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Rich and Kathi Fortmann are clients and long-time friends of the owners of First California Realty, Inc. and are known for their ongoing commmitment to beach watch programs. So FCR's Principals were not surprised when they saw photographs of Rich and Kathi on the front page of the Marin Independent Journal in an article featuring volunteers helping with the aftermath of the recent oil spill disaster.
The story excerpted from the Marin Independent Journal
Beachcombers chart oil spill's scope
Jim Staats
Article Launched: 11/15/2007 12:13:24 AM PST
From le ft, Rich and Kathi Fortmann, joined by Allan Schreiber at Stinson Beach on Wednesday, are among the trained volunteers of the Beach Watch program. The three are monitoring the shoreline after last week's oil spill.
(IJ photo/Jeff Vendsel)
AS EARLY morning sun peeks over hills behind him, Rich Fortmann stands atop a dune looking across Stinson Beach while a cleanup crew in hazardous-materials suits works nearby.
"Not too shabby an office, is it?" said the retired Sausalito geologist, ignoring the oil spill workers for the moment.
Fortmann, along with his wife, Kathi, and Allan Schreiber of Fairfax, spent the hours after dawn Wednesday getting down to business on a beach survey as part of the volunteer Beach Watch program.
The 15-year-old program, operated by the nonprofit Farallones National Marine Sanctuary Association, was created to document beach wildlife patterns to aid research and response to natural disasters such as last week's oil spill.
The trio zig-zagged the 1.5-mile stretch of Stinson to the lip of Bolinas Lagoon tracking wildlife, dead and alive, in the sand, sea and air. It's part of a stepped-up daily effort featuring about 100 volunteers combing a dozen beaches after the November 7 spill.
"We are just the eyes and ears of the sanctuary to give
them a heads-up of what the actual conditions are on the beach," said Rich Fortmann, 64, who joined the program two years ago.
The Fortmanns, who usually survey Doran Beach at Bodega Bay every four weeks as part of the program's two-week survey cycle of 48 beaches, have surveyed Kirby Cove, Rodeo Beach and Bolinas beaches since last Thursday.
"Kirby Cove was probably the grimmest," said Kathi, 63, a retired biology teacher, of the small inlet just outside the Golden Gate the couple visited More than 30 cleanup crew members logged data sheets for the Beach Watch program at Stinson Beach on Wednesday, the day after the spill.
"We saw heavily oiled birds and rolls of tar coming in," she said.
Schreiber, a 68-year-old retired educator who joined the program eight years ago, said volunteers go through 80 hours of training to learn how to identify and log all wildlife within 100 yards of the surf line. Volunteers carry log books to note every living or dead item spotted. Their backpacks hold gloves, binoculars, a digital camera, bird books, glass jars for oil samples and aluminum foil, and paper bags to collect dead animals.
Schreiber, who surveyed the Stinson stretch Sunday, said, "By this time, I had seen a half-dozen dead birds."
Rich Fortmann
said volunteers are calling sanctuary headquarters daily to report findings, notify authorities of live, oiled wildlife and deliver dead or oiled animals.
He reported the first globs of oil spotted in Bolinas Lagoon on his Sunday morning survey.
As Rich Fortmann slid a pebble-like globule of oil into a glass jar, Schreiber noted the importance of labeling the jar with the time, date and exact place it was found.
"Everything we are collecting is potential evidence," he said. "The chain of custody for these samples is important."
Sanctuary research associate Dru Devlin said information entered into a computerized database since the program began in 1993 has become a tool for resource managers and researchers "in terms of analysis and population of what is out there on the beaches and what the status is.
Agencies that have used data include the Point Reyes National Seashore, the Romberg Tiburon Center, Golden Gate National Recreation Area and the Marine Mammal Center. |
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