FAIRHOPE, Ala. — While the Vessels of Opportunity program for oil spill monitoring has garnered more attention, a less visible volunteer project has also been at work in the area.

It’s those kayaks you see paddling near the Eastern Shore coastline, or people walking the beach with trash bags, that could be part of the Volunteer Field Observer Program led by the Alabama Coastal Foundation and Mobile Baykeeper.

“Volunteers collect information on a data sheet we developed and document any oil impacts with photos and geographical coordinates,” said Bethany Kraft, ACF’s executive director. “We have approximately 240 volunteers trained, who go out twice a week on their mile-long assigned section of shoreline.”

The program covers much of the Alabama coastline and a mile up local rivers between the Mississippi and Florida state lines, she said.

“If any wildlife, oil impacts or boom problems are identified, the VFOB immediately calls a special number in Incident Command to report the location and other pertinent info so it can be dealt with immediately,” Kraft said. “This number was specifically set up for VFOB. The bottom line is that we report any problems to the Incident Command while the VFOB is still in the field.”

One local volunteer team has not had to report any such oil impacts while working in the Point Clear area.

“We’ve not seen any oil,” said Vicki Dean, a bookkeeper with SeeCoast Manufacturing Co. in Fairhope. “We have not seen a tar ball, not a clump of it, nothing at all.”

Dean, and team member Tanya Hallford, a Foley attorney, walked their one-mile stretch of beach last week because rough water on Mobile Bay prevented them from using sea kayaks.

They’ve been out 10 times, and for all but three of those times they’ve used kayaks to patrol the shoreline, looking for impacts or other problems associated with the oil spill. When they walk the beach, they also pick up trash, she said.

“I’m volunteering because I’ve lived down here my entire life,” Dean said. “I’ve been in or around the water all that time, at Weeks Bay, Fish River, Magnolia River and all over. I wanted to be doing something, and this seemed like a good way to help.”

The VFOB program was provided 20 GPS units and 20 cameras from the State of Alabama through grants from BP, as well as computer hardware to facilitate the collection of data from volunteers, but the rest of the costs are paid by ACF and MB, Kraft said.

And all field volunteers in the project work for free, she added.

“ACF has developed an online data entry and upload form for volunteers to upload their data instead of having to bring the hard copies back to our office,” Kraft said. “The information these trained volunteers will collect will be valuable not only to the Deepwater Horizon spill response but to other people in other regions who, when faced with a similar event, can learn from our successes and failures here on the Gulf Coast.”

The VFOB program was based on an existing shoreline assessment program of ACF, which the organization launched on Fish River last year, Kraft said.

“When a group of concerned citizens comes together to donate their time and expertise, they can dramatically increase the ability of government and contracted responders to develop and implement a comprehensive response plan,” she said. “The fact that these citizens have extensive knowledge about our coastal resources and an unmatched commitment to protecting those resources makes them an invaluable component of pre- and post- event response activities.”

For more information or to receive volunteer training, visit the ACF and MB websites.