BP just announced that drilling at their controversial Liberty Island site in the Arctic’s Beaufort Sea has been postponed “beyond 2013.”
While this is good news because the dangerous drilling has been delayed, we are disappointed that the federal government has continually refused to permanently cancel this dangerous offshore oil drilling project in Alaska’s Arctic.
Is BP continuing to delay the project because they’re finally realizing the dangers involved? We can’t sit back and hope BP will cancel the project or continue to postpone it, the government needs to cancel the project now, preventing it from ever starting up.
The drilling that BP is proposing is insane. It calls for a well to be drilled that extends two miles below the seabed and then six to eight miles sideways to get at the oil they believe lies below federal waters in the Beaufort Sea. You read that correctly: drill two miles down, then drill six to eight miles sideways.
It’s a disaster waiting to happen in a place where oil spill cleanup is impossible, and where BP is already under fire for record-setting oil spills in Alaska’s Arctic in the last four years. We can’t let this happen.
Over 22,000 people have already spoken up and taken action on behalf of the environment and Arctic wildlife. Please join by telling Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, to cancel this project for good by denying BP’s application to drill for the Liberty Island project!
