Groups Call for Precautions Before Sale of Drilling Rights

At a Boston Harbor rally Saturday legislators, representatives of environmental groups, and the fishing industry called on the government to postpone its sale of offshore oil drilling rights on George's Bank until it can provide adequate oil spill safeguards to protect the area's fisheries.

The sale, currently scheduled for December 18, will open a tract off Cape Cod--one of the world's richest fishing grounds--to exploratory drilling. Groups protesting the sale said that the Department of Interior's decision underestimates the roughness of the area's waters and the value of its fisheries.

"These are the wildest waters in the world. It's called the graveyard of the Atlantic, and this is where they propose to start drilling without proper safeguards," Francis Sargent, former governor of Massachusetts, said to the crowd of about 75.

Robert Howard, a biologist at the Marine Biological Labs at Woods Hole, said the Department of the Interior doesn't understand that the fisheries are worth far more than the oil under George's Bank. "If developed and drilled all at one time, the oil from the bank would support the U.S. for only five to eight days," he said.

Eat Your Protein

Howard added that the United States would use six times the energy it can extract from the area if it had to replace the protein produced by the fisheries with processed food protein.

Several speakers at the rally said the oil and gas supplies from the Bank will not disappear and can be exploited later when better safeguards for oil spills are available.

[Frank Tivan, associate director of the Massachusetts Petroleum Council, said last, week offshore operations in the North Sea, Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico were proof that drilling does not damage the ocean environment. "The catch of fish in the North Sea has increased four times. Rigs didn't impede the fishing industry," Tivan said.]

We're There

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy '54 (D-Mass.) and Sen. Paul E. Tsongas (D-Mass.) issued statements in support of the rally although neither was able to attend the activities.

Despite the chilly blustering winds near the Boston Tea Party Ship where the rally was held, organizers dumped empty crates marked "Fish Not Oil from George's Bank" and "Save Our Jobs" overboard after the speeches.