Activists Protest Off-Shore Drilling in Long Beach
Climate activist and organizer Miles Aiello led more than a dozen demonstrators in a protest of off-shore drilling in Long Beach on Nov. 6 outside the Long Beach City Hall.
The protest is the latest demonstration calling for the end of off-shore drilling since the Oct. 1 spill of 30,000 gallons of oil that leaked from a pipeline connecting an oil drilling platform just off the Orange County coast with the Port of Long Beach. Though the cause of the spill is still under investigation, Coast Guard officials believe it was caused by a freighter dragging its anchor over the pipeline, cutting into it. The spill led numerous local public officials, including Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell, to call for an end to offshore oil drilling off the Southern California coast.
O’Donnell has a bill that’s been languishing in the assembly for the past nine months that would get the state to start setting aside money again to pay for the eventual abandonment of Long Beach oil wells. He believes his bill will get new life.
“I think the topic will receive a lot more attention next year because we had an oil spill,” O’Donnell reportedly said last month.