FOR THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS The Indigenous Conservators of the Environment (I.C.E.) was formed to represent the Alaska Native concerns on the environment we have so long relied upon. I.C.E. is a non-profit, tribal, tax-exempt, environmental organization the purpose of which is to preserve, protect, and enhance marine life and to promote Alaska Natives rights and interests in environmental issues and other issues of importance to the Native community. I.C.E. also works to provide information, education, and training to Alaska Natives in relation to their environment. We also encourage Alaska Natives to exchange information and ideas that contribute towards improved management of marine mammals and other environmental issues. I.C.E.'s current focus is "Save Our Sea otters" (S.O.S.). The United States Fish and Wildlife Service recently entered into an agreement with the Indigenous Conservators of the Environment (I.C.E.) that enables Alaskan Natives to receive training in sea otter handling and clean-up procedures. "This cooperative volunteer program will enable the Service to establish volunteer emergency response teams trained in all phases of handling sea otters, not only for our ongoing efforts, but also for future quick response should another spill occur, states the U.S.F.W.S. Regional Director Walt Stieglitz. "Perhaps most importantly these Alaska Natives who live close to the sea otter habitat, would be immediately available." ་་ T.A. Gornall, III, DMV (Commissioned by the Presidential Marine Mammals Commission) stated, "As a result of the Exxon Valdez oil spill 10,000 to 20,000 sea otters have died and the number is rising daily. We are seeing just the first ripple of the effects of the oil spill on Marine Mammals. This will go on for years. It is a global disaster." Information given to our office is that the Marine Mammal Rescue Effort may be phasing out because Exxon believes that the sea otter emergency has passed. Presently the Seward Sea Otter Center is filled to capacity with 85 oiled otters and the rescue and capture effort at sea has shut down 4 to 5 days a week because the Seward Center cannot handle any more otters. There were 7 boats operating at the peak of the rescue operation and as of May 23, 1989 one of the boats is being retired, it's capture gear is to be stored. If the need arises this gear can be put back into use. S. O. S. SAVE OUR SEA OTTERS P.O. Box 240707 Anchorage, Alaska 99524 SEND YOUR TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS TODAY! The oil spill is currently engulfing an area larger than the state of Massachusetts and 6 capture boats are not enough to handle the immense area in which oil-contaminated otters are found. To believe that otters are no longer in danger and to phase out the operation is going completely against the intent of the Congressional Mandate of the Marine Mammals Protection Act of 1972, as amended in 1988. I.C.E. has sea otter capturers journals that show otters caught in nets have had to be released because the United States Fish and Wildlife Service relayed radio messages to the sea otter capture boats to "CATCH NO MORE OTTERS" due to overcrowding of the one sea otter cleaning center. Tosha Galaktionoff, I.C.E.'s first trainee sent out after the May 1 agreement was reached with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, was given the command to catch no more sea otters for 3 days while she watched otters swimming in oiled areas in Kenai Fiords National Park. This command was given in response to the Valdez Otter Centers viral epidemic scare, when that center was being closed down and the Seward Otter Center had not been given the authorization or monies to become operational. Those I.C.E. spoke with at the Seward Otter Center have stated that Exxon will not allow more than one Otter Cleaning Center to operate at one time. It is obvious that utilizing only one center for cleaning operations limits the success of the overall rescue effort resulting in more dead otters. Currently, the oil spill is heavily impacting the Kodiak area and the Alaska Peninsula, including Cook Inlet, where over 20,000 more Sea Otters are in peril. These otters are not dying from the acute stages of oil contamination as of now, but are instead dying from the chronic affects of eating toxic seafoods, which causes internal damage beyond repair of these mammals livers and kidneys, a slow, painful death follows. An example of this became evident two weeks ago when a mother sea otter and her pup were captured. They were lightly oiled, yet the mother died soon after capture. Upon biopsy the veterinarians found the liver and kidneys of the mother were the consistency of mush, not the way a healthy organ should appear. The third phase of toxicity in mammals is the sub-lethal phase, this includes deformity of the offspring. Pups born of oil contaminated mothers may suffer severe mutations which will ultimately lead to their death. The pups may also not be able to bond with their mothers because the oil impairs their smell, sight, and respiratory senses. These are just the beginning signs of the ongoing damage to our otter population. The otters in Prince William Sound may well soon be declared depleted, or in the worst case scenario, endangered. To allow the operation Sea Otter Rescue to slow down, or to discontinue, for public relations reasons, or any other reasons, is irresponsible, inhumane, and illegal. In October, 1988 the United States Fish & Wildlife Service implemented a new regulation concerning the tagging, sealing, and reporting of any sea otters killed or found along Alaska's coastline. Any Alaska Native must report this finding within 30 days. If a Native does not report any dead sea otter to the U.S. Fish Wildlife Service, the actions taken against them may be most severe. There is a $10,000 fine and possible time in prison for non-compliance for each instance. The question has been brought up by Alaska Natives concerning this tagging procedure and the penalties involved (which are clearly spelled out in 50 CFR Part 18) as to why the oil companies do not have to comply with the new regulation? If Alaska Natives were to have gone out and killed 10,000 to 20,000 sea otters we feel that we would have had to pay the penalty. How then, can the government expect us to respect said law? "Law without compliance undermines the entire legal system, leading to disrespect and disregard for the law", (Interagency Artic Research Policy Committee, National Science Foundations report #87-55; recommendations) Examples of this failure to report, tag, and seal are as follows: 1. reports of VECO employees and others scuttling dead sea otters that have been brought in in garbage bags (to look like oiled rags) throwing the carcasses overboard on the way into port. 2. nightly burial and/or burning of sea otters on secluded islands. 3. case histories of boat captains fears of being fined for picking up dead sea otters and refusing to allow crewman with dead sea otters in hand to bring the carcasses aboard and ordering the crew to throw the carcasses overboard. 4. otter catchers being told to release oiled otters caught in capture nets because of overcrowding in the Seward Sea Otter Cleaning Center. Three of those released were SO oiled they immediately sank and drowned. (see Sea Otter Capturer journal attachment) We received word on May 23, 1989 that the Seward Otter Center would possibly be shutting down in one (1) month. On Friday morning 26 May 1989, one of the otter catcher boats called the I.C.E. office with news of the latest otter information from Cape Douglas to Geographic Bay on the Alaska Peninsula. The boat is the F/V Wayward, Captain Mack (the skipper of the vessel) has taken a video of sea otters by the hundreds swimming in oil, many with their pups. Yesterday dead otters were being reported from Raspberry Straits (on the Northwest end of Kodiak Island) and all along the west side of Kodiak Island and also along the majority of the Alaska Peninsula daily. Over 1500 otters have been spotted in one bay that is impacted by oil. The otters swim in rafts (or groups) of 200-300. These otters are in extreme danger. Some of the mothers are carrying their pups with them, the pups are stressed out and many of them look like a dead rag. Otters have been spotted by our handlers shivering on the haul-out rocks and beaches, sure signs of oil contamination, yet they were told they could only capture one otter due to overcrowding at the Seward Cleaning Center. (Captain Mack has a letter from Jim Styers instructing them not to capture any more otters due to this overcrowding.) The otters are still pupping but the rocks that they haul-out on are completely covered with oil. The danger that the otters are in right now is real. The shore clean-up crews are not even considering cleaning these otter habitats that the sea otters use as haul-out grounds and to pup on. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service stated that it was trying to save at least 15% of the sea otter population that has been impacted by the oil spill and the 1/2% (or less) that is currently being retrieved falls far short of the targeted 15%. The current effort is completely unacceptable. Otters are showing up dead everywhere most likely from the second phase of oil contamination, eating food that is toxic and dying 20-30 days later from the accumulation killing their livers and kidneys. The public relations effort that has been in effect by Exxon almost since day one of the oil spill is still ongoing to this day. The F/V Wayward is the only authorized otter catcher boat that is in the area hardest hit by the oil in the Alaska Peninsula has been commanded to return to Seward at the direction of Jim Styers, Exxon superintendent of the Seward Sea Otter Rescue Center. The captain of the Wayward informed I.C.E. that Exxon offered him a contract to film otters not in oil. The captain turned this offer down. He turned in his film taken two weeks ago of the otters in oil to Jim Styers. He feels the reason he is being decommission-ed is that he turned down the contract to film otters not in the oil. Exxon has had a policy of not allowing those hired by them to speak out about what the truth is, this policy is also ongoing to this day. Fish and Wildlife agent Jay Ballinger, in charge of the Kodiak Refuge Station, flew out to the Wayward May 23, 1989 and took two otter catchers off the boat and replaced them with two VECO employees (non-native), their only boat experience was on a barge in Prudhoe Bay, one immediately returned to Kodiak because he found out he would be required to stay on the boat for at least one month, non-stop and he had been told that he would be rotated on a weekly basis. The captain felt that these two inexperienced VECO personnel would place themselves and his boat in peril because of their lack of seamanship and skiff handling abilities and knowledge of sea otters. The captain of the Wayward was pleased with the I.C.E. otter catchers sent out by us. He had agreed to take on more Native personnel but when U.S. Fish and Wildlife agent Jay Ballinger flew out with the two non-native VECO replacements and the captain of the vessel asked why these replacements weren't Natives, Jay Ballinger (U.S.F.W.S.) replied, "Forget about Native personnel for awhile." A directive like this goes completely against the agreement I.C.E. has reached with the U.S.F.W.S. and also goes against the Marine Mammals Protection Act. How can we have an Emergency Response Team made up of Alaska Natives living on the coast immediately prepared to respond and deploy in the event of another oil spill if these miscommunications and bad directives continue? I.C.E.'s goal is to have an Emergency Response Team trained in all phases of rescuing and saving sea otters and other marine mammals. We have worked in agreement and coordination with the U.S.F.W.S. to successfully train twelve (12) sea otter catchers in this first phase of capturing live otters at sea. The next phase of mammal rescue is the cleaning stage which now is done only in Seward. This center is currently understaffed due to the lack of housing in Seward. In order to fulfill our agreement with Fish and Wildlife and to have our Emergency Response Team trained before this whole "Operation Sea Otter Rescue" effort is closed down it is imperative that Alaska Natives receive a priority placement. Presently most of those working at the Seward Center are from Outside of Alaska. On March 13, 1989 I.C.E. went to Seward with a contingency of 14 volunteers eager to train in the cleaning phase. I.C.E. paid their way down, made arrangement for their living and eating while training and stood-by for over 50 hours waiting at the gates to get trained. As we waited at the gates, we were continually passed over by non-natives coming in from Anchorage and the Lower 48. We spoke with Tammi Thomas, the volunteer coordinator, about why our people were not being placed to train instead we were put continually at the back of the line. We talked to people from Delaware, New Jersey, and California that were placed ahead of our volunteers. I.C.E. feels that it is most imperative that Alaska Natives be trained before non-natives and those from Outside are allowed to train. We feel that it is a priority issue and that non-natives and those from outside must be bumped if necessary, so that Alaska Natives can have an Emergency Response Team fully trained in all phases. Since our March 13 encounter at the Seward Center, I.C.E. has been involved on a daily basis to secure housing for our Alaska Native volunteers. We have written myriads of letters to differing Federal agencies and possible Seward housing placements. We were told time and again that there was no housing. On March 26 we were told by Tammi Thomas that there had been made available twenty (20) spots for housing volunteers. Tammi Thomas allocated these spots to non-native volunteers. Some of these spots were to go to Alaska Native volunteers from I.C.E. The way this is going Alaska Natives will not have an Emergency Response Team. |