A 21 day oil spill
- Details
- Published on Tuesday, 29 September 2015 19:15
- Written by editor
A,
In less than 24 hours, more than 1500 of you used our brand-new letter-to-the-editor tool to call on the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board to reject Shell’s application to drill in the Shelburne Basin.
And from coast to coast, your opinions were heard, including this powerful letter from Daina Scarola printed in the Halifax Chronicle Herald:
“Nova Scotia is our home and we’re its custodians, responsible for protecting our people, land, wildlife and ocean. Our tourism and livelihoods are dependant on our pristine coasts.
The Harper government has accepted, with conditions, an environmental assessment that is one step in Shell Oil’s application to drill for oil off the coast of Nova Scotia. The drilling would happen in the Shelburne Basin, near major fishing grounds and the Sable Island National Park Reserve. We are stronger than Big Oil thinks we are. Let’s not let them bully us into a guaranteed natural disaster…”
And this letter from Dori Tucker, printed in the Vancouver Sun:
“...Final approval of the deal is up to the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board. One of the members of the board is a retired Shell executive appointed by the Conservatives. Douglas Gregory worked for Shell for 30 years and was responsible for opening the company’s offshore division in Nova Scotia before retiring in 2003. His participation in making the decision on this application raises huge concerns about objectivity in this matter.”
It’s been a tough week for Shell. Just yesterday, the oil giant announced that it’s abandoning its plans to drill in the Arctic in the face of mounting public opposition and disappointing results from its test wells.
But Shell is even more determined to succeed in Canada now that it’s failed in the Arctic. In fact, it has 4 ships standing by in Halifax Harbour waiting for the green light to start drilling.
Your letters have made a real difference -- together, we’re keeping up the pressure on the CNSOPB to do the right thing and reject Shell’s application.
Thank you for standing up for the coast and against big oil,
Angus, Liz, Emma and the rest of the SumOfUs Canada team
p.s. So many of you wrote a letter last week that you broke our system! If you were one of the small number of people who entered your postal code last Thursday and got a message that there were no papers in your area, we apologize. We worked quickly to correct this error and rest assured, we were able to submit your letters.
SumOfUs is a worldwide movement of people like you, working together to hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable path for our global economy. Please help keep SumOfUs strong by chipping inr0
