Court Blocks Alaskan Oil Lease Over Environmental Concerns for Beluga Whales

An Alaska federal court has overturned a sale of oil and gas leases in Cook Inlet, an area of 180 miles from the Gulf of Alaska to Anchorage in south-central Alaska.

The Department of the Interior (DOI), the court said, had failed to consider the lease sale’s cumulative environmental impacts on endangered beluga whales, which live in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. These whales are also impacted by noise from loud sea vessels. This is especially troublesome because beluga whales use echolocation, the process of using sound waves to locate distant or invisible objects, for activities like hunting, avoiding obstacles, and locating each other.

A press release from the Center for Biological Diversity notes that the organization “filed the lawsuit together with Earthjustice, on behalf of Cook Inletkeeper, Kachemak Bay Conservation Society, and Alaska Community Action on Toxics.”

The press release added:

Lease Sale 258, held by the Department of the Interior in December 2022, opened nearly a million acres of federal waters in Southcentral Alaska to the fossil fuel industry, potentially locking in decades of future oil and gas drilling.

The Interior Department originally canceled Lease Sale 258 in May 2022, but then announced it would move ahead in August after the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. Though that legislation spurred efforts to address climate change, it included a provision reviving the Cook Inlet lease sale (along with two others in the Gulf of Mexico: Lease Sales 259 and 261, which are being litigated).

While Lease Sale 258 only resulted in one bid for a relatively small tract, the areas auctioned off to bidder Hilcorp overlapped with critical habitat for federally endangered marine mammals. Cook Inlet is home to beluga whales and sea otters protected under the Endangered Species Act.

Now that the ruling has been handed down, DOI’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management must conduct a supplemental environmental review to determine whether to redo the lease sale or add protections. All of this pertains to Lease Sale 258, which DOI held in December 2022 and opened up nearly 1 million acres of Southcentral Alaska federal waters to oil and gas drilling.

DOI originally canceled the sale in May 2022 but DOI said the sale would be held after the Biden administration passed the Inflation Reduction Act with a provision that revived the Cook Inlet sale as well as Lease Sales 259 and 261 in the Gulf of Mexico, both of which also face legal action.

Notably, Lease Sale 258 received one bid for a small tract of land auctioned to oil and gas company Hilcorp; the areas in this tract overlapped with sea otter and beluga whale habitats, both of which are protected under the Endangered Species Act.

“Today’s legal victory is a win for Alaska communities, threatened beluga whales, and future generations who will face a hotter planet,” said Carole Holley, attorney for Earthjustice, in a press release. Holley said: “We’re celebrating the fact that this destructive lease sale has been sent back to the drawing board, and we will continue to push for a transition away from fossil fuels and toward a brighter and healthier energy future.”

Cook Inlet, while home to endangered marine life, is also home to commercial and recreational fisheries and boasts a thriving tourist industry. Alaska’s Native populations have also relied on the land and waters for thousands of years. However, these areas have been adversely impacted by climate change. Coastal erosion, thawing permafrost, melting sea ice, and fishery collapse are matters already affected by the global climate crisis that would worsen with new oil and gas drilling permits.