Vern Hall, Mark Swanson, Lisa Matlock, Al Burch, Bill Burch at ComFish 2015. Photo by Lynda Giguere.
Over the past two months, Executive Director Mark Swanson and I have been traveling as part of the council’s community outreach program to a good number of our downstream communities. The term “downstream” was coined after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, when oil spread across more than a thousand miles of coastline in southcentral Alaska, including the southern Kenai Peninsula and Kodiak Island. Because of this, when industry works on contingency planning for safe oil transportation through Prince William Sound, the council regularly speaks up for downstream communities and resources that could be affected by an accident. So it is important for us to visit these communities to hear from these citizens about how our mission connects to their priorities and community needs.
Lisa Matlock makes a new friend at the 2014 Copper River Wild! festival in Cordova.
In February 2015, the council will be 25 years old. We are an organization in transition, created by one generation and moving to the next. In the past year alone, several board members and long-time staff have retired, or, sadly, passed away. At every meeting, the board discusses the importance of finding and recruiting passionate younger citizens who will eventually be called upon to represent the council’s member entities and work on behalf of our mission. To help answer this need, the council has been developing an internship project to engage the next generation.
Pilot internships
The project began in 2014 with two interns working on very different pilot projects. Cordova High School student Sarah Hoepfner spent a few hours each month of the past year using traps and plates to monitor for European green crab and invasive tunicate species in the Cordova area. She also worked with several classrooms in Cordova this spring and at the Copper River Wild! Festival this summer to educate youth about invasive species. Sarah has been mentored by Information and Education Committee volunteer, Kate Morse, and Science Advisory Committee project manager, Joe Banta. Sarah’s final report on this summer’s aquatic nuisance species monitoring will be completed this fall.
On June 6, nearly a hundred people gathered to commemorate the residents of the former Native Village of Chenega lost to the Good Friday earthquake fifty years ago. 26 residents, more than a third of the community’s population, died in the earthquake and its devastating tsunami. Survivors, family members of those who died, descendants representing multiple generations, and village friends gathered together at the site of the old village to share memories of March 27, 1964, to grieve for those who were lost, and to reflect on changes wrought by this event.
A beautiful bell, blessed for the occasion by Chenega Bay’s itinerant Russian Orthodox priest Father Christopher Stanton, tolled for the village’s losses before the gathered group shared a festive lunch. Father Christopher held a memorial service for the people of Chenega who lost their lives to the earthquake and tsunami and to “honor Chenega survivors whose faith, fortitude, and perseverance has kept the spirit of the Chenega Family alive.” It was an event of the heart, moving and sad, but uplifting as well.
Since coming on board last year, I have been regularly asked by community members, board members, and even staff: What does youth engagement have to do with “environmentally safe operation of the Alyeska terminal and associated tankers”? This question arises because the council has invested in youth projects focusing on marine stewardship throughout our region. It’s a good question, one which is vital for the future of oil spill prevention and response in our region.
Like it or not, those who remember the Exxon Valdez oil spill firsthand are aging. For many of us 25 years may seem like yesterday, but for the children of the 21st century that sounds like ancient history. Those who responded to the spill, whose lives were forever changed by the spill, are passionate about the work we do for personal reasons. If those of us with that passion do not invest in passing the importance of oil spill prevention and better oil spill response onto the next generation, then we are likely fated to a future involving the sorts of complacencies that contributed to the Exxon Valdez oil spill in the first place.
We need vigilant future stewards for our region, and the council is helping develop them through our youth projects.
The Youth Involvement project, an initiative of the council’s Information and Education Committee, began three years ago. Through it, we work with partners who deliver marine stewardship education directly to students of all ages and teachers. Our partners take existing ocean-focused curriculum and hands-on activities and pull in oil spill science and oil spill history into those programs. Oil spill prevention and response activities provide a fresh perspective into existing marine education. These programs also help further our goals of increasing public awareness of the spill prevention and response system in Prince William Sound and the potential environmental impacts of the terminal and tanker operations. These activities also help give general marine stewardship education a lesson in reality.
Our newest youth project is a pilot internship program. Through this project, high school and college-level students devote time and effort to specific projects identified as council needs. These students gain valuable career experience along with a deeper understanding of the council mission and its vital work. One of the council’s first interns, Zachary Verfaillie recently completed his project, An Analysis of Fishing Vessel Types and Numbers vs. Response Tactics. Recruitment for 2015 interns will begin in August. If you would like more information about this, please contact me at lisa.matlock@pwsrcac.org.
Over the fall and winter, the council helped sponsor a variety of youth involvement events on Kodiak Island, and in Homer and Seward (see page 5 for more information on these events). The council’s ongoing work to help the next generation become champions for oil spill prevention in our region will continue in spring and summer, the big season for getting kids outside and in touch with their marine backyard.
Upcoming Youth Involvement Events
Spring – Tunicate monitoring and non-indigenous species education, led by Cordova-based intern, Sarah Hoepfner May & June – Kachemak Bay Onboard Oceanography led by Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies 29 May-7 June – Prince William Sound Kayaking Expedition led by Chugach School District & Alaska Geographic June – Valdez Marine Science Camps led by the SPACE program 2-30 June – Kodiak Salmon Camps led by Friends of Alaska National Wildlife Refuges 10-15 June – Prince William Sound Teachers Expedition led by Alaska Geographic & Chugach National Forest 12-20 June – Kachemak Bay Teen EcoAdventure Camp led by Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies 16-23 June – Copper River Stewardship Expedition led by Prince William Sound Science Center & Copper River Watershed Project 21-30 June – Prince William Sound Kayaking Expedition led by Alaska Geographic Summer – Green crab monitoring led by Cordova-based intern, Sarah Hoepfner
