ABOVE: North Atlantic right whales
FLICKR, LAUREN PACKARD, NOAA
Environmental groups filed a lawsuit in South Carolina yesterday (December 11) to prevent seismic airgun blasting to search for oil and gas in the Atlantic Ocean, according to a media release posted by Oceana, one of the participating environmental advocacy organizations. The suit comes in response to federal approval of permits to five companies to probe for fossil fuels off the coast of the eastern seaboard, the first step in a larger plan to offer federal offshore leases to the oil and gas industry and possibly open the Atlantic to offshore drilling for the first time in about 50 years.
In November, the National Marine Fisheries Service, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, approved the oil and gas exploration, saying that the seismic blasts do not harm wildlife and that any unintentional injuries or death by the companies would ...
