PORT ANGELES — Members of Olympic Climate Action will be at the Port Angeles Farmers Market on Saturday to advocate opposition to Arctic oil drilling.
Olympic Climate Action, which is based on the North Olympic Peninsula, will have an information table at the market at the corner of Front and Lincoln Streets. The market will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Greenpeace — which had representatives protesting in Port Angeles on April 17 as the Polar Pioneer, a semi-submersible oil rig owned by Transocean Ltd., arrived in the harbor — has not reported plans to return this weekend.
It is busy with an anti-drilling rally scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday at 3130 Alaskan Way in Seattle, according to a news release.
The 355-foot-tall Polar Pioneer will be offloaded from the semi-submersible heavy-lift ship MV Blue Marlin, which piggybacked the huge mobile oil rig from Asia.
The oil rig will be outfitted in Port Angeles and towed to Seattle for final preparations.
Royal Dutch Shell plans to use the rig to drill for oil reserves believed to be at the bottom of the Chukchi Sea, located north of the Bering Strait off the coast of Alaska.
On April 6, six Greenpeace activists boarded the Polar Pioneer about 750 miles northwest of Hawaii and remained there for about six days before leaving the vessel.
Protests are expected in Seattle over the use of the oil rig.
Nickname the rig
Along with offering information, Olympic Climate Change representatives will conduct a “nickname the rig” contest, with the winner receiving a $10 voucher for the farmers market, said Ed Chadd of Port Angeles, a founding member of the group.
The group is opposed to Shell’s plans to drill for oil reserves.
The group believes drilling in the Arctic will exacerbate the effects of climate change — global warming — caused by carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.
The rush to drill in the Arctic “is nothing less than a cynical bid to pump the very last dollar out of the ground, the consequences be damned,” Chadd said.
The Polar Pioneer is one of two drill rigs Shell officials hope to use for exploratory drilling in the Arctic.
The second drill rig, Noble Discoverer, will pass through the Strait of Juan de Fuca on its way to Seattle sometime in May and will not stop in Port Angeles, according to Shell Oil Co. spokeswoman Megan Baldino.
For more information about Olympic Climate Action, visit www.olyclimate.org.
________
Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.
