Catie Guymon remembers coming off the beaches of her native Southern California and having to clean her feet with mayonnaise to get rid of the tar that had accumulated.
“I don’t want that to happen here in Oregon,” said Guymon, the Oregon coast coordinator for the Lane Community College chapter of Oregon Students Public Interest Research Group.
LCC and University OSPIRG members talked to passing students outside the EMU Thursday about the launch of its local campaign to protect the Oregon coast from off-shore oil and gas drilling.
“When I came here, I saw how clean and majestic the Oregon beaches are,” Guymon said. “It reminded me of a description of scenery in a fairy tale.”
At the moment, however, the Oregon coast is unprotected from oil and gas industries drilling off the coast, said Jeremy Wright, environmental advocate for OSPIRG.
The OSPIRG campaign started at LCC and has spread to five chapters statewide, Guymon said.
“People in Eugene should be able to enjoy the Oregon coast without the sight of oil platforms sitting next to Haystack Rock,” Guymon said.
Thirty years ago, in the wake of a giant oil spill in Santa Barbara, Calif., the Oregon legislature agreed that off-shore drilling was a risk to the state’s oceans, coastline, communities and economy. It put a ban on oil and gas industry drilling, said Anne Groundwater, the University co-coordinator of the campaign.
“Little did we know, that law expired in 1995,” Wright said. Since 1995, there has been nothing to prevent oil and gas companies from drilling. “We all thought at the time that the threat was over.”
But because of a string of recent events, including Hurricane Katrina, the fight to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and rising gas prices, the Bush administration wants to open the coasts of America to oil and gas industries, Wright said.
The process of off-shore drilling results in significant environmental impacts, including destruction of essential habitats of fish and marine life, massive discharge of poisonous heavy metals and a hostile environment to marine mammals, according to an OSPIRG press release. It would also severely hurt the economies of towns along the Oregon coast.
“The communities of the Oregon coast are dependent on the fishing and tourism industry for their economy,” Wright said. “Oil and gas drilling will do nothing but harm their key industries so vital to Oregon.”
“We have a unique opportunity to protect a treasure before it is too late,” Groundwater said. “Governor Kulongoski should take steps to ensure that the oil and gas industry does not gain a foothold here in Oregon.”
On Thursday, University students were asked to fill out postcards to the governor asking him to renew the state ban on drilling. OSPIRG representatives are also relaying their campaign message through many radio stations across the state.
The OSPIRG campaign will culminate with a press conference in Newport on March 4, at which Kulongoski will be in attendance.
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