In the coming decades, billions of dollars will go to Gulf of Mexico restoration projects through processes set up after the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill. Hundreds of projects have already been approved, and many more are on the way. As the deluge of projects begins, it’s essential to take a step back and ask a simple question: What makes for a “good” restoration project?
While the question is simple, the answer is complex. Project types are immensely varied. Moreover, not all projects of the same type are created equal. And what may be even more important than the project type is the process that leads to a project being selected. Because a project may have a myriad of intended and unintended impacts, a robust process can help lead to successful restoration outcomes across many different project types.
This “Good Projects Checklist” is intended to help members of the public figure out whether a given project is good or not. It does this by considering certain elements of the project, distilling each element into basic questions in order to determine whether the project adequately includes that element.