The Observer, July 2006

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Community Corner: French visitors tour oil-spill region

By LINDA ROBINSON
Outreach Coordinator

The highlight of this past couple of months for me was a visit by our French associates from Vigipol in Brittany, Jean Baptiste Henri and Sophie Bahe. They came to tour the Exxon oil spill region and interview staff, volunteers, agencies, and industries to learn how to enhance their program. They were accompanied by Marion Fourcade, a French sociology professor from U.C. Berkeley, who had been an intern at Vigipol. Marion is working on a project to study ecological damage compensation.

Our visit started in Valdez where we visited with board members Stan Stephens, John Allen, and Sharry Miller, and industry representatives Tom Colby of Alaska Tanker Company and Tom Blanchard of SeaRiver. Barry Roberts of SERVS escorted us on a tour of the Valdez Emergency Operations Center and its storage warehouse. We participated in an open house to present the council’s new Valdez office to the community.

From there we traveled to Cordova on the new fast ferry Chenega. Board member Patience Andersen Faulkner had organized a wonderful itinerary for us. We met with community members at a Copper River red salmon dinner, and at a reception. Nancy Bird, a council board member, president of the Prince William Sound Science Center, and director of the Oil Spill Recovery Institute, and oceanographer Claude Belanger showed us the science center and provided information on its work.

We toured the town power plant, the hydroelectric power plant on Eyak Lake, and visited the new Ilanka Heritage Museum (Ilanka means “family” in Alutiiq). The museum building houses the skeleton of a beached orca whale that was reassembled by the science center, the Native Village of Eyak, and the Forest Service.

We met with former board member and scientific advisory committee member Michelle Hahn O’Leary and former board member Kristin Smith of the Copper River Watershed. Marion Fourcade met with Riki Ott, author of books on the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

From Cordova we took the ferry to Whittier, where we met with Mayor Lester Lunceford and council volunteers Marilynn and Pete Heddell.

The next couple of days were spent in Anchorage interviewing people who have been involved with the oil spill since 1989, such as plaintiff’s attorney Dave Oesting, Craig Tillery, Deputy Attorney General for the Civil Division for the Department of Law and council volunteers Dick Tremaine and John French. We then traveled to the Kenai Peninsula, by way of the Cook Inlet Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council and the ConocoPhillips liquefied natural gas plant in Nikiski.

Board member John Velsko and his wife Teddy hosted us for a lovely lunch in Homer (white king salmon, halibut, and tanner crab – yum!). This was after a tour of the Kachemak Bay Research Center and Alaska Islands and Ocean Center, provided by Terry Thompson and Scott Pegau, both of the research center.

After a brief respite at my home in Soldotna, we returned to Anchorage where Carrie Holba gave us a tour of Alaska Resources Library and Information Services, the repository at the University of Alaska Consortium Library for oil spill documents. We met with board member Sheri Buretta, board chair of Chugach Alaska Corp., former council staff member Marilyn Leland, and Leslie Pearson and Betty Schorr of the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Ed Thompson, formerly of the United States Coast Guard and currently with BP, gave a presentation on the company’s spill response process.

Observing all of the interviews regarding the history of the oil spill and actions taken subsequently was extremely educational and emphasized the value in public participation related to prevention, response, and recovery. A final trip before our guests departed was to witness the christening of new buildings in Chenega Bay. Our host was Pete Kompkoff, tribal president and administrator as well as the citizens’ council board member representing Chenega Bay. Other visitors included Lt. Governor Loren Leman and Sheri Buretta.

Out and about
Since the departure of our French guests, the council sponsored a booth at the Arctic Marine Oilspill Program annual conference in Vancouver, BC. Staff member Joe Banta gave a presentation titled “Community-based Oil Spill Response in Alaska,” and I presented the “Effectiveness of Citizens Involvement.” At the same time, Tamara Byrnes from our Valdez office tended our booth at the North American Benthological Society conference, held this year in Anchorage, and at the Alaska Oceans Festival in Anchorage on the park strip.

Staff member Roy Robertson, board member Patience Andersen Faulkner, and I represented the council at the annual fundraiser for the Prince William Sound Science Center, the Copper River Nouveau. This year was the most successful fundraiser yet, bringing in about $30,000 from the dinner, prepared by Jack Amon and Van Hale from Marx Brothers in Anchorage, and an art auction. The event was attended by Senator Lisa Murkowski and her mother, Nancy, Alaska’s first lady.