[Hearing Postponed: Due to the government shutdown, the Bureau of Environmental Management (BOEM) has postponed its New England based National OCS program proposal public meetings scheduled for this week.]
Show your opposition to the president’s newly-announced offshore drilling program this Thursday at a public hearing. Trump wants to open up the entire eastern seaboard for drilling, although Florida has been excluded due to the environmentally sensitive beach at Mar-a-Lago, a fetid nesting habitat uniquely suited to Oligarchus despicabilis.
The Interior Department is holding 23 public meetings to explain their plan, including this one in Providence. (More at EcoRI.) The Rhode Island chapter of the Surfrider Foundation will be there. (Facebook event.)
The Trump Administration has made good on its commitment to big oil by presenting an ecologically devastating proposal that seeks to open over 90% of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf to new offshore drilling, putting our nation’s coastal communities, beaches, surf breaks, and marine ecosystems at serious risk of catastrophic oil spills, economic and environmental decimation.
In January of 1996 Rhode Island suffered a devastating oil spill when the tank barge North Cape ran aground off Moonstone Beach, leaking 828,000 gallons of home heating oil. (From the NOAA damage assessment report.)
The spill killed massive numbers of marine animals including 9 million lobster, 150 million surf clam, 4.2 million fish, and over one million pounds of other organisms such as worms, crabs, and mussels.
In the coastal salt ponds, one-half million fish, 6.5 million marine worms, amphipods, and more than one million crabs, shrimp, clams, and oyster were killed by the spill.
Additionally, 2,100 marine birds, including 402 loons, died as a result of oiling.
Local opposition is being organized at a meeting Sunday, January 21, starting at 1:30pm. (Facebook event page.)
To the best of our ability, we will conduct a proper hearing, allowing attendees to speak for up to 2 minutes each. Come prepared to applaud others’ statements, or if you like, deliver your own.
We have a right to be in the room, and we have a right to express our views to the federal government. Our action will make that loud and clear!
We will rehearse how to organize ourselves for the hearing and how to interact with security. This training will be led by noted climate activist Tim DeChristopher.
Hearing, 3pm to 7pm, Thursday, January 25, Marriott Hotel, 1 Orms Street, (directions)