Islands’ Oil Spill Association is offering a free class in October for islanders who would like to be trained to help in the event of an oil spill affecting wildlife. IOSA is the San Juan Islands’ only spill response group and is a nonprofit, community-based oil spill response organization.

On Saturday, Oct 19, IOSA is offering a class that will focus on the “Search, Capture & Rescue of Oiled Birds,” with part of the training to include practice on the beach of the techniques and strategies discussed in the class. It will be held on San Juan Island.

IOSA also offers spill responder training for containment/exclusion, including on-the-water boom deployment drills several times a year, so if you prefer to work on the equipment side of oil spill response, or if you want to work with oiled birds but can’t make it to either of these upcoming classes, let us know your mailing and email addresses and we’ll make sure you receive our schedule of trainings that we send out twice a year.

Class size is limited so send an email to: iosaoffice@rockisland.com for more information and/or to register for a class. We’ll send out an email with class location and other details to all those who are pre-registered. Also check out our website at: http://www.iosaonline.org.