Attorneys for The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) sent a letter claiming hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, could harm whales to a federal agency that can’t regulate fracking.
The CBD sent a cease and desist letter to the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) demanding the agency stop an oil company from fracking. However, the NFMS does not have jurisdiction over fracking in the area, which is regulated by the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.
“NMFS has broad, independent authority to take actions to protect endangered species from harm,” Kristen Monsell, the CBD attorney who sent the letter, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “NMFS should exercise that authority to prohibit fracking in the Inlet given the significant threat this toxic practice poses to critically endangered Cook Inlet belugas.”
The individual population of Cook Inlet belugas is not biologically distinct from the general beluga whale population. Beluga whales are listed as “near threatened,” not “critically endangered,” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The term “critically endangered” is a technical one which means that a species is “considered to be facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild.” The term “near threatened” means that a species isn’t even endangered, and is three steps below the “critically endangered” category.
The population decline of Cook Inlet belugas is due to unregulated subsistence hunting, not fracking. There have never been more than 1,300 individuals Cook Inlet beluga whales, according to the the Alaska office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
CBD claims chemicals associated with offshore-fracking will contaminate the ocean, harming the local beluga whale population, but the drilling they are objecting to is actually occurring onshore.
“To us, as far as the fracking process is concerned, it’s all a moot point. We can’t impact the belugas in any way. It’s just not possible,” Larry Burgess, a health, safety and environment manager for the oil company in question, told Alaska Public Media Tuesday. “We’re not doing anything offshore. NMFS has no bearing on this whatsoever.”
The oil company is required by state law to disclose in advance a list of the chemicals it plans to frack with. Burgess says that the fracking fluid will be 99.5 percent water and sand, and that any chemicals would be almost instantly diluted when exposed to the ocean due to the incredibly small quantities used. The drilling will take place onshore, over a mile below the surface, and therefore poses little risk of spills.
Despite the scientific consensus, environmental groups tried to blame fracking for just about everything from droughts, drinking water contamination, flaming tap-water, poverty, income inequality, to low sperm counts. All these claims have been debunked by science.
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