Seattle: A woman protested against Shell’s planned Arctic drilling campaign on Friday by chaining herself to one of the company’s support ships near to Seattle.
The action showed that while the big-ticket appeal of last weekend’s “Shell no” events in the city’s harbour may have passed, the spirit behind the “Festival of Resistance” continues.
The woman latched on to the Arctic Challenger while it was anchored in Bellingham Bay, north of Seattle.
A police spokesman said that officers talked to the ship, the port and the woman and won’t be trying to remove her.
Earlier, an official with Washington state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) said some of last weekend’s activists in Seattle’s bay may have inadvertently done some damage to a “dive park” there.
Divers found cement blocks, cables and chains that were used to anchor a protest barge while kayakers protested last weekend near Shell oil rig, the Polar Pioneer.
Environmental activists have been focused on the waters around Seattle where Shell is mooring its fleet ahead of its planned return to Arctic drilling after a three-year hiatus. Shell plans to use the short window of the summer to use two drill rigs, the Polar Pioneer and the Noble Discoverer in the Chukchi Sea, northwest of Alaska.
The protesters fear Shell is not capable of containing and cleaning up any spills that may occur in the difficult Arctic conditions, risking an environmental disaster.
