Rye's Battle Of The Century Saving The Ne Hampshire Seacoast From Olympic Oil [Paperback]

This book was inspired by town of Rye resident Lisa Molls University of New Hampshire research paper entitled Ryes Ode to Olympic Oil, which demonstrated the crucial role Rye played in stopping Olympic Oils 1974 effort to build the largest oil refinery in the world on Great Bay in Durham, New Hampshire. Rye blocked the Olympic effort to secure a marine terminal on the New Hampshire Isles of Shoals to receive crude oil and the pipelines needed to transport oil for refining inland. Lisas paper, part of which was researched at the Rye, New Hampshire, Town Museum, also provides a full overview of the role of Durham, New Hampshire and other seacoast NH towns in the defeat of the refinery. The Rye Historical Society (RHS) is grateful to all the people who fought tirelessly to save the coastline of New Hampshire from exploitation. Particular thanks is given to the late Guy Chichester of Rye who fought the proposal tirelessly and donated his collection of material to the Town museum, and to Jessie Herlihy, founder of the Rye Historical Society in 1976, who held anti-refinery meetings in her home in 1973-74. Also key in the battle to save the NH Seacoast was Phyllis Bennett, publisher of the start-up community newspaper, Publick Occurrences, which broke the story that Olympic Oil was planning an oil refinery complex for the Seacoast of New Hampshire. Phyllis led a relentless effort to inform and connect the Seacoast community with facts, and bring the truth of the proposed oil refinery complex out of the shadows of the governors office and into the light for all to see. This was at a time when NH's largest newspaper, The Manchester Union Leader, and the then governor of New Hampshire, Meldrim Thomson, siding with Aristotle Onassis, were all championing and supporting the building of the oil refinery. On the fortieth anniversary of the oil refinery defeat in 2014, Dudley Dudley, who helped spearhead the defeat of the proposal in Durham and in the New Hampshire leglÃ(