UNCW club to lobby against offshore drilling in Washington

WILMINGTON, NC (WECT) - A group of students at the University of North Carolina Wilmington is taking their fight against offshore drilling all the way to Washington.

Seven members of the Surfrider Club are going to D.C. to lobby on Capitol Hill on Friday as part of Ocean Recreation Hill Day.

According to the club's president, the group will talk to state representatives about coastal protection, plastic pollution and water quality.

Almost 100 Surfriders from chapters across the country will join the UNCW students in D.C.

"We were on board with it immediately because we're doing a lot of changes locally and we're doing a lot of outreach, but going to D.C. and actually talking to our representatives about what we stand for is something that I think we can take to a national level, especially us being college students," UNCW Surfrider Club president Alexandra Marstall said. "I think that we'll have a really good impact."

Marstall said the club is doing outreach locally about how to protect the ocean, including talking to local elementary schools.

On Friday, the seven local Surfrider members will be talking to representatives from Virginia, Vermont, New York and North Carolina.

"My goal is to really represent the University of North Carolina Wilmington and the impact that us as students and coastal protectors can have on our federal government," Marstall said. "Hopefully, by talking to them we can make a change because again, we are making a really great change on our local level, but I would love to see it go to our federal level and take what we're learning here at UNCW and actually implement it in our government."

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