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Tracking Fish Through Restored Habitat

Poplar Island, a severely eroded remote island in the Chesapeake Bay, has been the site of a major restoration effort supported by CSS client, NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS), and their partners, Army Corps of Engineers, and the Maryland Department of Transportation, Maryland Port Administration. This massive effort utilizes dredge sediment from the shipping channel that leads to Baltimore Harbor to restore land mass lost to sea level rise and erosion. The goal is to rebuild natural habitats including wetlands, uplands, and embayments that provide critical habitat for birds and fish of the Chesapeake Bay. NCCOS and CSS scientists are studying this restored habitat and species that use the environment to help inform this restoration effort.
CSS employee owners work alongside federal program staff and local partners to collect samples throughout the regions. In fiscal year 2024 CSS staff deployed to the Gulf of Mexico and Pacific Ocean, which includes Alaska, Hawaii, and the West Coast. The team adds data they collect during these missions to the Coastal Pollution Data Explorer, a cloud-based ArcGIS platform that allows users to search by location or type of contaminant, generate a report, and download the data. A CSS employee owner serves as the lead developer for this online platform. Learn more about NOAA’s National Mussel Watch Program.


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Overcoming COVID-19 Challenges
Great job to our team supporting our contract with the U.S. General Services Administration on assisting the client with conducting a year’s worth of environmental, health, and safety surveys in just six months! Due to limitations with COVID-19, the team was unable to conduct their surveys on their usual timeline and instead had to work…

Astronauts Conduct Latest Plant Water Management on the International Space Station
NASA recently performed the sixth iteration of the CSS-supported Plant Water Management experiment on the International Space Station (ISS).

Responding to HazMat Spills
CSS supports several Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) campuses throughout the U.S. On-site CSS personnel are trained in hazardous material spill response and clean-up and provide this support within buildings and throughout campuses. As part of our contract with the CDC Hazardous Waste Program, CSS hazmat-trained employee owners are responsible for safely collecting,…