“The designation of beluga whale critical habitat is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen under the Endangered Species Act,” Young told the audience. “We need to start standing up to the federal government.”
Young was the first of five speakers invited to a town hall meeting the Conservative Patriots Group hosted for about 100 attendees regarding the pending designation of critical habitat for the Cook Inlet belugas. It’s a species the federal government has already listed as endangered. The law requires that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration designate what habitat is critical to maintaining endangered species.
  
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“CPG believes that this is bad science, just as climate change has been proven to be bad science,” she said.
The move has many in Alaska worried. One of Young’s colleagues on the dais, Arne Fuglvog of Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s office, summed up those fears: The permitting process for projects on the Inlet will be made more complex and more costly. Designating habitat opens the door to lawsuits with the potential to not just slow those projects down, but to kill them outright. And the burden of proof is on the developer or government body that’s being sued.
“You have to prove that you are not jeopardizing critical habitat,” Fuglvog said.
He pointed out that the other side in the debate, the side hoping to see the beluga get its critical habitat, has pointed to a number of commercial and recreational activities — everything from dumping effluent into the Inlet to small boats and jet skis — that it fears is harming the whales.
Which, he said, will almost certainly lead to “very targeted environmental litigation.”
Fuglvog said he could almost guarantee the project to mine coal in Chuitna would be the first project targeted.
Wasilla Mayor Verne Rupright, in his remarks, talked mostly about uncertainty. He said the Inlet is most definitely changing. It changed drastically after the 1964 earthquake, he pointed out. Some would like to believe that humans have caused the beluga’s population to decline, but nobody can prove that they did, the mayor said.
Echoing a comment Young made earlier in the night, he pointed out that there are fewer fish in the Inlet and that belugas eat fish. It stands to reason, Rupright said, that the whale population would then taper off to reach an equilibrium.
“So what’s next? Are we going to say the salmon have to be protected so the beluga can eat them?”
The final speaker in the program, former Anchorage Mayor Rick Mystrom, also spoke of that uncertainty. He said he looked at federal data and found that belugas declined between 1994 and 2000. Since then, he said, the population has stabilized, and maybe even seen a very slight rebound.
So what happened in those six years of decline? The Port of Anchorage increased the tonnage of cargo that crossed its docks, Mystrom said. The oil platforms in the Inlet experienced no increase in activity.
The only thing he could think of, Mystrom joked, was that he was mayor at the time. And so he promised to write a letter to the feds saying, “I promise I won’t run for mayor of Anchorage again.”
But he said the critical habitat designation is an overreaction.
“The huge amount of reaction for something that we’re not sure what caused it, that’s not realistic,” he said.
So what can activists like the CPG do? Every speaker told the audience to submit comments on the issue. NOAA is accepting comments until March 3. But when the audience got its chance to ask questions, the first asked how big of an impact those comments will have.
“If I were to say it had a lot of weight I would be misleading you,” Young said. He hoped that the regulators would listen to Alaskans, he said, but, “I’m not totally optimistic that’s going to happen.”
Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.
Comments
26 comment(s)longtimevalleyRes wrote on Feb 18, 2010 3:52 PM:
bunnyhugger wrote on Feb 18, 2010 9:18 AM:
While it is possible that pollution is the reason that belugas population dropped there is no proof of that. In fact, the "best available science" shows that Cook Inlet belugas are remarkably free of pollution.
It's all "maybe", "possibly" etc. There is NO science to back up a pollution problem with belugas. There is NO science to back up any reason for a population decline at all.
In fact, the population has increased in recent years since hunting ceased. "
GLoomis wrote on Feb 17, 2010 8:01 PM:
" Stop the rapeing of Cook inlet fisheries, start the rabound of beluga whales. Save the fish save the whale save the sport fishing industry, I support the desiganation! "
I could not agree more!!! Maybe with designation for the beluga whales, it will allow the salmon to actually get into the rivers so that the local SPORTFISHING industry can make a living instead of giving the commercial yaks first dibs on the salmon and then closing the rivers cause the counts aren't high enough!! GO BELUGAS! "
LEARN TO GARDEN NOW wrote on Feb 17, 2010 1:52 PM:
These chemicals may very well be impacting the reproductive systems of species living in/near the inlet. I don't think there has been any tracking of newborn belugas.Have necropsies been performed on dead animals?Much research needs to be done. "
Noramarie wrote on Feb 17, 2010 1:44 PM:
Hillbilly science wrote on Feb 17, 2010 10:08 AM:
Neanderthal wrote on Feb 16, 2010 10:04 PM:
Laffytaffy wrote on Feb 16, 2010 5:44 PM:
It's like he's putting a blessing on the Conservative Patriots Group. Like he's a preacher or something. And the crowd yells out "Amen".
Maybe, just maybe if these people pray hard enough they will get what they're wishing for.
Which utlimately has something negative to do with Obama, Pelosi, and Reid. "
LEARN TO GARDEN NOW wrote on Feb 16, 2010 5:31 PM:
The beluga whale issue is a good example of why we'd better get more serious about setting aside more ag land for food production. "
Ryan H. wrote on Feb 16, 2010 3:46 PM:
I love how, a few dodgy actors and thier bad actions 'proves' climate change to be bad science.
What sort of rocks do these lizard people live under? Portage and Matanuska and every other glacier on the planet isn't well documented to be melting before your very eyes. Human beings aren't really ruining the rest of the landscape with our landfills and stripmalls. It is all a 'Liberul Media' Hollywood trick! "
palmeranian wrote on Feb 16, 2010 2:52 PM:
The "best available science" means not much science at all. Based on very little science they are going to take drastic action as long as it is in the direction of hurting the economy and not helping it. I'm starting to see a pattern here. "
Truth Is wrote on Feb 16, 2010 2:02 PM:
“So what’s next? Are we going to say the salmon have to be protected so the beluga can eat them?”
These folks already have a huge head start on wiping out the previously identified (1984) critical habitat of Jim Swan Wetlands via the AK DNR KRPUA whack job 'Plan'.
There is no effective protection of anadromous fish habitat in sight at the headwaters.
'We don't need no stinkin' fish'. 'We are just gonna have to let that environment thing go.' "
To I was there wrote on Feb 16, 2010 1:47 PM:
I Was There wrote on Feb 16, 2010 1:35 PM:
Fisherman wrote on Feb 16, 2010 1:28 PM:
Amazed wrote on Feb 16, 2010 12:28 PM:
To I was there wrote on Feb 16, 2010 12:01 PM:
Observer wrote on Feb 16, 2010 11:32 AM:
Acetonema wrote on Feb 16, 2010 10:54 AM:
Naw. Continue wiping them out so as to kill the beluga as quickly as possible, thus rendering ESA moot. The quickest way to wealth, [for the wealthy] as we all know, is by complete disregard for environmental indicators. Have faith, baby. Science is the residue of a conspiracy of liberals. "
seriously wrote on Feb 16, 2010 10:10 AM:
Alaskan wrote on Feb 16, 2010 9:59 AM:
Ed Kessler wrote on Feb 16, 2010 9:06 AM:
Also, if you are going to let someone say climate change is bad science, then you or them better back it up. Where are the other voices on this issue? I want to hear both sides. "
oldtimer wrote on Feb 16, 2010 9:00 AM:
THE NO PARTY? "
forfreedom wrote on Feb 16, 2010 6:44 AM:
I Was There wrote on Feb 16, 2010 6:19 AM:
NoSuchThing wrote on Feb 15, 2010 10:49 PM:
Try it:
There's no such thing as global warming...
There's no such thing as evolution...
There's no such thing as science...
There's no such thing as pollution...
There's no such thing as gravity...
There's no such thing as electricity...
Feel better? "