We were supposed to have finished at Aransas as of yesterday—but we haven't. We said that we would update all of the MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) books for each building in the refuge, since they have a safety inspection of May 5th. Update, in several cases, meant create. As a result we have spent all of the time since our last post working 10-12 hour days on this project. It is not quite done yet, but we promised to finish it. Basically, the only time we took off was to go to Rockport last Friday to do food shopping. We took Speedy, even though it was a nice day, because we also needed propane.
This journal entry will be relatively brief as a result of doing the same thing every day. It may also seem a bit boring. We did, however, get to go to Matagorda twice. We surveyed all of the buildings on the refuge, as well as those at the Port O'Connor Annex (about 45 minutes away) and those on Matagorda Island. We also managed to fit in fire extinguisher inspections at the two outlying sites as well.
We found over 800 products in all the buildings that needed an MSDS. Of that, there were over 600 unique sheets that needed to be generated. We found PDFs online for over 500 and we already had the rest. The existing master books had158 products that we didn't find out of a total 388. Of the 800 products we found, only 230 were already in the books.
We created 26 books which included a master copy and up to three other copies depending on the size of the area covered by a book (which might be more than one building). Each MSDS was from 1 to 15 pages long (1-8 sheets, double-sided). We generated a total of 2963 MSDSs (most likely using over 12,000 sheets of paper) and had to collate all of that into the 26 books,
We spent the majority of the time searching online for the MSDS that matched the product. It wasn't easy. The only time we saw the outside was when we went to Port O'Connor and Matagorda Island. Even then we spent most of the time inside looking in cabinets, closets and shelves. I'd find a container of something, read off as much of the details as I could find, and Ellen would record them on her computer. We actually ran out of battery power doing the maintenance buildings and to swap in the battery from my Mac.
We are just about finished, with only the placing of the books in the maintenance area and at Port O'Connor. We finished the Office books first, to see what it would take, then did all of the MSDS finding and printing for the others at the same time. We assembled the Matagorda books first so they could be taken out to the island yesterday since they had go out there to do all of the last minute maintenance and cleaning before the inspection.
We didn't really have to go, but sort of forced ourselves onto the trip. Ellen really wanted to see an Aplomado Falcon, a bird that is found only in the US at the southern tip of Texas and on Matagorda. Everyone we talked to said that they had always been able find them on Matagorda, but we never got back there after the oil spill (the clean-up, by the way, is now complete) and we never got a chance to look on the first MSDS survey trip. This was our last possible chance. On this trip we only had to mount some fire extinguishers, place the MSDS books and find the few products for which we could not find an existing MSDS.
This gave us the chance to look for a falcon. There was a nesting site about a mile up the road (actually the old runway). We walked out that way, found the nest platform and, sure enough, there was an Aplomado Falcon standing on the edge. We didn't get too close, but just close enough to actually identify it. We really wished that we had packed a spotting scope. That was pretty much the highlight of the week.
Yesterday afternoon and today we finished up assembling the books and the Maintenance guys took most of them to be placed in the appropriate places. The last one we did was the Maintenance book, by far the largest, and we will mount them tomorrow. We will also take a trip to Port O'Connor to mount those and remove any products that we couldn't generate sheets for...and stop for lunch. There are some good lunch spots in Port O'Connor...we have great burgers and fish sandwiches at Cathy's on the last trip.
That should be our last volunteer effort.
We will probably spend another day or two here, getting Speedy and the trailer ready to go. We should be leaving leaving either Sunday or Monday with the next stop being Anahuac NWR and High Island for some birding at the nearby famous migrant hotspots. After that, it depends how long we want to take to get back to a big house, a real kitchen and a comfortable bed...and an overgrown lawn, an untended garden and a pile of house chores.
Hopefully, the next entry will be sooner and have some photos.
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