There’s a good reason to go to the beach this Saturday, whether you live in Santa Cruz, California, or Omaha, Nebraska (and you didn’t think they had a beach …). Activists in all 50 states and 31 countries are gathering at noon to hold hands and call for a stop to offshore oil drilling.
The idea is the brainchild of Dave Rauschkolb of Rosemary Beach, in the Florida Panhandle. The first event was held on Feb. 13, months before Deepwater Horizon caused gooey globs of oil and tar to be vomited up on the beaches near his hometown. Today the situation is much more serious, following the disaster and the on-again, off-again moratorium on deep-sea drilling, which was overturned by a federal judge in Louisiana.
Local events will be held at various beaches across the county. In Santa Cruz, this includes Blacks Beach, Cowell’s Beach, Main Beach and Seabright State Beach. In Watsonville, participants will meet at Sunset Beach, and in Aptos, at Rio del Mar State Beach and Seascape Resort. The event starts at 11am, and participants will be holding hands for 15 minutes starting at noon. Organizers speak hopefully of getting enough people involved to create a chain stretching 10 miles between New Brighton and Sunset beaches.
Seascape Beach will also be the site of a candlelight vigil at 8:30pm Saturday night. So get ready for a day at the beach this Saturday. Hands Across The Sand is endorsed by national environmental organizations including Sierra Club, Audubon, Surfrider, Oceana, Greenpeace, Defenders of Wildlife, Alaska Wilderness League, Ocean Conservancy, Friends of the Earth, Environment America, 350, MoveOn.org, Center for Biological Diversity and CleanEnergy.org. Read more at the Santa Cruz Sentinelhttp://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_15374258l.
