ANCHORAGE, AK – Alaska Native Tribes and commercial fishing groups joined Cook Inletkeeper in a lawsuit challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Water Act permit for oil and gas discharges in Cook Inlet, Alaska. The groups contend EPA ignored hundreds of public comments and violated the Clean Water Act by issuing a permit that will almost triple the amount of toxic wastes dumped annually by industry into Cook Inlet’s rich and productive fisheries.

“EPA is happy to slap a small fish processor with a big fine, but they bend over backwards to let the oil and gas industry dump millions of gallons of toxics into our fisheries,” said Dave Martin of the Cook Inlet Fishermen’s Fund, a commercial fishing organization. “It’s discouraging EPA would issue a permit that will increase toxic pollution in our fisheries. The technology exists for the oil and gas industry to protect our fisheries, and it’s EPA’s job to make sure our waters are clean. How can we market our Cook Inlet fish as clean and healthy if EPA allows industry to pollute our water?”

Cook Inlet is the only coastal waterbody in the United States where EPA allows the oil and gas industry to dump toxic drilling and production wastes into important subsistence, commercial and recreational fisheries. When Congress passed the Clean Water Act in 1972, it established five year terms for discharge permits, with the intent that technology would improve over time and pollution eventually would be eliminated. However, EPA’s new permit will nearly triple the amount of toxic dumping in Cook Inlet compared to the previous permit, with industry authorized to discharge approximately 100,000 gallons of oil and over 835,000 pounds of toxic metals each year. In 2006, Inletkeeper released a report, entitled “Dishonorable Discharges: How To Shift Cook Inlet’s Offshore Oil & Gas Operations to Zero Discharge,” that provides practical alternatives for safe industry waste disposal.

“Litigation is a last resort, but this dumping is damaging our culture and our subsistence lifestyle and resources,” said Chief Patrick Norman of the Native Village of Port Graham. “We commend EPA for the new monitoring requirements in the permit. But EPA’s own tests on our subsistence foods found the same types of pollutants discharged by the industry, and EPA continues to disregard Tribal calls for a halt to the toxic dumping.”

Despite lenient permit conditions for oil and gas operations in Cook Inlet, industry has routinely violated its permit. In 1995, industry paid over $2 million dollars to settle a lawsuit that alleged over 4,200 Clean Water Act violations in Cook Inlet, and between 2000-2003, industry reported over 1000 similar violations. Between 1996 and 2006, EPA conducted only four inspections of Cook Inlet oil and gas facilities, and no independent monitoring on waste discharges. As a result, water quality penalties have simply become the cost of doing business for oil and gas corporations in Cook Inlet, and lax oversight by governmental agencies virtually ensures future violations.

“The toxic dumping loophole in Cook Inlet is a massive subsidy for the oil and gas industry, and at a time of record industry profits, industry can afford to do it right,” said Bob Shavelson, Executive Director of Cook Inletkeeper. “Anyone else intentionally dumping that much oil into Cook Inlet would be arrested.”

“If the oil and gas industry can’t keep Cook Inlet clean, it can’t operate here,” said Justin Massey, an attorney with Trustees for Alaska. “And if EPA doesn’t play by the rules, we have no choice but to sue them.”

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Cook Inletkeeper, United Cook Inlet Drift Association, Cook Inlet Fishermen’s Fund, the Native Village of Port Graham, and the Native Village of Nanwalek. The nonprofit law firm Trustees for Alaska is representing the plaintiffs. For more information, including Inletkeeper’s permit comments and the report showing why zero-discharge is feasible in Cook Inlet, see: www.inletkeeper.org.

http://www.inletkeeper.org/energy/production.htm