Five years after the federal government removed New Jersey from a plan for drilling for oil and natural gas off the Atlantic coast, Garden State residents found themselves on Wednesday again fighting against the drilling plan.

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management held an open house to explain the plan and to gather input from residents to a plan that, if approved, would allow for drilling to start in 10 years.

The plan involves opening the Atlantic Ocean from Virginia to Georgia for offshore drilling of natural gas and oil. While no drilling would take place directly off the coast of New Jersey, environmentalists and elected officials argued the state's ecology and tourism would be battered in the event of an oil spill that could carry a slick north.

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