Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

The Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission (“AEWC”), representing certain Alaska Native villages that engage in subsistence hunting of bowhead whales, petitions for review of the Beaufort Permit (“the Permit”) issued by the Environmental Protection Agency under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (“NPDES”) provisions of the Clean Water Act. The Permit authorizes the discharge by oil and gas exploration facilities of 13 waste streams into marine waters of the Beaufort Sea in accordance with the effluent limitations, monitoring requirements, and other conditions set forth in the Permit. AEWC does not seek to have the Permit vacated, but asks us to remand it to the EPA for further proceedings leading to additional restrictions on discharges. We have jurisdiction to review the EPA’s issuance of the Permit pursuant to 33 U.S.C. § 1369(b)(1)(F). We deny in great part AEWC’s petition, but we grant on one issue on which the EPA has admitted an error in the record: we remand to the EPA for a determination regarding whether the discharge of non-contact cooling water (alone or in combination with other authorized discharges) into the Beaufort Sea will cause unreasonable…