Int'l Surfing Day/Surfrider Foundation

On June 20TH, the Surfrider Foundation and Surfing Magazine will present... THE INTERNATIONAL SURFING DAY SURFRIDER FOUNDATION MEMBERSHIP PACKAGE Here's the deal: Join or renew your Surfrider Foundation membership on International Surfing Day, June 20th, 2009, and Surfing magazine will print your name in its upcoming Green Issue! That way, not only can you brag to your friends that you finally got in Surfing magazine, you can also show them that you're down with keeping our oceans, waves and beaches clean and healthy. In addition to getting your name in the mag and receiving a year's membership to the Surfrider Foundation, we'll also throw in a special limited edition International Surfing Day t-shirt. All this for only $20.00!! And for those of you who really want to go big, we're also offering this killer deal: Join or renew your membership for $620 (as in 6/20) and you'll get your name AND YOUR PHOTO in the magazine!! In addition to your Surfrider Foundation membership, you'll get the International Surfing Day t-shirt, a subscription to Surfing magazine, a Dakine deck pad and leash and an ISD water bottle. To top it off, we'll throw in a limited-edition, 25th Anniversary Surfrider Foundation Casio G-shock solar paneled watch! These offers are only available on International Surfing Day! Go to this webpage on 6/20.

I received the above in an email from Surfrider, and it seemed to be an appropriate message to pass on to as many people as I can. If you'd like to sign up to be a member of the Surfrider Foundation, go to this webpage on 6/20/09 and click on "Become a Member."

The time has never been better, really. Locally, the Outer Banks Chapter of Surfrider is spearheading a campaign to head off an attack on our local beaches by the petroleum industry. Here are some excerpts from a recent email I received from them:

The purpose of this letter is to introduce you to our “Clean Beaches=Healthy Businesses” campaign to stop drilling for oil or natural gas off of North Carolina and to invite you to attend our June 20 informational rally and International Surfing Day event at Bonnett Street in Nags Head.

With last year’s lifting of the federal ban on offshore drilling — and Bush’s last-minute allowance of rigs within three miles of America’s coast — North Carolina is once again in the position of battling back petroleum interests. If it seems like we’ve been here before, we have — roughly every 20 years. But the current fight is our most dire ever since the economic crisis has weakened public support for environmental issues.

If that’s not frightening enough, this March, commissioner Richard Johnson suggested Dare County ‘revisit’ their position to keep oil off our coast. And, from our understanding, as least half of the board is leaning in the direction to let the petroleum companies in, even though NC’s coast generates $15 billion every single year [2002, The Marlow Co.] — $12.5 billion directly from the beach — compared to just $24 billion that the Mineral Management Service estimates the state stands to earn from revenue-sharing from offshore leases after 30 to 40 years.

In other words, our elected officials are seriously considering risking $450 billion in reliable revenue for a chance at $24 billion down the road.

Also: if you haven’t already, please submit a public comment to the Department of Interior (http://www.mms.gov/5-year/2010-2015DPPComments.htm) by Sept. 21. They’re gathering as much input as possible before suggesting which states should get derricks. And even if the current administration is less petroleum-happy than the last, they will gladly sacrifice whatever state seems willing in order to seem ‘reasonable’ to the public at large.

The good news is our chapter fully believes we can fight this one. We had our first meeting down south at Lisa’s Pizza in Rodanthe last week — as well as tabled the Real Triple S kiteboarding event in Waves — where we received lots of positive feedback and got a good chunk of stickers and petitions out. No matter their political leanings, most local businesses seem to recognize that claims like ‘drilling is clean’ and ‘save money at the pump’ are just false promises to get leases while the climate is ripe to snatch up offshore rights. Now our job is to convince our elected officials to listen.

If you can’t make the June 20 ISD event, please go to www.surfrider.org/outerbanks and sign the individual petition there. If you’re a coastal NC business, sign the ‘business sign-on’ as well. And for more info on why this is a terrible risk for our livelihoods and way of life, check out www.nottheanswer.org.

Or, consider this fact: at the kiteboarding contest last week, the only Gulf Coast resident we couldn’t get to sign the petition worked for an oil company – and that was his only reason. Otherwise, any person who’d ever lived in the shadow of oil derricks couldn’t grab a pen fast enough – including a woman who also worked for an oil company in Houston, but still signed because – in her words – “Galveston’s a s--t-hole.”

That’s why she flew from Texas to Hatteras. That’s why people come all the way from Quebec. Why Pennsylvania tourists come here – instead of Jersey. It’s why Jersey residents drive eight hours south instead of their very own beaches: to enjoy a purely natural ocean experience, free of not just oil rigs but the very image of big industry and pollution.

So, if you have a second, and care about Hatteras staying Hatteras-ey, please check out some of the links, sign the petitions, support Surfrider, and help make a difference. I don't want to risk getting oil gunk lodged in my sinuses the next time I get worked at the Lighthouse. Do you? And as most of my readers are visitors from out of town, your names mean more on the petitions, since you're basically saying that you would not come back to Hatteras if there were oil rigs offshore and petroleum funk on the beaches! Thanks for your help!