedures used;
(ii) A description of the nature, degree, and spatial and temporal extent of injuries resulting from the incident;
(iii) The goals and objectives of restoration;
(iv) The range of restoration alternatives considered, and a discussion of how such alternatives were developed under § 990.53 of this part, and evaluated under § 990.54 of this part;
(v) Identification of the trustees' tentative preferred alternative(s);
(vi) A description of past and proposed involvement of the responsible parties in the assessment; and
(vii) A description of monitoring for documenting restoration effectiveness, including performance criteria that will be used to determine the success of restoration or need for interim corrective action.
(2) When developing the Draft Restoration Plan, trustees must establish restoration objectives that are specific to the injuries. These objectives should clearly specify the desired outcome, and the performance criteria by which successful restoration will be judged. Performance criteria may include structural, functional, temporal, and/or other demonstrable factors. Trustees must, at a minimum, determine what criteria will:
(i) Constitute success, such that responsible parties are relieved of responsibility for further restoration actions; or
(ii) Necessitate corrective actions in order to comply with the terms of a restoration plan or settlement agreement.
(3) The monitoring component to the Draft Restoration Plan should address such factors as duration and frequency of monitoring needed to gauge progress and success, level of sampling needed to detect success or the need for corrective action, and whether monitoring of a reference or control site is needed to determine progress and success. Reasonable monitoring and oversight costs cover those activities necessary to gauge the progress, performance, and success of the restoration actions developed under the plan.
(c) Public review and comment. The nature of public review and comment on the Draft and Final Restoration Plans will depend on the nature of the incident and any applicable federal trustee NEPA requirements, as described in §§ 990.14(d) and 990.23 of this part.
(d) Final Restoration Plan. Trustees must develop a Final Restoration Plan that includes the information specified in paragraph (a) of this section, responses to public comments, if applicable, and an indication of any changes made to the Draft Restoration Plan.
Source: eCFRURL: https://www.ecfr.gov/api/versioner/v1/full/2024-07-01/title-15.xmlFetched: 7/26/2026