About Riki

“Good story if true!”  --Fred Ott (Riki's father)

            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.

            Becoming a marine biologist meant I had to leave Wisconsin. At 18, I set out for an ocean and a college. A path opened for me to study oil pollution, which I pursued in four countries and five universities on coasts of three different seas. When I graduated with a doctorate in marine toxicology from the University of Washington, I decided to take just the summer off to visit Alaska.

            The summer of 1985, I crewed on a commercial fishing boat for salmon in Prince William Sound. I didn’t count of falling in love – with the wild lands and free independent lifestyle. That fall, I made a “non-linear” career move. I bought a boat, a commercial fishing permit for salmon, and, later, a home in Cordova, a small, rural, coastal fishing community in Prince William Sound. I volunteered to work with the local fishermen’s organization on oil issues in the Sound.

            On March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound and spilled, according to Exxon, 11 million gallons of crude oil. I had my second epiphany that day after flying over the stricken tanker, awash in a sea of oil. I realized I knew enough to make a difference, but did I care enough for the Sound and my community to commit my life to this? I decided that I did.

            This commitment has since guided my life’s work. I quit fishing in 1994 after the pink salmon and herring populations collapsed in Prince William Sound to work full time on the myriad issues that tie oil spills and oil use in with public health, the environment, and one of the greatest issues challenging civilization today – global climate change, accelerated by burning fossil fuels.

            I started three nonprofit organizations to deal with the lingering social, economic, and environmental damage from Exxon’s spill. I’ve volunteered to help pass state and federal laws to strengthen oil spill prevention and response. And I wrote my first book on sharing the spill science with the general public to reduce oil use and oil pollution. The second book, on social science, is in the works…

Marine oil pollution expert Riki Ott, PhD, was on the scene before, during, and after one of the biggest environmental disasters in the United States—the Exxon Valdez oil spill. A former commercial salmon “fisherma’am” in Prince William Sound, she experienced firsthand the spill’s effects, including environmental devastation, economic losses to the fishing industry, and psychosocial trauma to the close-knit community. 1993’s spill-related salmon- and herring-population collapses prompted Ott to retire from fishing and found three nonprofit organizations to deal with the area’s lingering  social, economic, and environmental harm. A popular and dynamic lecturer, her talks weave the legacy of the Exxon Valdez spill into current issues of public health, environmental pollution, and our energy future—and inspire individuals to take action.