Dear Friend and Reader:
Friday, the Oregon congressional delegation asked the Navy to extend the public comment period on its plan to take over the Oregon coastline as a practice firing range, Planet Waves has learned. We obtained this letter sent by the state’s two senators and four representatives to Donald Winter, the Secretary of the Navy.
In the letter, the deletation said that “many citizens who live in potentially affected areas along the Oregon coast have expressed concern and frustration at the lack of public notice and the limited time to provide official comments to the U.S. Navy.” They asked that the comment deadline be extended from Feb. 11 to April 11, citing the length and technical complexity of the issue as reasons.
“Coastal residents have raised questions and serious concerns about the impact of the Navy’s plans on coastal fisheries, tourism, ongoing efforts to develop alternative energy sources, and marine mammal research,” the legislators wrote.
The letter came after a series of articles by Planet Waves published in this space earlier this week, written by one of our writers in Oregon, brought the issue to national attention.
Here is the full text of the letter. The PDF is above.
Yours & truly,
Kristenb
“Have you ever been on an oil spilled beach? I have in Alaska. It stinks!”
The entire Texas coastline has been stained with continuous oil leakage from the thousandthousand rigs. The sand is sort of grey now. If you walk up into the dunes you can see that it is cleaner, but nothing like my childhood.
I haven’t taken my kid down into the water in three years. Dolphins who turn up in my dreamstates are all at the HGG point, saying: it’s getting harder to swim through this drek.
Presumably it is better as you go east. I hear from friends on the Florida panhandle that the beaches are cleaner. I wonder, did Jeb ban offshore drilling?
“The People’s Coast” is Oregon coastline. See OCVA for cute logo, lovely photographs, and other visitor information [visittheoregoncoast.com]
There is some history here of Oregon coastline, ocean law and process:
[www.oregon.gov/LCD/OCMP/docs/Ocean/otsp_1-a.pdf]
I’ll send the list of parks and rec sites in – it is long for Oregon section – but highlights I feel amount of impact, especially given there *would* be toxins released, oil spills, etc. Ugh.
Have you ever been on an oil spilled beach? I have in Alaska. It stinks!
Thunder lightening snowstorm! Take as sign to complete list of public access lands along pacific coast to share with everyone, as if anyone herein needs to know just how much would be lost via all sorts of nasty environmental ‘ACCIDENTS’.
This is great news–been watching this fight and meaning to say that those working on this might want to research Chesapeake Bay and EMPRESS project–there was some success fighting that in the late 80s. Also in the Bay, Navy actually did documented harm (blasting destroyed tons of fish) after claiming there would be no effects, so that’s some more ammunition. Some tactics/documentation from that fight may help.
Wooohooo! Or as starfish say, ‘Sssshhupperrr!’
V…”walking at a 45 degree angle to the ground. ”
Yes and no. The ground was vertical, so the walkers appeared to be on their backs, walking straight up. Wasn’t the first time I saw that particular person cancel gravity.
It was more ‘impressive’ then, back when we had standard gravity. Not so much now, largely due to these quantum bubbles called computers. We’ve all noticed the time/jack effects. Next comes space.
M
have you ever seen anyone walking at a 45 degree angle to the ground. Weird. We locked eyes. I was in the big truck. He crosswalked in front of me. We were locked but his body kept walking and his head stayed where we locked. I broke before his body did.
The other weird one I had, and I am sure this one is familiar, is at the stop sign when the car in front of you pulls forward and you feel like you are moving backwards.
Moving through space in the passenger seat (for a change) has been kinduv a rush too, lately. I don’t have to focus, I just speed through the air, noticeably so.
Mystes~Now that you’ve pointed this out I must say that in these flashes I’ve never been “falling” at all…just floating around like in a free-fall pose!
Another strange blip I experienced the other day was when I got out of my car after arriving home from work. I started walking to my mail box and had the sensation of walking on top of a very small sphere, like a circus performer rolling a ball under her feet. I still felt like this was my planet earth, and not a small ball really, but all around me were other spheres…slight breeze blowing my hair back. I felt buoyant…but it only lasted a few minutes. I’ve had several smiles remembering the feeling though…
Definitely something’s shifted. I feel opened up a bit.
VL writes: “The last few days I’ve been getting this image of free falling, arms outstretched, smiling at those of you as we make eye contact, sometimes holding hands.”
Fe, sound familiar?
Now, my angels, if you look very closely you will notice that the landscape is moving *parallel* to you.
(“Valkyries,” not so much… sKycatchers, closer… the trick is to fall UP… practice in the saltwater, let it lift you as you sink… Relax. Rerelax… then when you think you can’t unravel any more, use the ecstatic current to relax even *more* steep&deeply)
Gravity is getting ready to become less a law and more of a suggestion.
M
Fellow “explorers of the infinite abyss”…The last few days I’ve been getting this image of free falling, arms outstretched, smiling at those of you as we make eye contact, sometimes holding hands.
We’re all connected, even to the world that sustains us all. Turn on your light, be that “ripple in still water, when there is no pebble tossed, nor wind to blow.”
This is just the beginning (of the beginning).
I am pinching myself. I am seeing what I am seeing and reading it.
Good job, Planet Wavers, and all you visiting silent Kossacks as well.
Now onward. There is more work to do!!!
I’m not sure I would be doing this if I didn’t keep seeing that “green” comet.
My question on this movement is the media. It is an opportunity for global awareness. My problem with this is that it seems to be a fear factor that drives us. We are all gonna die if we don’t get this together. And talk of dead whales and ice surfin polar bears and global warming is freaking the kids out. From my standpoint, we need to focus on the challenge of changing. What is the product we are working towards producing? Many lovely tv programs show us pristine environments and then tourists flock there and screw it all up. There needs to be a respect for these places as to how they fit into the planet ecosystem. If you aren’t quite sure about the interactive ecosystem, there is a sweet little film called The Queen of the Trees on the African sycamore fig. I’m sure there are more.
And all the science is being funded by entrepreneurs. Example: The Jan/Feb issue of Science Illustrated tells of a desert creature, the thorny devil, a lizard I guess. This little guy absorbs water through his feet and into his body. How adaptable is that. We can’t just accept that. We are “creating synthetic versions of these structures to collect lifesaving water in the world’s deserts.” We just gotta use discovery to make more for us.
So are there press releases on the coastline that can be distributed to media outlets? And I mean continual. We can distribute?
There is a thing about youth and energy. This last year I did my own fight on the home front to preserve the natural stormwater management system, ie the floodplain in my neighborhood. I was discussing the photos with a young man at the counter and he said if you handed this over to the ecology club at the hs, there would be a group camped out there at all times. There are some young men at the county level that must have grown up with Kermit the Frog or something, but they were there to handle it on a government level with local input of concerned citizens.
So, if I could get some hs level press copy, I would be willing to approach this ecology club and challenge them to communicate with other ecology clubs with a focus on the west coast.
I have a lead into the local elementary science department. I am willing to discuss with the teachers in an effort to provide ocean awareness to the kids they teach. I would also ask them to network with their fellow science teachers in other places. My goal is to get the crayons going and to inundate places of power with those pictures.
Why is the ocean important? Do I get a copy out there anywhere?