In response to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision finding the Seward Coal Loading Facility in violation of the Clean Water Act, the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) issued a compliance order negotiated with the discharger Aurora Energy Services. The … Read More

UPDATE, October 31, 2014: Today, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Aurora Energy Services’ and the Alaska Railroad’s petition for rehearing. Not a single judge voted for the petition. We are hopeful that we can now focus on cleaning up the … Read More

This week, five years into the case, Trustees for Alaska attorney Brian Litmans stood before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for oral argument that the Seward Coal Loading Facility is violating the Clean Water Act by spilling coal into … Read More

With the New Year approaching, we (and the Cook Inlet beluga whales) have one more thing to celebrate. On Nov. 21, 2011, the Federal District Court in Washington, D.C. rejected the State of Alaska’s lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries … Read More

Trustees or Alaska, representing coastal Native villages, commercial fishermen, and Cook Inletkeeper, charged in court in December that the Environmental Protection Agency repeatedly manipulated and sometimes falsified pollution data to support its decision to allow the operators of 19 aging … Read More

Cook Inlet’s beluga whales were listed as an endangered species last week. The decision gained national attention for both its political significance and its environmental implications. Lost in most of the media coverage, however, was the fact that Trustees for … Read More

On May 3 2002, the Alaska Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the State of Alaska’s approval of Forest Oil Company’s exploratory drilling project in Cook Inlet violated the state’s coastal management law because the State did not analyze all of … Read More

Cook Inlet beluga whales have rapidly declined over the last 10 years. Scientist estimate that the population has dropped from over 1,000 individuals in 1990 to between 270 and 350 last year. While much of this decline can be attributed … Read More

In August 1999, Trustees for Alaska successfully negotiated an agreement with the US Army Corps of Engineers to protect Cook Inlet beluga whales from the effects of a massive dredging project in the Knik Arm of the inlet. Earlier this … Read More

On April 23, 1999 Trustees for Alaska, successfully argued in State Superior Court for the temporary stay of the sale of 70 tracts in the Cook Inlet Areawide Lease Sale. The 70 tracts in question are critical beluga habitat. The … Read More