From PennEnvironment (http://www.pennenvironment.org):
Imagine that every 10 to 12 seconds, blasts interrupt your life so loudly that they not only disturb your day, but disorient you and interfere with your ability to communicate and eat. And this continues for hours, or even days. For a whale or dolphin, that’s what life is like while swimming near seismic testing.1
But the Interior Department has been quietly continuing to process permits for seismic testing in the Atlantic.2
Tell Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to protect marine wildlife from seismic blasting at https://pennenvironment.webaction.org/p/dia/action4/common/public/?action_KEY=36360.
Here’s how animals experience seismic blasting:
From the ocean’s surface, huge ships fire blasts of air deep into the water. Because whales and dolphins rely on echolocation to navigate and hunt, the blasts interfere with their way of life, and have been known to deafen dolphins and cause whales to beach themselves. The blasts, and their impacts, travel through the water as far as the distance of a flight from New York City to Las Vegas.3,4
The waters off the Atlantic Coast are safe from drilling (for now) — but not from seismic blasting.
Seismic blasting is only used to find oil under the ocean floor. There’s no reason to do it now that the Trump administration’s offshore drilling plans for the Atlantic Ocean have been shelved — especially since it harms marine life.
Currently, six seismic testing companies have seven permits pending in parts of the Atlantic from New Jersey to Florida.5
If seismic blasting is approved off of the Atlantic Coast, the effects of seismic blasting will be even more harmful to the North Atlantic right whales, one of the world’s most endangered species with just about 400 whales remaining.6
Add your name to stop seismic blasting off of our coasts.
Last year, dolphins, whales and sea turtles were put in jeopardy when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued permission slips to five major oil and natural gas companies to conduct seismic blasting off of the Atlantic coast as a part of the administration’s plans to dill up and down the coast.
We spoke out, sending the Interior thousands of petition signatures against the project, and its use of seismic testing. A judge sidelined that project, but the seismic blasting permits are still being processed for future drilling.
Speaking out against seismic blasting has worked before, so we know we can make a difference by speaking out now.
1. Sarah Gibbens, “How whales and dolphins may be harmed by new seismic airgun approval,” National Geographic, November 30, 2018.
2. Valerie Volvovici, Nichola Groom, “U.S. still processing Atlantic Seismic permits despite drilling plan delay,” Reuters, April 29, 2019.
3. Jennifer A. Dlouhy, “Trump Paves Way for Air Guns to Search for Atlantic Oil,” Bloomberg, November 30, 2018.
4. Sarah Gibbens, “How whales and dolphins may be harmed by new seismic airgun approval,” National Geographic, November 30, 2018.
5. Bo Petersen “Conservationists win court round against oil drilling offshore SC,” The Post and Courier, January 7, 2020.
6. Sarah Gibbens, “How whales and dolphins may be harmed by new seismic airgun approval,” National Geographic, November 30, 2018.
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