Sam Waterston, Actor and Activist
I asked Sam how he originally got involved in this wonderful organization and he said that Chairman Keith Addis and Actor Ted Danson had approached him. Both men serve on the Board of Directors as well and it was not a difficult task to convince Sam to join. He grew up on the East Coast in New England playing and enjoying the ocean around him. Now we see bad things happening and people don’t know what to do about them. Once such thing is the current oil spill that has been all over the news. I asked Sam what his take was on this. “It’s a horrible thing within itself”, he explained,” and the effects will be seen for years and years and years.” He is indeed correct as this oil spill has caused so much tragedy in so many directions. I’m personally saddened at the fact that I think this entire spill could have been avoided in the first place. I shared with Sam that last year I saw a movie at the Hamptons International Film Festival called “Dirty Oil”. It was a documentary and really opened my eyes as to what is going on out there. We all know oil and water don’t mix but this movie made that statement even more real. It even mentioned in part about how BP had a part in our own country to cause a similar situation on the Great Lakes by getting permission to dump over 1,500 pounds of ammonia and roughly 5,000 pounds of suspended solids from their Whiting Refinery in Indiana. What is going on with this country that our world is made up of about 71% water yet we can care less? Oceana will bring in a remote vehicle to the oil spill to study what’s going on and what happens regarding the damage being done.
Sam believes this is an opportunity for us to wake up and change course and change the way we do energy. “These spills happen around the world but we should be moving as fast as we can to try to get energy elsewhere and in effect, it would create new jobs, help with the economy and avoid these spills”, states Sam and I have to agree with him. He acknowledged the opportunities that are all around us right here on Long Island. A good example he pointed out were the windmills out here. The winds are steady blowing and the energy created by the windmills would be a lot cleaner.
It’s not just the energy issue but the fact that the ocean bottoms are being wiped out and no one really has a clue as to what is going on with the sea beds. In the past few years, about 2 percent of all money for environmental causes goes to our oceans yet we are made up of about 71% water. Sam pointed out how people may not pay so much attention to the oceans since they seem far out whereas they pay more attention to things like our forests because those are closer to us. The forests are more on a national level but the oceans belong to all of us.
He has noticed that there are more and more people becoming aware of the ocean but most people tend to think they can’t do anything about it. The oceans can actually respond quite well and if you think about it, it’s a crazy concept if we just sit back and do nothing about what’s going on.
This is where you come in. You can definitely make a difference even if you think you can’t. If you tell me one person can’t make a difference, I will throw names at you like Rosa Parks. If each person thinks they can make a difference, all of a sudden we have hundreds and thousands that are all helping to make a difference. One thing you can do that is immediate is to attend the fundraiser this July 10 at the Watermill home of Lois Robbins and Andrew Zaro. Many celebrities will be in attendance and some of the more prominent figures that will be there are Susan Cohn Rockefeller, Vera Wang, Arthur Becker, Ellen and Dan Crown, Andrew and Sandi Farkas, Tom and Lori Florio, Senator Frank Lautenberg and Bonnie Lautenberg, Lizzie and John Tisch just to name a few. You can get your ticket by logging on to www.oceanasplashparty.org and if you cannot attend this event, please log on to www.na.oceana.org and donate what you can or become a wave maker and see how you can help save our oceans.
