News
This page will focus on news items that are not commonly available via normal media outlets.
May 5, 2010 - Here's a pretty good summary from yahoo.com of the big-picture situation with the BP spill.
May 3, 2010 - BP has scheduled additional basic health and safety volunteer training at three locations on the coast. Schedule and location. Similar sessions held of 5/2/10 in Ocean Springs, MS began with 10 to 15 minutes of basic considerations for working outdoors (sunscreen, hydration, not lifting too much weight, not over working, ...). The balance of the one-hour session was devoted to addressing questions from participants.
May 2, 2010 - BP has just released the schedule for basic volunteer health and safety training in Mississippi. Completion of such a course is mandatory for all volunteers doing outdoor work in the cleanup.
May 1, 2010, Meeting with BP - Earlier today, OilSpillVolunteers and Ocean Springs, Mississippi mayor Connie Moran and members of her staff met with two representatives from BP to discuss BP's plan for volunteer training and cleanup operations. A press release from the City is available here. The following items summarize the key conclusions.
- BP is assuming responsibility for the spill cleanup.
- Hazmat (hazardous materials) certification is required for all personnel working with oil. BP will not offer hazmat training to volunteers. BP repored that hazmat certification requires 8 to 30 hours of training.
- BP has no plans to offer oiled-wildlife rehabilitation training to volunteers.
- BP has contracted with Tri-State (Full company name was not available from BP.) for oil cleanup and oiled wildlife rehabilitation. BP assured us that Tri-State has adequate hazmat certified personnel and resources.
- Volunteers doing outdoor work with BP are required to undergo a 20-minute health and safety training course. BP had no training sessions planned. The City and OSV secured a location and scheduled four training sessions on Sunday, May 2. A BP representative volunteered to conducted the sessions. Training will be held at The Mary C. in Ocean Springs at 9:00, 10:00, 4:00, and 5:00. No reservations are required, just show up.
- BP has identified no specific opportunities for volunteers other than the pre-oil arrival beach cleanup described here.
- BP will open community outreach offices in Pascagoula and Biloxi on May 2. Three primary and three secondary staging areas for equipment have been established in Mississippi.
- BP reported that 57,300 feet of boom have been deployed in Mississippi waters as of this morning. An additional 143,000 feet of boom is staged on land in Mississippi.
- Davis Bayou and Graveline Bayou are each protected by single courses of smaller-diameter boom. We urge BP to install a second line of boom in all such locations to more securely protect the large and branching bayous such as these. It's an easy job to add a second line of boom across the narrow bayou mouths. Cleanup of the bayous will be an enormous task if winds and tides carry oil into them. Booms in reserve do nothing for our marshes, bayous, and shores.
April 30, 2010 - OilSpillVolunteers Press Release
www.oilspillvolunteers.com
Press Release for Immediate Distribution
Knowing that barrels of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico from the collapsed BP operated Deepwater Horizon drilling rig would likely hit their beloved barrier islands and the estuaries and wetlands of Coastal Mississippi, friends and Ocean Springs Inner Harbor neighbors Don Abrams and Melanie Allen joined forces to take whatever proactive steps they could against the disaster they saw coming. The result is a very busy web-site: www.oilspillvolunteers.com. In the few hours this web-site has been on-line, over 700 people have registered to assist in whatever way the can as needs present themselves.
“We are not surprised really at this level of response,” said Allen “because we know how much our neighbors and friends in Ocean Springs care about the natural resources we all enjoy and appreciate. Doing nothing is just not an option.”
For most of the past week, Allen, a retired communications executive, has been working her phone contacting media across the country trying to get more attention on the crisis looming in the Gulf. “I was one of the people whose life was changed by that Hurricand Katrina, and I remember too clearly the lag time between the disaster and the arrival of organized assistance. We want to apply what we learned then to what we know is coming soon into our wetlands, estuaries, barrier islands, and beaches.”
While Allen was working her media contacts, former mechanical engineer Don Abrams was working on building the web-site www.oilspillvoluteers.com. “Don registered the domanin name and worked throughout last night to put the site into operation. By noon we had registered more than 600 volunteers,” Allen stated.
On the web-site, individuals can register as volunteers to assist in the clean-up of barrier islands or beaches, to wildlife clean-up. Volunteers will be matched with training opportunities and cleanup needs as the oil arrives. “The web-site and database have already created a substantial and rapidly growing resource of volunteers eager to act as soon as training becomes available and needs arise," said Abrams. “Now we need BP and the authorities to put training programs into place so that we'll be ready as soon as possible after the oil reaches shore."
Allen said that she and Abrams are frustrated that their training opportunities for volunteers are not already in place, but says they are eagerly awaiting information they can share with those who have registered at their site. “Mayor Moran in Ocean Springs and her team at City Hall have quickly had our web-site linked from the City's web site, and they're pressing forward on finding training resources,” said Allen. “People want training and want to help. If we learned anything from Katrina, it is the importance of getting out good information, being proactive and not waiting for help to come to you.”
On Friday evening Abrams summarized the current situation as "We need input from BP and the federal and state agencies handling the spill response. We have more than two thousand people ready to go to get educated and go to work. We need to know how they can be trained and what specific jobs they can do as this spill comes ashore."
Those interested in volunteering for clean-up efforts can register at www.oilspillvolunteers.com.