Cook Inlet Whales in Trouble

By Kevin Diaz, Anchorage Daily News, Alaska

Apr. 20–WASHINGTON — The dwindling beluga whale population in Cook Inlet could be extinct in 100 years and should be listed as an endangered species, a federal agency said Thursday.

The proposal is being made by the National Marine Fisheries Service, which has been studying a petition brought by environmentalists a year ago.

The agency’s findings, which will be officially released today, are strenuously opposed by business and industry groups — backed by all three members of Alaska’s congressional delegation — who say the designation is unwarranted and potentially damaging to Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula economies.

The 17-page report, which is not a final ruling, bypasses the lesser designation of “threatened” and goes straight to “endangered,” which provides a greater level of protection for some 300 belugas estimated to remain in the Inlet.

The proposed listing starts a 12-month review, during which the Fisheries Service will hold public hearings and try to identify what features of Cook Inlet’s habitat are necessary for the whales to recover. If the decision is finalized, the Bush administration could develop rules requiring agencies such as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to consult with the Fisheries Service to ensure that no actions are taken that would jeopardize the whales.

While still preliminary, the decision is a huge victory for local and national environmental groups pushing for a decade to list the belugas as an endangered species.

“This is a very important milestone,” said Bob Shavelson of Cook Inletkeeper, part of a coalition of environmental groups that petitioned the Fisheries Service a year ago to designate the belugas as endangered.

CITIES, INDUSTRY OPPOSE

Development groups and local governments along Cook Inlet argue that restrictions on human activity in the Inlet could cause big problems. Among the concerns: gas and oil development, commercial fishing, the $340 million expansion of the Port of Anchorage, and the proposed Knik Arm bridge.

“All it’s going to do is impact those industries with no corresponding benefit for the belugas,” said Jason Brune, executive director of the Resource Development Council, a statewide business association that represents energy, mining, tourism and Native corporations.

While the new administration of Gov. Sarah Palin has taken no formal position on the endangered species designation, state officials expressed misgivings Thursday.

“We are very, very concerned about the likely impact of such a decision on Southcentral Alaska, in the midst of all the economic activity in Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula,” said Fish and Game Commissioner Denby Lloyd. “We will be looking at this with some intensity.”

Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich also weighed in.

One potential impact could be changes to the city’s water and wastewater utilities, which, he said, could leave “city taxpayers stuck with the bill.”

Another could be on the city’s port expansion, which could have national security implications due to the military’s reliance on the port, Begich said.

Henry Springer, head of the agency pursuing a Knik Arm bridge, said existing protections for the whales under the Marine Mammal Protection Act are sufficient. Federal decisions on how to protect the whales’ habitat could have major cost and construction implications for the proposed bridge, he said.

“I don’t think the resource agencies have an inkling of an idea how to address the habitat question,” Springer said.

Environmentalists minimized the economic effects of an endangered species designation.

“This simply requires that we do things in a way that a consensus of scientists finds won’t have an adverse impact on the whales,” Shavelson said.

Brendan Cummings, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, a national environmental group, said the Endangered Species Act rarely blocks development.

“The purpose of the designation is to protect whales, not to stop development,” he said.

STEVENS, YOUNG SKEPTICAL

But that view finds no takers among Alaska’s representatives in Washington.

“This is being spearheaded by people who want to stop development in the Cook Inlet region,” Sen. Ted Stevens said in a recent interview.

Rep. Don Young was more emphatic Thursday: “This whole thing is totally out of whack.”

Both challenge the Fisheries Service’s science, particularly its conclusion that Cook Inlet’s belugas are a genetically distinct population that doesn’t interact with other belugas. Studies between 1999 and 2002 indicated the whales occupy the Inlet year round, the agency says.

“I don’t think there’s a shortage of beluga whales,” Young said. “There’s just a shortage of beluga whales coming into the Inlet.”

The Cook Inlet population, estimated at 1,300 in 1979, had plummeted to about 350 animals by 1998, according to federal studies.

Federal agencies and tribal organizations restricted subsistence hunting of the whales in 1999, and it was hoped the belugas would begin to rebound. But the most recent federal study estimates the population at 300.

Young and Stevens say the government should examine whether the drop could be explained by Cook Inlet belugas pursuing salmon that migrate to rivers outside the Inlet.

Brune, a biologist, believes the whales have yet to recover from subsistence hunting in the 1990s because of their long gestation and nursing periods.

“They’re not mice, it will take a lot longer for them to recover,” he said.

But the groups that petitioned for the Endangered Species Act listing say it is vital if the whales are to survive.

Either way, local industry will do its best to survive, said Marc Van Dongen, director of Mat-Su’s Port MacKenzie.

“I don’t see it as shutting things down,” he said, noting the Fisheries Service already gives close environmental scrutiny to most of the port’s activities. “We’ll work with them. We understand the problem.”

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Reporter Kevin Diaz can be reached in Washington, D.C., at kdiaz@mcclatchydc.com. Reporter Don Hunter contributed to this story and can be reached in Anchorage at dhunter@adn.com.

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Copyright (c) 2007, Anchorage Daily News, Alaska

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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