New! Black Wave Teaching Guide

Riki has written a teaching guide for educaors who want to show the film Black Wave: The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez to their students. The Black Wave teaching guide is suitable for high school and college Students. Download the free study guide and student handout by clicking here.

Riki is available to consult with individuals and organizations in the spill affected areas, both as a toxicologist and as an individual who lived through the Exxon Valdez incident. Press may contact Riki by emailing spillinfo@rikiott.com or calling 970-903-6818. Please **do not** use this number for calls relating to oil cleanup ideas.

Sound Truth available free by the pallet

We have a limited supply of surplus copies of Sound Truth and Corporate Myths. Riki is donating these copies to non-profits and educational organizations. We provide the books, you pay for shipping. 800 copies per pallet. Contact us to order.

Click here to download the Sound Truth "Quick Reading Guide."

Click here to download a letter to medical professionals reading Sound Truth.

Report on Dispersant Bans

Report produced by Sewdish Environmental Research Institute risk assessment of dispserants including bans on Corexit.

Public Health

Many of you have written to us asking about the health effects of oil and dispersants to cleanup workers and communities. You can read about potential health hazards here: www.sciencecorps.org/crudeoilhazards.htm

UPDATE FOR HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS!

Dr. Michael Harbut has provided up-to-date information for physicians. Michael R. Harbut, M.D., M.P.H. is a Clinical Professor of Internal Medicine at Wayne State University, Director of the Karmanos Cancer Institute's Environmental Cancer Program & Past Chair of the Occupational & Environmental Medicine section of the American College of Chest Physicians.  He is Chief at the Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, P.C. and has treated many patients with solvents and petroleum exposures.  Click here to read Dr. Harbut's recommendations.

 

De-list toxic products from the US EPA Product Schedule

Download a petition to ask the USk Government to create a prcess for REMOVING toxic chemicals - like COREXIT - from the product listing schedule. For a full description of the proposed changes to the current law, click here. Circulate these petitions at any public event and return to the address at the bottom of the form. Or you may SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION.

 

Oil Toxicity and other Gulf Spill/Exxon Valdez Information

If you need information about oil toxicity, historical documents from the Exxon Valdez (including health waivers and medical data), pre-interview or other info PLEASE CLICK HERE.

Cleanup Ideas

If you have a product that cleans up oil spills, we regret that we cannot help you get your product accepted by BP, nor can we help you with your ideas to plug the ruptured well.

Riki is not connected to the oil industry nor to the government. Please contact the EPA and inquire about getting your product on the EPA product schedule. The person who maintains this list is William J Nichols at the Oil Program Center of the EPA in Arlington Virginia. BP alone is in charge of plugging the leak. Dr. Ott has no influence in engineering decisions.

About Riki

My story starts with a childhood epiphany. It was 1968. I was thirteen, growing up in Wisconsin. Robins were literally falling out of trees, dying, from the neurotoxin DDT. I read marine biologist Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. My father, a practical conservationist who modeled a deep love of people and nature through his daily actions, acted on his convictions and sued the state of Wisconsin. My father and his friends prevailed; Wisconsin banned DDT in 1972 and the rest of the nation followed suit in 1973.

Out of this experience, I gained two heroes - my father in real life and Rachel Carson in the abstract - and a life goal, for I had become fascinated by Carson's writing. I decided that I, too, would become a marine biologist and share science by writing books for the general public to better understand our natural world.
--Riki Ott, PhD.

And so Riki Ott became a marine biologist, but thought to make her living in commercial fishing - having gone to Alaska and fallen in love with its people and its landscape. But just four short years later, in 1989, the Exxon Valdez spilled millions of gallons of oil in Prince William Sound. The local economy, communities, and thousands of miles of environment were devastated. And then ignored. Her two heroes of a past battle were now to be her guiding lights for the future. Since then, Riki has devoted her life to justice for everyday people, their livelihood, and the environment.