Around the States: Surprising New Ally Against Offshore Drilling
In defense of its newly cleaned beaches, New Jersey has become a key player in the Atlantic states’ political wall against offshore drilling.
Visitors to the famous Jersey Shore in the late 1980s will remember its garbage-strewn beaches, victims of the once-legal practice of offshore garbage dumping. Until it was stopped by legislation and more aggressive environmental regulators, nine cities in New Jersey and New York would barge millions of tons of waste per year to an offshore dumping area. Others sent poorly treated sewage directly into ocean waters.
By a decade later, after the garbage dumping was halted, the renewed Jersey coastal tourism economy was booming—and the state has learned much from this experience. Local leaders and their state representatives now are in absolutely no mood to once again jeopardize their economic golden goose with offshore oil spills.
Read the grimy details of a once-lost, now-regained coastal economy that is the foundation of one state’s determination to help block the Trump offshore drilling agenda.
