BP Oil Spill image by Gulf Restoration Network


The Ocean River Institute is alarmed and outraged by the environmental travesties in the Gulf of Mexico being wraught by massive oil leak from a depth of 5,000 feet.
 
The Gulf Restoration Network, ORI’s New Orleans-based partner in the Wear Blue National Oceans Policy (including the Great Lakes) Campaign, is responding to BP’s drilling disaster. GRN staff are:
  • Assessing the situation by boat and air;
  •  Monitoring the movement of the slick as oil reaches shore;
  •  Providing science-based information about the extent and impact of the disaster, containment, and clean up efforts;
  • Pressuring BP to remain fully engaged in clean up efforts; and
  •  Engaging individuals like you to write federal officials calling for a commitment to withdraw support for expanded drilling anywhere off USA coasts!
 
Cyn Sarthou, Executive Director, has been on the telephone weekly with us Wear Blue folks until the recent disaster.  We urge you to visit GRN’s BP Disaster website, which is continually being updated with latest information.   

Together we assist localized environmental actions to make significant impacts for healthy oceans, rivers,  and coastal waters.
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Saved By The Sea, By David Helvarg
 
 
Blue Fronteir President, David Helvarg has devoted his life to the world’s oceans and the people who depend on them. This memoir is the remarkable story of his career in activism and journalism, where his fight to save the oceans has become a visionary and, at times, all consuming cause. From bodysurfing Central American war zones, diving barrier reefs with his tragically fated love Nancy, or being bumped by a whale off Antarctica, David Helvarg has lived a life often as endangered as the ocean he now works to protect.  ‘Saved by the Sea – A Love Story with Fish’ is the well-told tale of this long-time journalist and private investigator’s personal love, loss and redemption in the free flowing heart of our blue planet. 
 
David Helvarg, will present his newest book at the New England Aquarium on Tuesday, May 11 at 7 pm. The Ocean River Institute will host him during his stay in Boston. David will be arriving on Sunday, May 9, and staying till Wednesday, May 12. Drop us a line at ORI if you’d like to catch up with the eminent Seaweed Rebel. You can hear David’s adventures when Rob spoke with David from the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies on Episode 15 - Seaweed Rebels Rally and Wear Blue for President Obama's National Ocean Policy

 
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Lianna Jaracki and Noni Georges photo
 
 
Marine biologist, Lianna Jarecki, PhD, takes Rob into a threatened British Virgin Island salt pond. Lianna explains the complex biology from blue-green algal mats to mangroves with clapper rails, to black-necked stilts and flamingos atop the salt pond food pyramid. In the second half, Noni Georges of the Virgin Islands Environmental Council (VIEC) tells a local version of the David and Goliath story. The largest developers in the world spent millions planning to develop with government permission to disregard all environmental regulations. This would destroy the most pristine portions of the Tortola, Beef Island. Islanders were outraged with the potential loss of mangrove shores, salt ponds and most of all, the Fisheries Protected Area. They took action. A senior paper by a young law student Noni Georges began the legal process. The court case became a first for the Caribbean, where Islanders stood up to developers. Noni explains how VIEC won the case and how this is only the beginning with the developers appealing the decision.
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350 Carbon Rally in Somerville, 2009
 
More Ways To Get Involved!

Visit Ocean River Institute's - Save Our Oceans And Rivers - a cause page on Facebook.  Our cause now has 600 members! Help us reach 1,000!
   
Join ORI's Fan page on Facebook.  Write to us and invite friends to join us. Stay informed with what others are saying about ORI and on all the latest news! Please join us by becoming a fan, today!
 
Twitter OceanRiverRob for fast breaking news and updates.
 
ORI is now a 5-star rated environmental nonprofit on Greatnonprofits.org. Check out our page on this site, write a review, and share the site with friends. Click and see what others are saying about our efforts!

Discover how with the knowledge of Rachel Carson and the courage of Achilles individuals are making a difference for healthier oceans, rivers, watersheds and skies. Choose from twenty podcast episodes of Moir's Environmental  Dialogues, Ocean River Shields of AchillesAlso available free on iTunes, search "Moir's" or "Achilles." 
  


Ocean River Institute
12 Eliot Street | Cambridge, MA 02138 | 617.661.6647