Legal Action Taken To Defend Polar Bears and Whales From 800-Mile Alaska Gas Pipeline

Last week, The Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club sued the U.S. Federal Government for failing to properly assess the impacts of the Alaska LNG project on several threatened and endangered species.

According to the lawsuit, biological opinions issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service violate the Endangered Species Act by not fully examining and mitigating the project’s harm to polar bears, Cook Inlet beluga whales, and North Pacific right whales.

“I’m outraged by how thoroughly federal agencies ignored the many ways this LNG project is likely to harm endangered whales and polar bears,” said Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Our climate can’t take more fossil fuel extraction and neither can these desperately imperiled animals. They’ll suffer more habitat destruction and other harms from this project. Alaska’s wildlife needs officials to really think through these kinds of risks, but the federal government decided to duck its legal obligations here and leave endangered species in the lurch.”

The Alaska LNG project would consist of several compressor stations, liquefaction facilities, a marine terminal, and an 807-mile pipeline bisecting most of the state of Alaska. The project would enable the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation to ship about 20 million metric tons of gas from Alaska’s Arctic abroad every year.

Burning that amount of gas could result in more than 50 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions annually, that’s almost the same global warming impact as building 13 coal-fired power plants.

“The rubber-stamp approval of the Alaska LNG project was reckless in many ways,” said Sierra Club Alaska Chapter Director Andrea Feinger. “The project will be devastating to vulnerable wildlife already struggling to face the catastrophic impacts of climate change. The agencies responsible for assessing the impacts on whales, polar bears, and other species neglected to take proper care in evaluating the full scope of harm Alaska LNG will cause. We’ve only got one shot to protect the climate and critical ecosystems that these endangered animals rely upon. The federal government must take an honest look at the real outcomes of expanded gas extraction and transport across the landscape and waterways of Alaska.”

The pipeline would connect drilling operations on the North Slope to an export terminal on Cook Inlet and bring tanker ships through the habitat of endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales and North Pacific right whales. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission estimates the project would increase large vessel traffic in the inlet by up to nearly 75%.

Cook Inlet beluga whales are critically endangered. The population has declined more than 75% since 1970 and scientists believe their recovery is hindered by noise pollution and the cumulative harm of multiple, human-caused stressors.

The Eastern North Pacific right whale population ranges from the Bering Sea to Baja California and is down to only about 30 individuals. With few reproducing females, the population is at extreme risk of imminent extinction.

Climate change is warming the Arctic four times faster than the rest of the planet. Eight young Alaskans have filed a lawsuit against the state of Alaska claiming that the LNG project violates their rights by further hastening climate change and having a negative impact on their lives.

If warming continues at current rates, two-thirds of the world’s polar bears could be extinct by 2050 due to the loss of their Arctic sea-ice habitat.

Last week’s lawsuit was filed in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The groups are seeking to have the inadequate biological opinions invalidated and thrown out by the court.