On March 5 in Olympia, we had a packed room at the people’s hearing that we held in tandem with BOEM’s open house on offshore drilling.
The day opened with a welcome from Nisqually Tribal Councilmembers Hanford McCloud and Willie Frank III. They headed up our keynote speakers that also included emcee Mayor Dingler of Ocean Shores, WA, Attorney General Bob Ferguson, Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz, State Senator Kevin Ranker, Mark Ballow co-owner of Brady Shellfish, Johannes Ariens a Coastal business owner, and Jessica Helsley of the Coast Salmon Partnership. They stood together to stand up to this outrageous plan to drill off of the coast of Washington.
Then our friends with 350 Seattle, who’s “Toxic Asset” team dressed in hazmat suits led us in a chant to kick off the people’s hearing.
Over 250 people attended and over 50 testified, including a delegation of folks from the coastal community in Grays Harbor county. Attendees wore blue for clean water.
Folks had the opportunity to check out information at tables from participating groups, play climate chaos jenga, participate in a fun photo booth, watch a brief video on offshore drilling from our colleagues at Surfrider, and eat pizza with us during the break!
It was amazing to have great turnout after the original February 5th date was unexpectedly cancelled by the venue with less than 24 hours notice. We did it all again and successfully re-built the buzz leading up to the reschedule a month later.
Together with Surfrider, 350Seattle/350Tacoma, ReSource Media, and Washington Environmental Council we provided the opportunity for the public to raise their voices and say no to big oil in WA state!!
A press roundup and report is attached from our colleagues at Re-Source media. Photos below from 350Tacoma.
Major thanks to Izzy Goodman and Margie Van Cleve for internal coordination support throughout this process and to Jess Koski, Michelle Piñon, and Alex Craven for support organizing!!