NOAA extends beluga comment period

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At the request of Alaska’s congressional delegation the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has extended by 30 days the public comment period on the proposed designation of 3,000 square miles in Cook Inlet as critical habitat for the Cook Inlet beluga whale.

Alaska’s senators, Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich, and its congressman, Don Young, jointly requested the extension in December, citing concern with economic and national security impacts and the fact that the public comment period, originally from Dec. 2 through Jan. 31, fell over “the seasonal holidays during which the attention of most Alaskans is rightly focused on their families and not issues of public policy.”

The delegation requested the extension Dec. 23, telling NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco that while NOAA has statutory timelines for determining critical habitat, “we are concerned about taking such action without adequate analysis of the economic and national security consequences of this designation.”

NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service listed the Cook Inlet beluga whale as endangered in October 2008 and published its proposed critical habitat designation Dec. 1.

The habitat area encompasses all of upper Cook Inlet, all of Knik Arm and Turnagain Arm, the middle part of Cook Inlet to south of Kalgin Island, Kachemak Bay and nearshore areas of the western coast of lower Cook Inlet.

The new comment deadline is March 3.

—Petroleum News