The nonprofit organization formed by the oil industry after the Exxon Valdez disaster to provide ready access to cleanup equipment and personnel in case of a major offshore oil leak has been swamped by the BP spill, according to The Washington Post.

The Herndon, Va.-based Marine Spill Response Corporation, which has 400 employees and a fleet of large oil-recovery ships, has responded to 700 spills since oil-producing and -transport firms founded it under congressional pressure in the early 1990s, but none have approached the magnitude of the gulf spill.

The organization “has never had to deal with anything even remotely this large and chaotic,” said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental advocacy group that has sued BP over the spill.

Many of the untrained volunteers descending on the gulf in hopes of cleaning up oil-soaked birds and beaches are finding little opportunity to help and growing frustrated with BP and local mobilization groups, the Post also reports.

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