Online Observer Archives | Page 60 of 93 | Prince William Sound Regional Citizens' Advisory Council

Community Corner: Passing the torch through story

December 29, 2016September 16, 2015 by Amanda Johnson

By Lisa Matlock
Outreach Coordinator

Matlock will appear on a future episode of Phillipe Cousteau’s Xploration Awesome Planet, talking about the council’s long term environmental montioring in Prince William Sound. Photo courtesy of Steve Rotfeld Productions.

Many of the council’s volunteers and staff experienced 1989’s Exxon Valdez oil spill firsthand. Memories of the smell, the terrible sights and sounds, and the social and environmental impacts on communities drive our volunteers to keep such a thing from happening again.

For today’s youth, who will someday join the board to represent communities impacted by that spill, the need to be vigilant and resist complacency can seem vague and somewhat disconnected to their daily reality.

A recent focus of the council on oral history of the oil spill and our creation as an organization, is helping fill this gap.

Falling oil prices shouldn’t mean reduced environmental protections

September 16, 2015 by Amanda Johnson

From Executive Director Mark Swanson:

Oil prices have been falling for a long while now. Stock markets and energy sectors are volatile. This is good news or bad news depending on whether you are in the business of buying or selling crude oil, heating a home with expensive heating oil, or funding a government from revenue derived from the oil industry.

Our dependence on oil revenues and oil products, along with our vulnerability to oil spills and fossil fuel-related climate changes, place us on an increasingly unpredictable roller coaster. You may have a slightly different ride depending where in the train of cars you sit, but make no mistake, we are all on the same track, and live in the same environment.

Expedition reshapes Kodiak educator’s feelings about Prince William Sound

September 16, 2015 by Amanda Johnson

By Lindsey Cassidy
Kodiak Middle School Teacher

Lindsey Cassidy hiking in Prince William Sound

The name Prince William Sound causes ominous memories of my childhood in Kodiak to reverberate in my brain. For many years, the name was synonymous with dirty words such as “oil spill,” “toxins,” and “Exxon Valdez.”

I was 5 years old and living in Kodiak on March 24, 1989. My memory does not know a time before the spill; the Exxon Valdez oil spill has always been an event my community suffered from and is still rebuilding from.

During the summer of 1989, weeks after the spill, my family camped on neighboring Woody Island. When my younger sister and I returned from the tide pools, oil covered our clothes and hands. The oil did more than just soil clothing: it oiled our communities, ecosystems, lands, seas, and our lives. Kodiak fishermen and women had families to feed and bills to pay, but Exxon took even longer to respond effectively to the disaster in Kodiak than its initial delayed response to the spill in the Sound. I rode on my father’s shoulders during the protest march held in Kodiak shortly after the spill as a public demonstration against Exxon’s ineffective response to the disaster. My parents had saved for their dream house, and suddenly found themselves wondering if it would be just a dream. For me, these events were inseparably linked to the name Prince William Sound.

Jane Eisemann – Kodiak volunteer passionate about working for the council

September 16, 2015 by Amanda Johnson

Jane Eisemann, volunteer on the council’s Information and Education Committee, first came to Alaska in 1976 to visit her brother in Kodiak. She immediately fell in love with the state.

“It was a beautiful place,” Eisemann said of her first impression. “My brother lived off the grid, I liked that lifestyle.”

Eisemann returned to California with her mother, but before she left, she secured a job at a local pizza parlor, promising to return for good in two months. The island of Kodiak has now been her home for the last 38 years.

Eisemann began commercial fishing in 1978 for crab, herring, and salmon. That year, she also got a winter job in the small community of Chiniak as a teacher’s assistant. With encouragement from the teacher, Eisemann decided to go back to school for a teaching degree while she continued to fish during the summers.

Before she graduated, the Exxon Valdez ran aground and she ended up working on the cleanup effort. She noted it was a time of upheaval in the community.

“The oil spill just changed everybody’s life,” she said.