Hi Mother Jones Reader,

When offshore drilling proposals threatened the Atlantic coast, the Southern Environmental Law Center fought alongside partners and advocates like you – and won. We need your voice again to protect our coast from destructive offshore industry proposals. 

Recently, the Trump Administration announced that it is considering opening federal waters off Virginia’s coast to seabed mining. The proposed lease area sits just north of the Chesapeake Bay, the nation’s largest estuary, and spans more than 2,700 square miles—an area larger than the state of Delaware. These offshore waters support vast commercial and recreational fisheries and provide important migratory habitat for the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, as well as four different species of federally protected sea turtles.

We’re concerned about the many negative impacts that seabed mining could have both offshore and onshore. 

Seabed mining would remove enormous volumes of seafloor material from the bottom of the ocean and generate large plumes of sediment that could move well beyond the mining footprint, putting the region’s wildlife and fisheries at risk. Mining the ocean floor could also release toxic contaminants currently locked up in seafloor sediments and threaten fragile coastal ecosystems.

Coastal communities in Virginia—and partners up and down the East coast—successfully opposed offshore drilling in the Atlantic alongside the Southern Environmental Law Center, the largest nonprofit, nonpartisan environmental legal advocacy organization rooted in and focused on the South. We can do so again. The threat is new, but we’re no strangers to defending the Atlantic Coast. Speak up to protect our coasts and wildlife: tell BOEM we don’t want this extractive industry in our beloved oceans.

Thank you for standing up for our coast,

Southern Environmental Law Center
120 Garrett St Ste 400, Charlottesville, VA 22902