After working at cleaning up the town, I set my sights on an environmental issue on the island. The people took pride in the island and were active in protecting it. I recall how at least a dozen households had called to tell me that processing boat workers, on leave, were scaring the fur seals off the beach next to the village. Mike Zacharof and I mobilized a group of men to go down there and got them to stop. I then told Scott to tell the processors to recall the men on leave and tell them they would not be welcome on the island should this happen again. They had no choice but to comply. We never had problems with the process workers again.
Another issue at hand were seven vessels that had run aground on Saint Paul. The abandoned vessels were strewn next to fur seal rookeries and bird cliffs. When one of them, the 370-foot Ruyuyu Maru, ran aground next to the bird cliffs across from the village, the U.S. Coast Guard at the LORAN station on the island didn’t know what to do or how to rescue the men because there were no roads to access the vessel. The storm-driven waves made it impossible for the men to disembark to walk to safety. The local men knew what to do, however. They made a pulley system on a tripod on top of the two-hundred-foot cliff and pulled the shipwrecked seamen to the top. It worked, but the vessel was then left to rust next to the bird cliffs. I recall how sad I felt that the birds would suffer the consequences. So, remembering this and how I felt about all the other vessels that had run aground on the island during storms, I thought we could and should do something.
We first contacted the owner of one of the vessels to ask about any plans to remove the remains of the rusting ship. We were told the vessel had been abandoned and to go see the owner’s insurance agent. We contacted the insurance agent, who said the asset had already been written off and that there were no injuries, so no liability. We then contacted the National Marine Fisheries Service because several of the vessels had run aground next to a fur seal rookery. The response was, “We can’t do anything, why don’t you try the Fish and Wildlife Service?” We received a similar reply and a suggestion that we contact the U.S. Coast Guard, who told us that they had no jurisdiction over such matters because the United States was not party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Basically, all parties denied responsibility, so we decided to sue all of them at once. Authorized by all the organizations on the island, we called and notified the parties of our intent to sue. That broke the ice. We were able to secure the funds necessary to dismantle all the boats and get rid of them.
Unfortunately, the village corporation that got the contract to clean up the mess decided to bury the hunks of metal in a ditch on the island. I was outraged. I decided to approach the school kids who used to use the video arcade in the community hall. I requested a school meeting to explain the situation: “We were able to get those responsible to pay for removal of the vessels that have run aground on the island, and this is a good first step. The village corporation (now under new leadership) got the contract to remove ships, but they are planning to bury the metal on our land. Do you think this is good?” I asked.
“Noooo,” was the group response.
“Well then, do you want to do something about it?”
“Yesss,” came the reply.
So I let them in on a plan that could possibly work, which was to ask them to make posters and to lobby their parents to have the metal removed off island and to a recycling center. The students eagerly agreed, and before long there were posters around the village that said things like “Don’t Make Our Island A Dump,” “Let’s Keep Our Island Clean,” and “Let’s Recycle.” They lobbied their parents and even made arm bands they wore everywhere to broadcast this student effort to keep the island clean. In the meantime, I told the students to find out what recycling companies were out there. Their research led them to a company in Tacoma, Washington, that accepted large metal scraps, and the students gave this information to the village corporation. The village was then able to negotiate with the company to accept the metals that came from the dismantled vessels. Soon, all the vessels were dismantled and shipped off the island. To this day, I am proud of those students who participated. Without their intervention, we would have a vessel boneyard. And kudos to the village corporation leadership that listened to the students and their parents.
Having cleaned up the abandoned vessels from the island, I set my sights on other things. A Fish and Wildlife field rep, Art Sowls, asked me if we could do something about rats that came off the fishing vessels when they came to the harbor to offload crab to a private processor. I said, “Yes, we should do something about it. What do we know about these rats?”
Art replied, “Well, we know that these rats leave fishing vessels, and they are so prolific that if a male and female rat come onto the island, the island will soon be infested with them. We know, from the rats on the Aleutians, that they can decimate seabird nesting colonies. I know of a guy who understands these kinds of rats. He is considered a world rat expert. We should talk with him.”
I agreed. After talking with the rat expert, we installed the toughest rat ordinances in the United States. Any motor vessel coming into the Saint Paul port would have to be inspected by locally trained people, and any vessel that had indications of rats would be forced to leave the island immediately. Upon leaving the island, crew would have to show proof the vessel had been inspected and found rat free in order to return to Saint Paul. In this effort, we got the students involved once again. They made rat traps and painted them with whatever message they wanted to convey about rats. We placed these rat traps around the docks and at the community dump. Thus far, these measures have worked.
After demonstrating our success at preventing rats from coming onto the island, the Fish and Wildlife Service focused on destroying the rats in the Aleutian Islands. This took extensive effort, but they have been able to recover one entire island from rat infestation thus far.