Atlantic OCS Aliquots with Sand Resources

Coastal restoration, beach nourishment, and habitat reconstruction are crucial to mitigate future coastal erosion, land loss, flooding, and storm damage along the US Atlantic coast. The success of long-term effort partially depends on locating and securing significant quantities of OCS sediment resources that are compatible with the target environments being restored. Offshore sand resources, like upland sources, are extremely scarce where most needed. Additionally, some areas of these relatively small offshore sand resources are not extractable because of the presence of infrastructure or sensitive areas (e.g. archaeological sites, protected habitat, etc.). Since the use of OCS sediment resources is authorized by the BOEM through its Marine Minerals Program, the bureau is implementing measures to help safeguard the most significant OCS sediment resources, reduce multiple use conflicts, minimize interference with existing leases (e.g. renewable energy) and rights-of-way (e.g. submerged infrastructure, shipping lanes, military operations, etc.), and help avoid sensitive areas (e.g. archaeological sites, protected habitat). The Atlantic Sand Aliquots dataset contains Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) block aliquots (1/16th of OCS protraction grid block) in the BOEM Atlantic Ocean Region that lie at least partially within a 1 statute mile buffer of where OCS sand resources have been identified through reconnaissance and/or design-level studies. During the planning process, entities may reference the aliquot attributes provided in this dataset to inquire about specific resources within those areas. In doing so, the BOEM MMP can continue to serve as an effective steward of our OCS resources. This dataset will be updated as new information about OCS sand resources is incorporated into the Marine Minerals Information System (MMIS).