NOTHING TO DO

By ELIZABETH PULLIAM
Daily News reporter

ANCHORAGE- For Patti Saunders, hearing news of the massive oil spill in Prince William Sound was a lot like hearing about the death of a close friend. Whatever anger she felt was quickly overwhelmed by grief.

"My heart was breaking," said Saunders, an Anchorage attorney. "For the animals that were dying, for the people . . . who were losing a way of life, for the environment that had been destroyed."

All over Alaska and all over the United States, people like Saunders have been moved by news of the environmental catastrophe to offer themselves as part of a volunteer cleanup army. But prospective volunteers are being told there is no place for them to go, nothing for them to do.

Professional and volunteer efforts to clean beaches and rescue animals are hamstrung by lack of road access in the remote and sometimes harsh environment of Prince William Sound. Concern that volunteers might actually hinder efforts to clean up the spill prompted at least one bird rescue operation to plead for people to stay away.

"Maybe that is the definition of a true disaster, when even your best efforts are basically useless," said Kelley Weaverling, owner of a Cordova bookstore and former kayak guide in the Sound.

Saunders and Weaverling are only two voices in a growing chorus of wouldbe volunteers. They are joined by Prince William Sound fishermen who've pledged their boats and their time to a cleanup operation. People from New York to California are calling local Sierra Club chapters, offering assistance. In Anchorage, lawyers, musicians, homemakers and students gathered at an ad hoc volunteers meeting in a downtown church Tuesday night, wondering how they could respond to the nation's largest oil spill in the wildliferich Sound.

The thanksbutnothanks response to their offers is frustrating many volunteers. At public meetings in Cordova and Anchorage, shouting matches broke out between people who wanted official agencies to work faster, those who espoused immediate, independent action, and those who urged caution and coordination of efforts.

"We applaud your concern, but we don't want people to go out there willynilly, unprepared for the cold and the isolation," Rita Hendrickson, executive director of the nonprofit Prince William Sound Users Association, told a gathering of about 50 people at the log cabin Unitarian church downtown Tuesday night.

A visibly angry Rod Boegel, a musician and lifetime Alaskan, shouted down Hendrickson's caution.

"I'm tired of talking about proper channels," Boegel said. "Maybe it's time for the people to move on their own."

Michael O'Callaghan, an Anchorage activist who runs an independent food bank, suggested buying straw from Delta farmers and spreading it on the few beaches of the Sound. He, too, rejected environmentalists' claims that untrained people could do more harm than good in the Sound.

"Nothing's going to stop us. This is our waters, our beaches," O'Callaghan said. "Our effort has got to be equal to the magnitude of that spill."

O'Callaghan, who organized Tuesday's meeting, plans another meeting for 7 p.m. today at the UAA Campus Cafeteria.

Others tired of waiting for organized action have driven or flown to Valdez, only to find bookedup hotels, overcrowded restaurants and no work to do.

The state has hired some locals and fishermen to begin the oil mopup, which involves raking beaches and scrubbing rocks by hand. So far, no one has plans to use volunteers for that work.

Exxon has hired the International Bird Rescue Research Center, a nonprofit California firm, to head the animal cleanup. The center has set up an animal hospital in the Valdez community college, but as of Wednesday afternoon they had yet to clean a single bird. Center officials doubt they'll ever be able to round up enough animals to call volunteers down from Anchorage.

"We're asking for volunteers from the Valdez area," said Nicolette Heaphy, rehabilitation specialist for the bird rescue center. "That's because of the housing situation. . . . There's not a single room available anywhere."

The bird rescue people expect their task to be difficult. Prince William Sound has few beaches, and it's virtually impossible to capture birds in the water, Heaphy said.

Environmental groups from throughout the state and the nation are reporting an unprecedented number of calls from people concerned about the spill.

"We're hearing everything from "Tell me where I fly to wipe off the birds' to outrage to . . . "Why did the Sierra Club allow this to happen?'," said Bruce Hamilton, director of conservation field services for the Sierra Club's national headquarters in San Francisco.

For now, conservation groups are taking lists of names and numbers of potential volunteers and promising to call back if any help is needed. The Alaska Center for the Environment has set up a hotline with a recorded message and regular updates. The number is 2763688.

Marsha Hodson of the Prince William Sound Conservation Alliance, one of several activists collecting names and numbers, has been telling people to funnel their anger into political action.

"If you're itchy to do something, write letters," Hodson said.

Environmental and conservation groups fired off a letter to President Bush two days after the spill demanding stiffer regulation of oil facilities and an end to oil and gas development in Alaska waters, especially on Bristol Bay.

The federal government recently approved controversial oil and gas lease sales on the bay. Gov. Steve Cowper joined fishing groups and environmentalists in protesting the sale, which they say could damage one of the state's richest fisheries.

"If anything good can come of this (spill), it's that we might be able to keep it from happening again," Hodson said.

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