Disaster UnPreparedness
I spent the weekend like others racing around looking for a place to plug in as a volunteer. First stop Richmond Marina on Sat. where Baykeepers announced a volunteer meeting. When I arrived the building was exploding with people yelling and screaming furious that there was no plan for them. I guess this happened everywhere the Parks Dept. tried to give these talks essentially about oil spills. Folks were ready to roll up their sleeves and they were giving elementary lessons on what an oil spill is.
I networked around the crowd and found out things were happening at the Nature Center in Berkelely, so I jammed over there. They were a little more organized and had the paperwork for volunteers in East Bay which included a “Pledge” to the government (a little Patriot Act lingo). I signed it and got my little badge, but still no plan of attack.
On Sunday nite I receved an email from Baywatch that I had been approved to attend a 4hr.Hazmet (Hasardous Waste Management ) course required by Dept.Fish n Game to go onto the beaches. I t was a bit grueling, but useful. they fed us lunch and by 2:30 we were suiting up in our stylish white jump suits and taped gloves to approach the beach. Our team was in the Berkeley Marina where we spent the rest of the day picking up oil, which at this point is balling up and hardening on rocks, in seaweed and driftwood. The sand is impossible to address as each tide brings in more.
The saddest part of course is the wildlife. There are not enough trained people to handle the birds who are covered in oil, and there is NO new training program to get more people available. After capture by “trained people” one can volunteer to drive the captured birds to places cleaning them up, but in the meantime they sit there and it is heartbreaking. I had a sandwich on the rocks with a solitary cormorant fellow who probably will die before they come to get him. The issue is There is NO PREPARATION for such disasters.
All the elected officials were bending over backward to look for blame, but the blame and shame is on the agencies of which there are many who have not even thought about an oil spill in our pristine bay. Aside from the ship’s accident, all the counties are to blame for not having easy mechaisms in place. The folks were not just a bunch of crazies. Many were trained prior to this spill, and others were sensible. We just needed the plan and the cute jump suits.
Here is a photo of us. [To be posted] It was a little crazy, but calmed the natives down and gave us something to do while we churned inside knowing the huge problem that still is unaddressed.
Ruth Friend
2 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Leave a comment
Comment Guidlines: This space is for commenting on the post above, the ideas, the context,the author. Your ideas, strong but civil, are appreciated. Long cuts and pastes from elsewhere are not. This is NOT the place to create your own private BLOG. Links to other articles are fine, if appropriate. Line and paragraph breaks are automatic; e-mail address are never displayed.
HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
November 13th, 2007 @ 11:01 pm
Golden Gate Audubon Society has stuff to do:
FROM GGAS:
Golden Gate Audubon is looking for volunteers that can identify shorebird and waterfowl species to document any oiled birds or mammals and report this information to the Oiled Wildlife Care Network. Our volunteers are not touching the birds.
Things we need our volunteers to do:
- Identify the species and location of birds along San Francisco Bay
- Use binoculars and spotting scope if you have one
- Use their own cell phone or home phone to report birds to the Oiled Wildlife Care Network
- If you have GPS, please use it to help pinpoint the location of birds
- Photograph birds or marine mammals if possible and save to associate with data sheets
- Once you’ve compiled your data, call 311 or OWCN at (877) 823-6926 to report in if you found fewer than five oiled birds; if you find more than five, please FAX the form to Mark Lovett at (415) 701-3104. You can
also call this information into 311 in San Francisco (call (415) 701-2311 outside of the city). Once you’ve reported to OWCN, please mail the form to the Golden Gate Audubon office. Send any pictures to Michael
Martin at mmartin@goldengateaudubon.org.
San Francisco locations where leaders are needed:
- Ocean Beach from Lincoln/Golden Gate Park South
- Ocean Beach from Lincoln/Golden Gate Park North to China Beach
- Baker Beach to Golden Gate Bridge
- Fort Point to Golden Gate Yacht Club
- Marina to Pier 39
- Pier 43 to Ferry Building
- Ferry Building to Mission Creek
- Mission Creek along Southern Waterfront (Agua Vista, Pier 94, Herons Head, India Basin, Warm Water Cove)
- Candlestick Point
- Lake Merced
East Bay locations where volunteers are needed:
- Point Pinole south to the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge
- Richmond-San Rafael Bridge/Miller-Knox shoreline south to Golden Gate Fields
- Golden Gate Fields south to Emeryville Crescent
- Emeryville Crescent south to Oakland Naval Supply Center/7th Street in Oakland
- North side of Alameda and Lake Merritt
- South side of Alameda
- MLK Shoreline/Shoreline Park/Bay Farm Island/Oakland Airport
- Interior reservoirs: San Pablo, Briones, Lafayette
If you are willing to volunteer in San Francisco, please contact Noreen Weeden or Eddie Bartley at (415) 355-0450 or Noreen@naturetrip.com or Eddie@naturetrip.com. If you want to volunteer in the East Bay, please contact Michael Martin at mmartin@goldengateaudubon.org or (510)
919-5873. Forms for the survey are posted on www.goldengateaudubon.org
**********************
This just in from Baykeeper: (I am going to assume that those who are interested in volunteering have signed up for these e-mail alerts , so I will stop sending these updates. Go to www.baykeeper.org and get on their mailing list to hear the most recent volunteer trainings and opportunities.)
Baykeeper can send 20 of you to a hazardous waste training in Pacifica today at 1 PM. This training will authorize you to help out at all official cleanups. In particular, we’re hoping to send folks who’ve
already completed 24-hours of HazMat training who would then be available to lead additional training sessions throughout the Bay Area.
Respond to volunteer@baykeeper.org if you are interested and let us know if you’ve got the 24 hour certification. If you are selected, we will send you confirmation details by noon.
It looks like we will also have a training opportunity tomorrow in San Francisco. More details later today.
Thanks to those who have been able to volunteer!
Jill
Jill Harley
Research Assistant/Office Manager
Golden Gate Raptor Observatory
Building 1064, Fort Cronkhite
Sausalito, CA 94965
tel: (415) 331-0730
fax: (415) 331-7521
jharley@parksconservancy.org
www.ggro.org
The GGRO is a program of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy.
November 14th, 2007 @ 9:05 am
Latest bird statistics
http://ibrrc.org/Cosco_Busan_spill_2007.html
Also, interesting low-tech tools to help the clean up
http://www.allinoneboat.org/?p=728