Alaska's 2008 Muckracker of the Year - Dr. Riki Ott, author of "Not One Drop"...

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Riki Ott may be the most deserving candidate for this honor there is. The honor being bestowed upon her by Cook Inlet Keeper is fitting, in time, if not in place.

The party should be - if there were a green way to do it - somewhere on Prince William Sound. At sea. With a lot of Cordova and other Alaska fishers. We would be able to bring plaintiffs from the Exxon Valdez oil spill, who have since passed away, back from beyond, to help us celebrate.

Dr. Ott wasn't the first to predict the Exxon Valdez catastrophe before it happened. She was the last.

I remember heading out with a load of Tanner crab (snow crab, these days) pots to Unakwik Inlet, on the Cordova crabber, Jo-Be, in early December, 1975. As we crossed below Bligh Island, headed westward, our skipper, the elder Jerry Thorne, turned to me. We were up on the open flying bridge, enjoying a spectacular mid-afternoon sunset, as he drove us toward its ebbing gold, orange, pink and lavender cold warmth.

He blew his Pall Mall ashes off the end of his glowing cigarette butt with a quick nostril exhalation. He laughed. It wasn't a light laugh.

"That's where it'll go down," he blurted out, as he looked northward.

Jerry was pretty common-sense when it came to fishing, usually limiting his bridge talk to the boat, the route, the gear, the string we were about to lay out or pick up. But every once in a while, he reached into his wisdom, gleaned from observing what happens at sea, off the Northwest coasts, from Eureka to Dutch Harbor.

"What'll go down?"

"One of those goddam HUGE tankers. Right there - on Bligh Reef. I hope it's on the way in, not on the way out."

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As Art Davidson wrote, in his 1990 book, In the Wake of the Exxon Valdez (from which some of this account is taken - pp. 7-9), "While Ott was voicing her concerns and the Alyeska staff was celebrating its safety record, Captain Joseph Hazelwood was taking shore leave...."

Dr. Riki Ott isn't being honored for her oracular gifts on that occasion. She is being honored, rather, for her persistence, and for her continuing oracular gifts. If her persistence has long been recognized by environmental and ecological organizations like Cook Inlet Keeper, her more important sagacity and common sense, has been used far too little.

I'll be writing more about Dr. Ott over the next two or three weeks. I've admired her work from afar for years, dedicating my most heartfelt orchestral work to her efforts.

And I'll be at 'Koots, for the Muckrakers' Ball!

On Sunday, December 14th, from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m, I'll be hosting Dr. Ott's Book Salon appearance at firedoglake. She will be discussing her new book, Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.

My review copy came today. I can't put it down!