ROLE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS DURING AN OIL SPILL 



John Mattoon 



The telephones in the Public Affairs Office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

 Service in Washington and at the various field offices begin ringing literally 

 the minute news of an oil spill is made public. The public continues to call 

 until the story of the spill fades to the back section of metropolitan news- 

 papers in the vicinity of the incident. 



Calls come in from private conservation groups, from news agencies, and 

 from individuals eager to help. 



Of greater impact, however, are the television crews and radio and news- 

 paper reporters who descend upon the FWS oil spill coordinator on the scene, 

 who already has his hands full. My remarks today will cover problems encoun- 

 tered at the national and regional level in providing information to the news 

 media. I want to emphasize again that the objective of the Public Affairs 

 Office is not only to provide facts to the public, but also to relieve as 

 much pressure as possible on the personnel conducting the cleanup operation. 



The Public Affairs Office is usually not kept up-to-date on developments 

 relating to major oil spills. We are often unable to respond to public inquiries 

 or to requests from the Secretary's Office. This matter requires coordination 

 among all of us since it has become a continuous problem. I hope we can resolve 

 the problem at this workshop. 



Until now, we have never taken the time to sit down and work up a Service- 

 wide plan to deal with oil spills. We usually handle each spill as simply 

 another "crisis situation," in which we must scurry about our Washigton office 

 or telephone regional offices to obtain more detailed information. 



There has been an increasing number of oil spills in the past few years, 

 and a pattern has emerged concerning public reaction to such events. Oil 

 spills, or possible oil spills, now receive as much media coverage as other 

 controversial issues such as Angola, natural gas shortages, and Gary Gilmore. 

 This situation will not change in the near future. 



Before discussing ways in which the media can be more supportive in an 

 oil spill crisis, I shall describe briefly how the Public Affairs Office is 

 organized. The Fish and Wildlife Service is organized into a Washington 

 staff, six regional offices, and an area office in Alaska. Each of the re- 

 gional offices and the area office in Alaska have a public affairs officer 

 who functions as the regional director's representative and who reports to 

 the Public Affairs Office in Washington. In the event of an oil spill, these 

 men or women are at the service of the regional oil spill coordinator. 



Assistant Director, Public Affairs 

 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 

 Department of the Interior 

 Washington, D. C. 



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