|
KILL THE SPILL
San Francisco surfers take cleaning Ocean Beach into their own hands
By:
Marcus Sanders
|
November 13, 2007
13200 visits
|
|
Monday morning dawned like any good late-fall morning at Ocean Beach, San Francisco:
cool, windless, with high clouds and diffused sunlight; a medium-sized NW swell loping onto the too-high-tide sandbars. A bunch of tai-chi practitioners, homeless people sleeping in the dunes or pushing shopping carts down the path; jogging moms and bike-riding dads and high school kids texting each other from park benches.
It took five days after Wednesday's Cosco Buran 58,000 gallon-oil spill in San Francisco Bay, but the suits have finally made it to Ocean Beach. (Though of course the oil's been here since Thursday morning.) |
|
The company responsible for the spill contracted a company called the O'Brien Group to clean it up, and a couple dozen official guys in HAZMAT suits showed up on Sunday afternoon with rakes and shovels - to find upwards of 500 people already here cleaning the sand by dobbing up oil with 12' by 12' hair mats. (Hair mats are made from donated human hair and have proven to be very effective at picking up the oil. All have been donated by matteroftrust.org/. The official team wasn't just kinda late, but also ineffective, according to those on the ground. "Those guys are called 'the sandwich eaters'," says local surfer Byron Cleary, co-founder of the Kill the Spill (KTS) volunteer effort that has spearheaded the unofficial beach cleanings. "The official clean-up guys hang out in their vans and then walk to the sand for the 5pm TV photo op with rakes and shovels. When they first showed up, one of our team saw them raking the sand up by the dunes and was like, 'hey, that's all nice and everything, but the oil's over here.'" Cleary, along with KTS co-founder Kathleen Egan went to bed last Wednesday night hearing about a couple hundred-gallon oil spill and woke up Thursday morning to the reality of a 58,000-gallon spill and decided they needed to do something. The spent a frustrating Thursday at Command Center in Fort Mason trying to figure out what was going on and how to help. "We kept telling 'em we had lots and lots of friends who wanted to volunteer," says Cleary. "But they just kept giving us moving targets and told us to call on Friday morning." "Those guys are called 'the sandwich eaters': The official clean-up guys hang out in their vans and then walk to the sand for the 5pm TV photo op with rakes and shovels. When they first showed up, one of our team saw them raking the sand up by the dunes and was like, 'hey, that's all nice and everything, but the oil's over here.'"
--Kill the Spill's Byron Cleary
Friday morning came around and when Cleary finally got the EPA on the phone, he was told to basically do nothing. "They called us convergent volunteers," he said. "They told us we're to stay home or risk being cited and arrested. But we knew we had to do something." Friday morning, meanwhile, dawned windless and clear at Ocean Beach, with the remnants of last week's south swell hitting a couple key sandbars perfectly. Nathan McCarthy, co-owner of Marin County's Proof Lab Surf Shop would have surfed Ft. Cronkite in Marin if the whole thing hadn't been closed, but as it was he paddled out at Ocean Beach Friday morning, despite warning signs on the beach and rangers patrolling the sand. There were a half dozen guys out on a peak that had seen 40 guys all week. "There was a ten-foot span of oil right at the high tide line," he said. "But once you were in the water it wasn't so bad." Not for long, though. "As soon as the tide started going out, though, these oil slicks started to pass by us in the water. I was out of there, and haven't surfed since." McCarthy didn't get sick, but there have been various reports by local surfers who've gone in the water of rashes, ear, nose and throat problems and more. "Do not go into the water," urges SF Surfrider's Wes Womak, who's been at Ground Zero all weekend. The Surfrider Foundation has not officially endorsed any oil clean up efforts at Ocean Beach due to the fact that it's a hazardous material to clean up. "We did our regular high-tide-line clean up on Saturday, but we can't suggest people clean up the oil unless they've been trained," said Womak. "We are, however, extremely upset at the fact that no signs were posted warning people of the oil at Ocean Beach for a few days. I had to tell people who were letting their dog fetch into the oily shorebreak." Monday morning, a Department of Fish and Game rep looked out to sea and shook his head. "Still lots of oil out there," he says. "We're supposed to discourage people who haven't been trained not to clean up the oil, but the surfers have been doing a better job of cleaning it up than anyone else." Also on Monday morning, volunteers took a special four-hour training class at the Irish Cultural Center across from the zoo to learn how to safely clean up the oil. The official hazardous materials clean up class is 24 hours, but the EPA (at the urgings of KTS) created a special condensed version for those who specifically want to help clean this spill. Once a person completes the four-hour course, they're allowed to clean the beach as long as it's a 7-1 ratio of people who've passed the original test. Monday afternoon saw over a hundred official volunteers march up the beach with hair mats cleaning up oil; Tuesday morning, there are more of the same. A very important Disaster Service Worker Volunteer Certification is set to take place on Wednesday Nov 14th at 6pm at the County Fair Building 9th & Lincoln in Golden Gate Park so more people can get certified to clean. Stay tuned to Surfline and zunasurf.com for updates on how you can help. *** MORE INFORMATION INTERACTIVE GOOGLE MAP OF AFFECTED AREAS Kill the Spill blog www.zunasurf.com/oilspill/ www.sfgate.com www.niceness.org SURFLINE HOME PAGE MORE SURF NEWS |
|