The proposal to open 90 percent of the nation’s coastline – including the North Atlantic – to oil and gas exploration draws widespread opposition at an event held by federal officials in Augusta.
March 8, 2018 — AUGUSTA, Maine — Fishermen, environmentalists and lawmakers from Maine’s coast called on the Trump administration Wednesday to exclude the North Atlantic from a plan to potentially reopen much of the nation’s coastline to oil and gas exploration.
Representatives with the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management were in Augusta for an open house-style event to field questions about President Trump’s controversial offshore energy proposal. The draft plan released in January calls for reopening 90 percent of the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards to oil and gas drilling, a seismic shift from the 6 percent now available to energy companies. The public comment period on the draft plan closes Friday.
Just two of the 47 proposed lease sales would be in the North Atlantic region stretching from Maine to New Jersey. But the mere prospect of oil drilling in the Gulf of Maine or Georges Bank – and the accompanying environmental risks – was enough to draw more than 60 people to a pre-emptive event held before the bureau’s open house.
Kristan Porter, a fisherman from Cutler who is president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, recalled how one of his predecessors told Congress in 1970 that Maine fishermen were “100 percent against” allowing oil drilling in the Gulf of Maine. Nearly 50 years later, Porter said, nothing has changed.
“Allowing the exploration of oil and gas … could devastate our fisheries, our fishermen and our communities,” Porter said at a news conference. “Maine’s fishing industries are dependent on Maine’s clean water. Even minor spills could irreparably damage the Gulf of Maine.”
Porter was joined at the event by representatives of the Natural Resources Council of Maine and other environmental groups, the aquaculture industry, tourism advocates, and Democratic, Republican and independent politicians. All four members of Maine’s congressional delegation also oppose the plan.
Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald