Jones helps evaluate oil spill

Jones helps evaluate oil spill

Coast Guard AMT3 Will Jones, a 2005 CHS graduate, flies in an Army National Guard LUH-72 Lakota helicopter over Alabama beaches from Dauphin Island to Pensacola Beach Sunday. Jones, 23, stationed in Astoria, Ore., was deployed out to help evaluate the BP oil spill.

"I was specially trained to spot different types of oil and calculate percentages of the amount of oil seen, which then was sent back to Mobile, Ala.," said Jones Thursday, after returning to his own station. "They then would send out vessels, we call 'FOO,' to sweep it."

"Foo" is short for the vessels being deployed out of Port Fourchon (pronounced Foo-shawn), La., where bigger ships with more oil-holding capacity are being constructed.

Will said he has been in the Coast Guard for three years and this was his first appointment to the Gulf Coast. His parents are John and Lori Jones of Corning.