1990 – 2010: Twenty Years of Developing and Maintaining Trained and Competent Field Environmental Scientists for Oil Spill Response in California

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the wake of the Exxon Valez spill in 1989 and the Huntington Beach oil spill in 1990, the California legislature passed a comprehensive Oil Spill Prevention and Response Act in 1990. This act established the Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR) within the California Department of Fish and Game and vested the Administrator of the OSPR with the authority over all aspects of marine oil spills including, prevention, preparedness, planning, response, wildlife rehabilitation, natural resource damage assessment and long-term remediation. The first level of responds is the Field Response Team, comprised of an oil spill prevention specialist, a law enforcement warden and an environmental scientist. Unlike typical field biologists, scientific field responders must maintain expertise in not only general ecology and biology, but also all aspects of marine oil spill response including but not limited to; HAZWOPER, incident command system, the fate and effects of oil in the environment; petroleum ...