A crowd of approximately 70 people gathered in Gulfport last night to hear representatives from the Sierra Club, as well as a public official and an assistant to U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, talk about the latest developments locally as the gigantic oil spill off of Louisiana’s coast remains floating in the Gulf of Mexico.
The confab was convened by the Sierra Club’s Cathy Harrelson, one of the activists who led the local “Hands Across the Sand” protest against offshore oil drilling last February. Harrelson talked last night about trying to coordinate a national Hands Across the Sand protest, but that proposal appears to be still in the conceptual stage.
Activists agreed to hold an event this Friday night in the same area, the Gulfport open pavilion on Boca Ciega Bay .
They listened and asked questions of District 54 Democratic House Representative Jim Frishe, who gave an update on the giant plume based on information he's getting from the state's department of environmental protection.
One man in the audience angrily denounced BP for having a poor safety record, and asked whether the legislature was going to get Congress to address the fact that the oil giant had ignored those calls.
