"A Texas driller with patchy regulatory history will be permitted thousands of allowances for injury or harassment of humpback whales, harbor seals and other marine life as it explores for oil in Cook Inlet, Alaska.

NOAA Fisheries published regulations today allowing for various unintentional impacts to marine mammals, from seals to the endangered beluga whale, resulting from the underwater sounds, blasts and pressure waves caused by seismic surveys and construction planned by Texas-based Hilcorp Alaska LLC over the next five years.

Environmentalists decried the plans to allow injury and harassment of marine mammals in Cook Inlet, a waterway connecting Anchorage to the Gulf of Alaska."

Heather Richards reports for Greenwire July 31, 2019. [2]