Go Green Campaign News

Protest targets oil drilling, dependence on coal

By Marcus Green • June 26, 2010

With a coal barge drifting along the Ohio River as a backdrop, the Sierra Club initiated a protest Saturday that took aim at offshore oil drilling and Kentucky's dependence on coal.

The movement, "Hands Across the Sand," occurred at hundreds of places across the nation Saturday. The local event included 77 people -- and two dogs -- who lined up at Louisville's Cox Park to support changes in energy use and priorities.

Among those attending was Noelle Murawski of Akron, Ohio, who was visiting family in Louisville.

"It's a good thing to stand up about," she said.

In her remarks to the crowd, Sierra Club representative Lauren McGrath cited the deadly BP oil spill off Louisiana's coast and the April explosion at a Massey Energy mine in West Virginia -- a disaster that killed 29 men -- as reasons to move beyond coal and oil.

"Both coal and oil are not our future," she said.

In an interview, McGrath raised the prospect of additional wind and solar energy and said a radical change in the nation's energy sources could be accomplished quickly. She noted that the United States' space program sent an astronaut to the moon less than 10 years after setting that goal.

The Sierra Club, a leading environmental group, has a long-range goal for the nation to have a "sustainable" energy system within the next two decades, according to the state's Cumberland chapter.

"We're saying as America we want to see a jumpstart in a clean energy economy and that America should be leading this innovation," McGrath said.

Bill Bissett, president of the Kentucky Coal Association, did not attend the event. But he said in a telephone interview that alternative energy such as wind and solar power can't fuel Kentucky and maintain the state's economy.

"It would cause our electric bills to skyrocket. Once again, this so-called 'beyond coal campaign' attacks our energy industry with no real solutions. It's more of a 'head in the sand' event than anything else," Bissett said.

Also speaking at Cox Park was Louisville filmmaker Ben Evans, who assailed the $4.1 billion Ohio River Bridges Project as an "asphalt and concrete jungle" that he called a "monument to oil," bringing applause.

Evans supports independent mayoral candidate Jackie Green and said he backs Green's position that no new roads (correction: no new Ohio River bridges) be considered before Louisville buildings a comprehensive public transit system.

Green was the only candidate for mayor who attended the event.

U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-3rd District, defended his support of the bridges project -- two new spans and a reconfigured Spaghetti Junction interchange near downtown -- in remarks to reporters.

He cited efforts at the federal level to increase mileage standards for vehicles and the development of alternative fuels as ways to help reduce U.S. dependence on oil.

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