No Oil Drilling on East Coast

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) is applauding President Obama’s decision not to pursue offshore drilling on the Eastern Seaboard.

“The Chesapeake Bay is a national treasure, and drilling offshore poses unjustifiable risks to the Bay, its living resources, the tourism economy, and the many jobs dependent on clean water.  Watermen dependent on blue crabs are especially at risk.  A spill could devastate the crab industry,” said Roy A. Hoagland, CBF Vice President for Environmental Protection and Restoration. “The President is right in saying ‘no’ to offshore drilling along the Eastern Seaboard.”

The waters off the mouth of the Bay are indistinguishable both biologically and hydrologically from the Chesapeake. Ninety percent of the blue crab population utilizes those waters during the early life cycle stages. The crab larvae can float miles out into the ocean at the top centimeter of the water column (vulnerable to even the smallest oil spill) after they are spawned at the mouth of the Bay.

Last March, when President Obama called for the opening of oil and gas drilling leases off the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, CBF immediately opposed the proposal.

source: CBF press release