One hundred days after the Deepwater Horizon rig began spewing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, about a dozen demonstrators and a handful of onlookers gathered in Downtown Berkeley Friday, delivering speeches against BP and the spill.
As part of a nationwide demonstration against BP, protesters lined up along Shattuck Avenue near the Helios Energy Research Facility construction site. They spoke primarily about the negative effects the oil spill has had on wildlife and the environment in the Gulf, but also excoriated the collaboration among BP, UC Berkeley and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that established the Energy Biosciences Institute.
In 2007, UC Berkeley and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign entered into a $500 million partnership with BP, establishing the alternative energy research institute on campus. Construction of the Helios facility to house energy researchers was approved in January by the UC Board of Regents.
The partnership received fervent opposition in 2007 from several sources – most notably the student-led coalition Stop BP-Berkeley – attacking the corporate presence on campus for fear that it would affect the public institution’s academic and research objectives.
Stephanie Tang, an event organizer and member of World Can’t Wait, said organizers chose to demonstrate Friday along the construction site of the Helios building because of its “historical significance” to protests against the institute.
“This university is a crime scene because BP is a criminal corporation,” Tang said while standing on the sidewalk in front of the construction site Friday, addressing those that had gathered.
Protesters focused on the dispersants sprayed by the corporation to break up the spilled oil. Several speakers asserted that the dispersants were not only harmful to wildlife, but also did not remove the oil, instead simply pushing it under the surface so the public could not see it.
The oil spill in the gulf has brought renewed scrutiny of both BP and its partnership with UC Berkeley, prompting community members and faculty alike to vocalize against the corporation, but organizers on Friday lamented that the cause did not garner the same following it did three years ago.
“It’s very important that people speak up and voice their opinion,” said Mohan Attar, a Berkeley resident and one of the few supporters of the protesters present. “What frustrates me is that any time I go to a protest, there’s hardly anyone there.”
Demonstrators extended an invitation to Miguel Altieri, a UC Berkeley professor of environmental science, policy and management and an outspoken critic of the partnership, though Altieri did not appear at the protest.