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With the possibility of offshore drilling in the Mid-Atlantic looming again, islanders will once again participate in Hands Across the Sand demonstration at 11:30 a.m. Saturday (May 20) at the Lifeguard Beach.
Everyone is asked to meet at 11:30 a.m. at the beach, and all will hold hands at noon for 15 minutes, said Mickey Baker, one of the organizers. She also wants to create a huge “RESIST” statement in the sand. All are invited to participate.
“We will be joining many, many other seaside villages and towns up and down both coasts of the USA,” Baker wrote on the event Facebook page at Hands Across the Sand – Ocracoke Island, OBX.
This world-wide event began in 2010 and grew into an international movement after the BP oil disaster in April that year. People came together to join hands, forming symbolic barriers against spilled oil and to stand against the impacts of other forms of extreme energy.
Last year, the demonstration on the island was low key because the U.S. Department of the Interior announced in March a decision to exclude waters off North Carolina from a new oil and gas leasing plan.
Baker is a founding member of LegaSea, a grass-roots group formed in the late 1980s that led to a 20-year moratorium on drilling off the coast.
For more information, go to: http://handsacrossthesand.org.
All of this is understandable – concern in these situations is warranted, but safety procedures now make drilling a lot safer than it was when the BP Oil disaster occurred.
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