by Jackie Wolf

I never thought I would become an oil spill responder.

But in 1989 I watched television images of oiled and dying seabirds and otters, with bays and beaches in all directions and miles of rocky coasts covered with a thick coating of certain death and an uncertain future for all in the Prince William Sound region. I watched and felt powerless.

A few years later, I saw the same images of oiled birds and lots of dedicated people in rubber boots and gloves and raingear out there on the beaches, much closer to home this time, giving days of their time to help in whatever ways they could. I decided then to get the necessary training so I could do something to help the next time something like this happened.

Shortly after I moved to Lopez Island, I heard about an oiled wildlife training on Orcas, a free class given by Islands’ Oil Spill Association, that would connect me with a group of people who could do something meaningful and effective in an oil spill. I went to the “Care and Rescue of Oiled Wildlife class,” then the state-required HAZWOPER training (Hazardous Waste and Emergency Response Operations) a few months later.

IOSA has been a big part of my life ever since, which is true of a lot of people in San Juan County. Well over 100 people I could name right now, without looking at our detailed list of the hundreds of county residents who’ve taken an IOSA training since its inception in 1988, consider IOSA an integral part of their lives. We have enough dedicated, trained responders to ensure that we can always get a crew together quickly to respond to calls about a tug with 1200 gallons of diesel onboard sinking up near Stuart Island, or boats that have collided at a marina and are spilling gasoline or bilge oil,. or a big tanker carrying tons of thick bunker oil running onto Peapod Rocks just to the east of Orcas Island.

Some of these scenarios, however, could involve a response effort lasting days, even weeks, and some of the people who’ve taken IOSA trainings over the years have moved or could be off-island or unable to respond. We need more trained oil spill responders in San Juan County, for both containment and cleanup and oiled wildlife search and rescue and primary care.

On Saturday, Sept. 26, IOSA is giving a HAZWOPER training on Orcas Island. This is a required class for all spill responders, both wildlife and containment, and you can’t help out at a spill until you’ve taken four hours of this training. Like all IOSA classes, this one is free, and we have to thank the Orcas Island Community Foundation for the grant to fund this upcoming session.

Please call us at 378-5322 to register for the class, as space is limited. For more information about IOSA, including our complete Fall 2009 Training schedule, please visit our website at: www.iosaonline.org.

Jackie Wolf has been a responder with Islands’ Oil Spill Association since 1997 and has worked on staff as a coordinator for nearly 10 years.