Cleanup Volunteers Find Little Damage and a Cool Welcome

From the early scenes and dire reports on television, Marcelo Beleber imagined the worst--ugly pools of crude oil, grotesque, black-tarred animals and general desecration of the sacred sands of Newport Beach.

What Beleber found once he reached the Newport shoreline Friday morning was, by comparison, a relief: a faint trail of black where perhaps less than 100 gallons of oil had struck the shore early the night before.

“It’s not so bad,” the 18-year-old Huntington Beach student said as he worked on his hands and knees on a spot of black just south of the Newport Pier. “I was expecting a lot worse.”

On one of the oddest beach days in memory, hundreds of cleanup workers, volunteers, curiosity-seekers, reporters and camera crews--joined by a few daredevil surfers and would-be entrepreneurs giving away promotional cleaning supplies--swarmed the sands around the Newport Pier to see what ruin the southern tip of this week’s 300,000-gallon oil spill had left on their beaches.

But even amid widespread relief over the apparently mild damage, there was anger. Around midday, word began to circulate among the approximately 150 volunteers that the unthinkable was true: The cleanup organizers, worried about legal liability, didn’t want their help.

Cleanup coordinators with British Petroleum, which leased the now-damaged oil tanker American Trader, said they were worried the volunteers were exposing themselves to risk because they were not properly trained or outfitted for the venture.

“If somebody goes out there and gets hurt, that’s a liability issue for us,” said Charles Webster, a British Petroleum spokesman.

Members of the official cleanup crews, some of whom reported being paid $12 an hour, wore bright yellow, full-length slickers, gloves and boots. Each had been instructed on how to clean up several miles of beaches in both directions from the Newport Pier, officials said.

British Petroleum officials said the untrained volunteers might inadvertently trample the oil into the sand, making it even harder to clean up. The explanation did not sit well with the volunteers.

Some had come from as far away as the San Fernando Valley, while others had reported first to Huntington Beach--where some oil also hit Thursday night--and then to Newport Beach where the damage was more extensive.

Some came armed with just a few towels; others brought bags full of cleaning supplies, along with angry homemade signs that carried such messages as: “Oil Tankers and Corporate Incompetence Don’t Mix.”

Some brought entire families; others came alone. All noted that the area’s valuable coastlands and its majestic blue seas represent a powerful symbol of their personal priorities--one they felt obligated to.

“I have played in this ocean for 21 years,” said 21-year-old Kristen Clarke, a University of Southern California student who went to school in Newport Beach. “When it’s in trouble, I’ll help out.”

So when cleanup coordinators began telling volunteers that they were ordering the job left to the experts, the reaction was swift. A few frustrated volunteers shouted, “We want to work,” while others confronted cleanup officials with evidence of how much oil they had been able to collect from the stained beaches. Police told the crowd they appreciated the offer, but there was not much they could do to assist.

But some wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“Don’t say we’re volunteers, they’ll throw us out,” quipped William Nalley of Newport Beach as he dropped a white pad onto the darkened water just north of the pier. “Just call us ‘concerned citizens.’ ”

Nalley reported that he was asked to leave the beach three separate times but he continued to sneak back. “I’ll be here till they throw me off,” he vowed.

Asked why taking part in the cleanup was so important to her, Irvine housewife Kathy Sieben said simply, “It’s our beach.”

The Huntington Beach shoreline was the scene of some fireworks as well Friday when Reps. Dana R. Rohrabacher (R-Lomita) and Christopher C. Cox (R-Newport Beach) staged a joint press conference on the pier but ended up squaring off over the subject of offshore oil drilling.

Rohrabacher spoke in favor of increased drilling, saying it would decrease the need for hauling oil to California in tankers and chancing accidents. But Cox, a friend and normally a close political ally of his fellow Republican, took the microphone to disagree sharply, saying the amount of oil to be gained from drilling does not justify the risk.

But for the most part, Huntington Beach was more subdued Friday than its neighbor to the south as attention--and media crews--shifted back to Newport Beach.

Even there, some people were not sure what the attention was all about. A few sat in a pier bar at midday, simply watching television. They seemed unfazed by the frenzy around them.

While decrying the spill as a tragedy, John Rader, general manager of the Newport Oyster Bar on the peninsula, said he walked out to the beach during the day but didn’t see much on the water.

“But I guess there must be something out there if all these media types are here,” he said. “It’s just a shame it takes something like this to get this many people into town.”