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| The Orca and Beluga represent "communities sharing together" logo by Ole Lake, ABVN adviser |
Despite only having a few hours to put together comments on the on-going extreme environmental racism saga of the Cook Inlet Beluga Whale and Alaska Native hunters, I was able to scramble up what I saw missing in the 289-page plan. Despite the government taking over 10 years to finally come up with a plan after spending 30 years blaming Alaska Native hunters and creating massive regulatory controls on hunters, they have finally created a plan. All this is while the Cook Inlet Municipalities, Boroughs, Military and Industries all have free reign to dump sewage, anit-freeze (airports), munitions, oil, drilling fluids (including radioactive materials), etc.
The list goes on and on for allowing "Progress and Development" to continue in Cook Inlet, while the most restricted group of peoples are local indigenous peoples, whom the government blames for Beluga population declines. while they ignore their own laws on pollution and egregious dumping in the Beluga birthing grounds. This shows folks what is really to come in the Arctic as we continue to allow American laws and regulations to be bypassed for "progress and development" of the "last frontier".
Here's a few words in the saga addressing the most racist environmental case in Alaska:
7/14/15
Public Comment
By Carl Wassilie, Yupiaq Biologist
Alaska’s Big Village Network
RE: National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) Notice: Endangered and Threatened Species; Draft Recovery
Plan for the Cook Inlet Beluga Whale
Thank you for this opportunity to comment on this extremely
important document regarding Recovery of the Cook Inlet Beluga Whale (Beluga) that
indigenous peoples of Cook Inlet have been gravely concerned about since time
immemorial. Cook Inlet Tribes have
developed Recovery Plans for the Cook Inlet Beluga Whale as the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) listed the Beluga under the
federal Endanger Species Act (ESA). The inter-tribal
ordinance for the Recovery is included in the Cook Inlet Marine Mammal Councils
minutes in 2005. [ORDINANCE 042005-01]
The National Marine Fisheries Service Draft Recovery Plan
for the Cook Inlet Beluga Whale (Beluga) fails to provide a full picture of
historic, ongoing threats and potential catastrophic effects within the full
seasonal ranges of the Cook Inlet Beluga Whale.
The missing pieces in this plan includes the Beluga’s migratory pathway
and the food species for the Beluga that also migrates outside of the “feeding”
areas and “birthing” areas that are threatened.
The Beluga and the species the Beluga feeds on are all traditional food sources
for thousands of indigenous peoples and multiple cultural groups in the Cook Inlet
and North Pacific Regions.
Due to the timing of the public comment period during
fishing season and summer activities on the land and water, many local fisher-peoples
and indigenous communities have not been able to comment.
Additionally, the 289 page document can be overwhelming for
indigenous communities whose English is limited and proficiency may be
lacking. The effects of the decimation
and continued decline in the health of the Cook Inlet Beluga Whale is a concern
to all indigenous peoples that historically traded beyond NOAAs scope and
regional Tribal outreach that should include across mountain passes to the West
and to the North as noted by Shem Pete’s historical analysis.
I have broken my comments based on my indigenous perception
of the NMFS Draft Recovery Plan into 3 categories of missing information: Military, Oil spills, Earthquakes
The Navy is completely left out of
the entire document despite the historic, ongoing and potential threats and
effects on the Beluga recovery.
Especially important is identifying the effects of military sonar on all
living organisms.
As recent as May 6, 2015, the city
of Cordova, Alaska, passed a resolution “to oppose Navy Training Exercises in
the Gulf of Alaska in June 2015.” Eyak
Preservation Council protested on May 16, 2015, with over 100 boats and
hundreds in a peaceful demonstration against the Navy's planned live fire
training activities in the Gulf of Alaska.
According to the EIS preferred plans, these "war games" will
involve use of high frequency and
mid-frequency sonar for submarine exercises, plus a wide variety of live weapons and
explosives deployment - bombs, heavy deck guns, torpedoes, missiles, large carrier
strikes (ships blown up & sunk) none of which will ever be recovered.
Although military
training exercises have been conducted in the GOA intermittently for the last
30 years, those
proposed in the current EIS are a massive increase from any conducted before
(e.g. a
6,500% increase in sonobuoys).
The Navy has applied for permits to conduct training exercises in the
Gulf of Alaska (GOA) for up
to 42 days (from April to October) annually for a five-year period. The National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is the permitting agency with support from
the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). The Navy is required to complete a
supplemental EIS (to be released 01/2016) that included a 60-day comment period from
August to October of 2014. The Supplemental EIS will be for the next round of permits
(2016 – 2021). Previous trainings for 2010 – 2015 were permitted, yet no trainings
have been conducted yet. 2015 is the first year these trainings will take
place.”
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| Emily Stolarcyk / Eyak Preservation Council |
B.
Oil spills
Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (EVOS) has
had significant effects and continues to harm the North Pacific Ecosystem. EVOS has had short-term and long-term
impacts that continues to directly affect food availability of multiple species
for the Cook Inlet Beluga Whale. Indigenous Science and Knowledge confirms some
of the results of ecosystem science completed over the years on the Gulf of
Alaska and effects of the EVOS.
The chronic discharge of oil and
hazardous substances by the oil and gas industry over the lifetime of activities
in Cook Inlet still has yet to be examined comprehensively despite
organizations such as Cook Inlet Keeper insistence to evaluate “authorized”
discharges into the critical habitat of the Beluga.
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| Spread of Oil from the 1989 Exxon Valdez ongoing disaster |
C.
Earthquake- 1964
The 1964 Earthquake was an extremely catastrophic event in
Cook Inlet that was completely left out of the Background of the Recovery Plan
and was significant for a multitude of reasons. The 1964 Earthquake not only changed the
physical habitat and altered some of the localized nutrient cycles. Toxic chemicals and damaged infrastructure
also leaked into Cook Inlet and Gulf of Alaska from the 1964 Earthquake.
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The Great Alaska Earthquake and Tsunami of March 27, 1964 |
