Ted Danson and Oceana have organized a new petition to President Obama to reject the use of seismic testing (to search for oil and gas deposits) off the Atlantic Coast.
The petition was launched on April 15th and must reach 100,000 by May 15th to trigger a written response from the Obama Administration.
Getting the administration to take up this issue is the first step to ensuring this destructive practice doesn’t happen on the Atlantic Coast and gathering 100,000 signatures will ensure that administration considers the plea.
BACKGROUND ON SEISMIC TESTING
Seismic testing is currently being considered to search for oil and gas off the Atlantic coast. In this process, seismic airguns shoot intense blasts of sound through the water – 100,000 times louder than a jet engine – in an effort to map mineral deposits below the seafloor. According to the Department of the Interior, seismic airguns in the Atlantic would injure or kill 138,500 dolphins and whales, including some endangered North Atlantic right whales. Hundreds of thousands of fishing and tourism jobs depend on a healthy Atlantic coast. Ted Danson’s petition calls on President Obama to protect East Coast fisheries and ecosystems by rejecting seismic airguns.
Watch video about Seismic Testing here.
The practice of building support for an issue on The White House website is relatively novel. Introduced by the Obama administration in 2011, it now has a threshold of 100,000 online signers in order to prompt an official response from The White House. As of April 24, Danson’s petition has more than 20,000 signers. It has until May 15 to reach the 100,000 threshold.
To support the petition, click here.
