Heather's Blog Thing

Volunteering to clean up the oil spill?

I spent a good chunk of my weekend surfing the networking sites, trying to find more information about volunteer efforts about cleaning the oil spill from those that were pushing for action a week or so back... and was unable to find anything.

Needless to say, this was a little bit depressing so I called my father, who is the only person I know that went beyond simple shouting for action to taking action towards helping with the cleanup. This was when I discovered that his trip to Pensacola for training was almost fruitless because he was placed "on call" and then a few days later informed that he could not longer actually participate in clean-up part of the clean-up.

As it turns out, he would need to take on more training so that he could potentially be hired by BP as a "qualified community responder," which from what we can determine are the only people that are allowed to touch the oiled-up waters, environments, and animals.

This poses a problem for him because his plans were to use vacation time and time outside of work to provide his volunteer services. Now if he wanted to make use of the training that he started he would have to literally take on a second job.

Neither of us will say that this is a bad thing though. In fact with unemployment rates so high this is actually kind of a cool way for those wanting work, and are willing to do some physical labor, to get back into employment. I just personally feel that 500 workers per state seems kind of small for a disaster that is somewhat expected to effect the entire gulf coast (this number was pulled from the FOX10 news website and can be viewed by clicking here).

This information was brought to light by an email that he received from Escambia County (Pensacola Florida), which can be read below:

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Escambia County expresses its sincere gratitude for your participation in our volunteer training orientation program provided in preparation of the potential impacts associated with the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Now that you have successfully completed this four-hour training session, you have an opportunity to continue in one of two ways.

Qualified Community Responder Training and Employment

Members of organizations who are interested in becoming eligible for participation in general oil clean-up along the beaches, or in supporting wild-life clean-up, must complete six additional hours of training and become a BP qualified community responder. This training will be provided by BP and its contractors and will be provided at various locations along the Florida Gulf Coast. If you wish to register for this program, please send an email to: horizonresponse@pecpremier.com with the date, time and location of the class that you want to take or contact the BP Hotline directly at 1-866-448-5816. You should request placement in a spill response course. This course is not a guarantee of employment but provides credentials needed to be hired for spill cleanup work by BP contractors.

The National Occupational Health and Safety Administration has determined that volunteers cannot be used in any situation where they may come in contact with oiled shorelines or oiled wildlife.

The four-hour, module 3 class is a graded certification course. Individuals must be affiliated with a volunteer organization to participate in this module.
Beginning Monday, May 17, PEC Premier will begin offering the module three training in Pensacola. For more information about the training schedule, visit the training web site: www.pecpremier.com.

Volunteer Database

If you choose not to participate as a qualified community responder but wish to remain in the volunteer database, you will be contacted by your local volunteer coordinator when the need arises for volunteers to participate in ways that do not bring them into direct contact with oil or oiled wildlife.

Once again, thank you for your willingness to volunteer to help our county and local community in preparation for the possible impacts on our local environment and wildlife caused by this unfortunate disaster.

If you have any further questions, you can contact the Escambia County Citizens Information Center at 471-6600.

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I do hope that this does not turn anyone that would be willing to assist with the clean-up (particularly in Florida) as there is a lot that needs to be done outside of wiping down animals and shores. Escambia county actually has a great page dedicated to what volunteers can do. This can be found at http://www.myescambia.com/escambiadisasterresponse/

If you have any further information regarding this situation for your local area, please feel free to post them in the comments for this post. I'll be linking to this for a while. :)

Some Links:

• Deep Water Horizon Response Site