Hoo hooo kiddies! Mr. Bill here and I’d like to thank all you friends for coming out on February 2nd to support World Wetlands Day. We got together on the front stairs of One Shell Square, Shell Oil Co’s headquarters here in my hometown New Orleans. Fortunately, with some help, I made it up the steps without falling down (thanks Dan Favre!) It was a beautiful but chilly evening. My best friend Walter Williams was there showing his cool educational videos about the wetlands and how the oil and gas industry are responsible for destroying forty to sixty percent of them. Watch some of these videos at www.mrbill.com. Did you know that when they dig up the wetlands to make canals for pipelines, it lets salt water in that kills the plants, even the cypress trees? And they’ve been doing this since the beginning of the 20th century. But, oh no! The problem is that neither Shell Oil Company or any of the other gas and oil companies will admit they are part of the problem, and as we all know, we first have to identify the problem so we can come up with a solution. And me, my friends at the Gulf Restoration Network and all of you great New Orleanians see the problem and the solution. We know that in order to be able to restore the wetlands to a healthy state, we need more dough, and not the Play kind, and we know that the oil companies have made tons of it while destroying our natural hurricane protection system, the wetlands. We know Shell knows this destruction is happening with the wetlands (we’re losing them at the rate of a football field every 45 minutes! Oh no!) because they sponsor the America’s WETLAND campaign, which is a campaign to raise awareness about coastal lands loss, and I used to help them with that. But when Shell Oil Co. refused to admit they were part of the problem, I said “Shell no!” So if you want to be a part of the real solution for wetlands restoration, please visit the Gulf Restoration Network’s website, www.healthygulf.org, and become a member, or join the email list. You can also text the word “coast” to 77007, and that will send a petition to your elected leaders in Congress, telling them to pay attention to the wetlands issue and pass legislation that will help to restore our coast. We need the wetlands to get through hurricane season, for our seafood, our economy, and our culture and environment that makes New Orleans and coastal Louisiana so unique and beautiful! YES WE CAN save it!
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