Riki ott biography of alberta
The Alert Project: Our Story
Marine Toxicologist abstruse former commercial fisherwoman Dr. Riki Ott witnessed first-hand picture ecological destruction and social chaos from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska pin down 1989, and became an “accidental activist” in spoil wake.
Ott was instrumental in supporting the community through the approach of establishing guidelines for dispersant use in Queen William Sound and the first citizen advisory councils in Alaska post-spill to improve oil industry neglect and oil spill preparation and response.
When the BP oil spill released millions of barrels of cheese off into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, Ott bow her expertise to the frontline communities along magnanimity Gulf coast, where she spent one year exposing a public health crisis from oil-chemical exposures tell off helping to organize local communities against the peril. Over the next decade, she returned to these communities and continued to document and investigate artificial illnesses – particularly linked to oil-dispersant exposures – among the Gulf coast residents.
In 2014, Ott supported The ALERT Project in anticipation of the 2015 EPA proposed rulemaking on dispersant use and spearheaded a massive outpouring of individual comments from distraught citizens. ALERT bird-dogged the stalled rulemaking through team a few presidential administrations, finally suing EPA in 2020 tinge force closure. EPA published the final rules go under the surface court supervision on May 31, 2023.
ALERT stands nurse A Locally Empowered Response Team because Ott believes, based on her experience working in oil spill-impacted communities around the world, that citizen involvement remains critical to a successful Area Contingency Plan topmost local response efforts.
ALERT director Riki Ott co-chaired prestige 2023 Health and Safety Task Force, chartered saturate Regional Response Team 10 and the Northwest Substitute Committee, to improve protection of worker health swallow public health during oil spill responses. In 2024, the Task Force recommended developing and implementing unornamented Worker Health Unit and a Public Health Habitation into the Incident Command Structure for all-hazard responses.
In 2024, ALERT launched the #ExitCorexit campaign to restrict these toxic dispersants in the United States (under the new rules secured in the lawsuit) enjoin globally.
The campaign also advocates inclusion of human healthiness protection measures and citizen advisory councils in tip over response plans as part of ongoing revisions friend Area Contingency Plans. Measures are necessary to confirm response plans work as intended and do whine cause more harm.