The Outlook - Western University of Health Sciences

CVM Student ChroniclesGulf Coast CleanupIn the weeks after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April, 2010, news reportsshowed an environmental tragedy in the making. Those images and the stories coming out of the Gulf spurredto action thousands of volunteers, one of whom was a first-year student in the College of Veterinary Medicine.“A lot of what was happening downthere wasn’t being covered,” saysHeather Rally, DVM 2014, who headedto Alabama and Louisiana with twofriends to make a documentary aboutthe effects of the spill. “We wanted toget out the stories of the people.”What she expected to be a two-weekproject turned into a year-long mission tochronicle the lives of those most affectedby the spill and its aftermath, includingfishermen, cleanup workers, and others. “Itbecame really personal, really quickly. It waslike we were experiencing this with them,”says Heather who, after starting with theClass of 2013, deferred veterinary school fora year to work on “Project Gulf Impact.”Among the stories were reports of sea turtles being burned aliveand cleanup workers along the shore not being allowed to wearthe proper respiratory equipment because local officials fearedfrightening off tourists. Heather says they should have beenfrightened anyway: “the beach was toxic.” Like many others there,Heather and her friends landed in the hospital, sickened, she says,by the oil and Corexit, a chemical dispersant that was being usedon the oil too close to shore.The film, stilled dubbed the “The PGI Documentary,” is in the finalediting stages. Heather and “The Team” hope to submit the filmduring the upcoming festival season, and find a distributor so thefilm can be seen by a broader audience. “The work there isongoing,” she says. “Every day for them is a constant struggle.”This wasn’t Heather’s first foray into filmmaking. Previously sheworked, partly undercover, with the film crew responsible for thedocumentary, “The Cove,” which told of dolphin slaughter in Japanand how that dolphin meat makes its way to other parts of theworld. “The Cove” went on to win the 2010Academy Award for Best Documentary.Born and raised in Santa Monica, Heather’sinterest in “anything creepy crawly” began as achild. She says she had a menagerie by the age of3 or 4 years old and says, “I have always known Iwanted to work with animals, and have alwayshad a particularly strong connection with theocean.” She completed her undergraduate workin Biology at the University of California, SantaBarbara, in 2009, and has worked at the Channel Islands Marineand Wildlife Institute and the Marine Mammal Care Center at FortMacArthur, among other places.She remains in contact with her Gulffriends. “It was a pretty amazingexperience,” she recalls now. “Despitethe devastation and uncertainty, whatI witnessed was an incrediblyorganic and beautiful comingtogether of the community.”7