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Lawsuit Filed to Protect Endangered Beluga Whales From Alaska Oil and Gas Drilling

ANCHORAGE, Alaska— Endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales are threatened by oil drilling and exploration, according to a lawsuit filed today by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Native Village of Chickaloon, Center for Water Advocacy and Center for Biological Diversity. The suit challenges a permit issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service to Apache Alaska Corporation to allow oil and gas exploration in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, home to a dwindling population of 280 beluga whales protected by the Endangered Species Act. 

“Each year, there are fewer and fewer of these whales left,” said Taryn Kiekow, a staff attorney with NRDC. “Oil and gas drilling activities expose Cook Inlet beluga whales to earsplitting underwater noise that threatens their survival. All that noise in the marine environment makes survival impossible for these endangered whales.”

Apache Alaska Corporation has acquired more than 300,000 acres of oil and gas leases in Cook Inlet. To find and develop oil and gas fields, Apache intends to conduct seismic exploration in the inlet over the next three to five years. Every year that Apache conducts its survey operations, it will spend 160 days surveying the inlet for oil and gas, 24 hours per day. For 10 to 12 of those hours, Apache will deploy in-water airguns, operate pingers and detonate explosives. Airgun noise is loud enough to mask whale calls over thousands of miles, destroying their capacity to communicate and breed; it can drive whales to abandon their habitat and cease foraging, and closer in it can cause hearing loss and death. 

Read more.

Learn more about the Cook Inlet beluga whale.

Contact: Rebecca Noblin