Meet John Barco, Marine Habitat Resource Specialist and Gulf of Mexico Team Lead for the NOAA Restoration Center

John Barco is a marine habitat resource specialist and Gulf of Mexico team lead based in St. Petersburg, Florida. He supports the work of the Office of Habitat Conservation'sRestoration Center in the southeastern United States.

What is your key responsibility?

One of my key responsibilities involves NOAA's Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program. I work with scientists from NOAA's Assessment and Restoration division and other NOAA line offices, state and federal agencies, as well as oil and chemical companies. We work together to develop, plan, and implement habitat restoration projects. The habitat restoration projects I lead are primarily focused on returning natural resources to their "baseline" condition-or the condition that would have occurred prior to the oil spill or chemical release-and compensating for associated losses. While the work is challenging, it is also one of the most meaningful and rewarding jobs!

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in the Tampa Bay, Florida area, well before we had any winning professional sports teams.

What is your educational background?

I received a Bachelor of Arts in Geography, Environmental Studies, and a Master of Arts in Physical Geography with a focus on geomorphology and hydrology from the University of South Florida.

Can you tell us about a project related to habitat that you're currently working on or that you enjoyed?

I've had the pleasure of working on numerous habitat restoration projects across the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf of Mexico region has surprisingly diverse fisheries, as well as ecosystem stressors impacting the fisheries resources. Oil spills are one of the ecosystem level impacts I am focused on in my role.

While it's hard to select just one habitat project, the West Cove Living Shoreline project associated with the Shell Green Canyon Block 248case exemplifies how our collaboration and partnerships can result in meaningful restoration. The 80,892-gallon spill occurred about 90 miles offshore of Louisiana on May 12, 2016 in waters approximately 1,000 meters deep. Based on the water column injury, we worked with The Nature Conservancyto scale, plan, and implement a 1.5-mile living shoreline project. It protects critical coastal marsh, which supports a high diversity of fish and wildlife populations in Sabine National Wildlife Refuge. The project also creates habitat for important estuarine species, promotes oyster growth, enhances water quality within the estuary, and slows shoreline erosion by abating wave energy. The project had to overcome numerous challenges-from hurricanes to material costs-but was successfully completed this summer!

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