PORT ANGELES — Protesters witnessing the arrival of the Polar Pioneer in Port Angeles Harbor on Friday morning were aghast at the sheer size of the vessel.
As he watched the 400-foot-long and 355-feet-high vessel enter the bay on the back of the MV Blue Marlin, Olympic Climate Action founding member Ed Chadd of Port Angeles wondered what people living here in ancient times would have thought.
“Looking at that mammoth structure coming in, just covering the horizon, [I thought of] the native people who lived here for thousands of years on these beaches and imagined what would have gone through their minds had they seen a monstrosity like this coming into the harbor,” he said.
About eight members of Greenpeace, along with members of Port Angeles-based Olympic Climate Action and Shell No Action Coalition of Seattle, were present at the peaceful protest, which wrapped up late in the morning to early afternoon.
No protesters were reported in the area Saturday.
The protesters — which numbered about two dozen — oppose the resumption of exploratory oil drilling in Arctic waters off Alaska, saying exploration companies are ill-equipped in the event of a spill.
“How in the heck can we stop this thing? It is just so huge,” wondered Olympic Climate Action member Dan Burdick of Port Angeles.
“I think it is a blot on the landscape,” added Emily Johnston of 350 Seattle. “It is monstrous. It is a dragon, and we are dragon slayers.”
The Polar Pioneer is expected to anchor in the harbor for routine outfitting for about two weeks before being floated to Seattle.
Drew Griggs of Sequim, another member of Olympic Climate Action at the protest, was impressed by the advanced technology and engineering it took to build the Polar Pioneer but believed its purpose to be “insane.”
The technology “is incredible,” he said. “It is amazing. And so are nuclear bombs — incredible yet destructive, as this is destructive.
“It represents to me all that is insane about drilling for oil in a seabed . . . and just the pure insanity of thinking that we can control what is going to happen, especially in an environment” as hostile as the Arctic.
The ever-looming presence of the oil rig, now the largest man-made structure present on the North Olympic Peninsula, brings the battle against big oil’s expansion into the Arctic to area residents’ backyard, Burdick said.
“It just makes it real. And it doesn’t benefit the man on the street. . . . It doesn’t benefit the working people of this country. What it does do is bring fuel out of the ground for the profits of a very few” at the cost of the environment.
Johnston said drilling in the Arctic will exacerbate the effects of climate change — global warming — caused by carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.
She said Shell Oil could drill in the Arctic only because there is less ice due to global warming, “and to wreck a place that is pristine, [causing] further catastrophic climate change, is just unfathomable.”
Several self-named “kayaktavists” entered Port Angeles Harbor in kayaks and inflatable boats at about 7 a.m. Friday to confront the behemoth oil rig.
Owned by Transocean Ltd., the drilling rig was escorted into the bay by a variety of enforcement agency vessels, including Coast Guard control boats and a Clallam County Sheriff’s Office patrol boat enforcing a 500-yard buffer zone around the Blue Marlin while it was in motion.
The Coast Guard was assisted by the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office, Port Angeles Police Department and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which, like the Coast Guard, are agencies of the Department of Homeland Security.
“Everybody went out and protested peacefully and respected the federal regulations around the vessels, and they stayed safe during the vessel’s maneuvering for position for anchorage,” said Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Dana Warr.
“We consider that a success for the day.”
Port Angeles Deputy Police Chief Brian Smith said Friday there were no incidents where protesters were stationed near the Ediz Hook entry gate to Coast Guard Air Station/Sector Field Office Port Angeles.
“We had no issues to report,” he said.
“They were very friendly, and we had no boating mishaps or any other issues.”
Clallam County Undersheriff Ron Cameron, who also was at Ediz Hook on Friday morning, said the Sheriff’s Office patrol boat Protector, staffed by two deputies, assisted with the escort.
“The Coast Guard wants as big a presence as we can [have],” he said as the Polar Pioneer rounded the Hook early Friday morning.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052 or at cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.
