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Public Comment on Off-Shore Oil Exploration

This week marks the five year anniversary of a catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico – an accident that killed millions of birds, fish and marine mammals, while damaging tourism and industries that rely on the sea.

Here in Virginia, environmentalists are marking the day by urging public opposition to oil exploration off our coast.  Sierra Weaver is a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. 

“The best available science shows that there will be significant long-term impacts to marine mammals, sea turtles and fish stocks if you allow this to go forward.”    

Weaver says eight companies have applied for permits and could be blasting in the same areas – using air guns to survey the sea floor every ten seconds for days, weeks or months. 

“There have been public meetings, a lot of folks getting involved and expressing their concern about bringing drilling to the coast, but what’s important about the seismic process if that there are potential harms to the environment  before that even gets started.”   

At the very least, some argue, a single permit should be issued and the exploration team should be forced to make its findings public. 

The industry says there’s no evidence that seismic exploration causes injury to marine life, but a federal study predicts moderate harm to whales, dolphins and sea turtles.  Proponents of offshore drilling say it will create nearly 130,000 jobs.

Here's a link to one of eight applications for permits to explore area's off Virginia's coast to determine their oil-producing potential. You may wish to indicate that your comments apply to all of those applications rather than this one in particular.

Sandy Hausman is Radio IQ's Charlottesville Bureau Chief
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