By The Associated Press
BELLINGHAM — Two people have chained themselves to a support ship for Royal Dutch Shell’s exploratory Arctic oil drilling plans.
Eric Ross of the Backbone Campaign said Saturday morning that Matt Fuller joined student activist Chiara Rose in suspending themselves from the anchor chain of the Arctic Challenger, which is in Bellingham Bay.
Rose suspended herself from the ship with a climbing harness Friday night.
The Coast Guard cutter Osprey — which is homeported in Port Townsend — spent the night monitoring Rose but took no action, Petty Officer 3rd Class Katelyn Shearer said Saturday morning.
“We’re really most concerned for her safety and the safety of everyone involved,” Shearer said.
Ross said both Rose and Fuller are fine and are not being harassed by the Coast Guard. But he expressed concern for Rose’s health and said she must be getting dehydrated and tired after her night above the water.
Authorities spoke with the woman and asked her to remove herself.
“There’s no plans right now to do anything further,” Shearer said.
The ship isn’t scheduled to leave the port for several days.
Rob Lewis, a spokesman for the Bellingham activists, said they are protesting Shell’s plan for Arctic drilling.
He described the Arctic Challenger as a savior vessel that is used in the case of an oil leak but said activists doubt its effectiveness at preventing environmental disasters like the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.
He confirmed that the Coast Guard was not interfering with Rose but that they had impounded the activists’ support vessels.
Protesters in Seattle have been demonstrating against another part of the Shell drilling fleet.
Dutch Shell is using Seattle’s seaport terminal to house a massive floating drill rig, the Polar Pioneer, which was towed to Seattle’s Elliott Bay after spending almost a month in Port Angeles Harbor.
Last weekend, hundreds of activists in kayaks swarmed Elliott Bay to protest Shell’s plans to drill for oil in the Arctic. The protest was dubbed the “Paddle in Seattle.”
Those activists have also expressed concern about the risk of an oil spill in the remote Arctic waters and the effect of Shell’s operations on global warming.
Minor damage by barge
On Friday, an official with the state Department of Natural Resources said activists protesting Shell’s plans did some damage to a Seattle dive park.
DNR spokesman Joe Smillie said divers found cement blocks, cables and chains that were used to anchor a 4,000-square-foot protest barge while the kayakers protested last weekend.
Smillie said damage was minimal to the marine habitat, and no one will be fined. But the protesters will have to pay for the cleanup.
“It caught us by surprise. We clearly didn’t have any intention of doing damage to a dive park. It was an honest mistake,” says John Sellers, a Vashon Island resident who led the protest-barge campaign.
[Smillie is a former reporter for the Peninsula Daily News.]
