"BP Blowout One Year Later: Drilling Safety an Explosive Issue"

"Hundreds of activists protesting fossil fuels marched to the Department of the Interior's headquarters today and swarmed inside, calling for the abolition of offshore oil drilling, coal mining and tar sands extraction. The demonstration was timed to mark the one year anniversary of the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout on April 20, 2010 that killed 11 workers and spilled 4.9 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Police report 21 people were arrested, including residents of California, Georgia, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Wyoming, and Washington, DC.

'For all practical purposes, Louisiana and the Gulf Coast function as a third world resource colony within the U.S. For a hundred years, our people and ecosystems have been sacrificed to provide cheap energy and big profits,' said Devin Martin, a native Cajun from southern Louisiana.


'We pay for the hidden costs of oil and gas with our health and our lives through air pollution, oil spills, and a completely corrupted state government. We already lose a football field of coastal marsh every 38 minutes, and now rising sea levels from climate change will put my home, including New Orleans, under water permanently.'

Today's march and sit-in are a preview of Rising Tide North America's "Day of Action against Extraction" set for April 20."

Environment News Service had the story April 18, 2011.

SEE ALSO:

"Scientists: Gulf of Mexico Health Nearly at Pre-Spill Level" (AP)

"The BP Oil Spill: How Healthy Is the Gulf One Year Later?" (TIME)