Cook Inlet Archives - Saving Seafood

ALASKA: ‘Sloppy is the way I would describe this approach’: Unknown plans for an underwater data center in Cook Inlet

October 29, 2026 — A new player in Alaska, DeepGreen Cook Inlet SPV, has proposed a first in the state: an underwater data center.

It seems to have come as a surprise to some and has sparked major concerns about a lack of regulations for data centers by the state and possible environmental impacts, such as to the endangered Cook Inlet Beluga.

“Sloppy is the way I would describe this approach at this stage in the game,” Mayor Peter Micciche of Kenai Peninsula Borough said.

He says he hasn’t gotten an email, letter or a phone call from DeepGreen.

Read the full article at KTUU

Underwater data centers may be coming to the U.S.—smack in the middle of endangered whale habitat

October 27, 2026 — The battle over where to put data centers is heading below the waves: the Trump administration is considering proposals to build two massive underwater data centers off the country’s coast. The sites selected for the projects—one in Cook Inlet, Alaska, and one in the Gulf of Maine—are smack in the middle of two endangered whale populations’ habitats.

Whales are “skittish animals,” says Arial Brewer, a beluga researcher at the University of Washington and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “A massive-scale project like this could really stress them out in a lot of different ways.”

Data centers, with their thousands of servers, generate considerable heat that can damage equipment if not offset in some way. Land-based facilities use massive amounts of fresh water to cool down. By putting a data center underwater, the ocean can easily dispel that heat. “Cooling is a large part of what a data center costs to run, and seawater is a free sink,” says Vishal Misra, a computer scientist and professor at Columbia University.

Read the full article at the Scientific American

ALASKA: Fishing groups concerned over proposed Cook Inlet data center

October 8, 2026 — Alaska commercial fishing and conservation center in Cook Inlet warns that the project could affect salmon migration, fishing operations, and marine habitat.

East Coast company DeepGreen Cook Inlet is proposing a 100-megawatt subsea data center that could include as many as 350 underwater turbines and 66 “hives” housing artificial intelligence servers. The system would use Cook Inlet water for power and cooling.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission accepted DeepGreen’s preliminary permit application on Sept. 1, opening a two-month public comment period. The preliminary permit would not authorize construction but, if approved, would give the company priority to apply for a license while studying the site.

The Alaska Commercial Fisheries Conservation Alliance, Center for Biological Diversity, and Kenai Peninsula Borough have filed motions to intervene in the federal proceedings, citing concerns ranging from commercial fishing and salmon migration to Cook Inlet’s endangered beluga whale population.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALASKA: Alaska fishing and wildlife groups raise alarm over proposal for underwater Cook Inlet data center

October 5, 2026 — Many Alaskans have opposed proposed data center development in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and on the North Slope. Some residents don’t believe they belong in Cook Inlet, either.

Earlier this year, the East Coast company DeepGreen Cook Inlet released plans for a 100-megawatt subsea data center with as many as 350 underwater turbines and 66 “hives” housing artificial intelligence servers, both powered and cooled by water in Cook Inlet.

Louis Wolfson, a managing member for company DeepGreen and luxury real estate developer based in Needham, Massachusetts, said the proposal seeks to work around some of the constraints facing traditional, land-based data centers: a need for both large plots of developable land and significant amounts of energy from the local grid.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission accepted DeepGreen’s preliminary Cook Inlet permit application on Sept. 1, triggering a two-month public comment period.

While this permit does not authorize construction, it does serve as a small step forward. A preliminary permit, if issued, would give DeepGreen priority to apply for a license while the company studies the site.

A decision on whether or not to issue the permit will be made once the comment period closes and all feedback and other filings are reviewed, said commission spokesperson Ashley Ingebrigtsen.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Alaska fishing and wildlife groups raise alarm over proposal for underwater Cook Inlet data center

September 25, 2026 — Many Alaskans have opposed proposed data center development in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and on the North Slope. Some residents don’t believe they belong in Cook Inlet, either.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: Inside the overlooked world of Bristol Bay’s salmon tenders

August 5, 2026 — When Bristol Bay’s salmon run reaches its peak, the spotlight usually falls on the fishermen hauling sockeye over the rails. But just offshore, another fleet is working around the clock to keep the fishery moving.

Tender boats shuttle thousands of pounds of salmon from fishermen to processors, fuel skiffs, deliver groceries and gear, and often serve as floating support vessels during one of the busiest commercial fisheries in the U.S. Without them, many fishermen simply couldn’t keep fishing.

For Washington native Evan Blankenship, tendering has become an essential part of his livelihood.

“I stumbled into fishing and Alaska because of my high school history teacher,” Blankenship shared. “She told stories about working in a remote Alaskan cannery in the 1990s. It sounded like such a wildly different experience from where I grew up.”

In 2006, at age 19, Blankenship headed north to Naknek for his first summer working in a cannery. One season turned into many. He eventually moved from processing to tendering in Bristol Bay, then into salmon seining in Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound before buying his first seine boat in Kodiak in 2015.

Today, his operation splits the summer between Bristol Bay tendering and Kodiak salmon seining, a combination that provides both stability and opportunity.

Blankenship began combining tendering and seining in 2018 after several unpredictable years in Kodiak’s salmon fishery.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ALASKA: Trump’s High-Profile Oil and Gas Lease Sale in Alaska Has No Takers

March 9 2026 — The Trump administration did not receive a single bid for its offer of new offshore oil and gas exploration opportunities in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, dealing a blow to President Trump’s ‘drill, baby drill,’ agenda.

The attempted sale of rights to drill in more than 1 million acres was the first of six offshore oil and gas auctions in Alaska that Republicans mandated last year when they passed Mr. Trump’s sweeping tax law.

It was seen as a key test of the industry’s appetite for investment in a state that Mr. Trump has called a “natural resource warehouse,” and essential for his “energy dominance” agenda of maximizing domestic production of oil, natural gas and coal. On Wednesday, though, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management acknowledged that no drilling companies submitted bids.

“This is a huge embarrassment for Trump’s Alaska fossil fuel fantasy,” said Cooper Freeman, the Alaska director of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group.

Read the full article at The New York Times

ALASKA: Trump administration proposes offshore leasing in almost all Alaska waters

November 24, 2025 — The Trump administration has released a plan for offshore oil and gas leasing that would open up almost all Alaska marine waters to development, along with the entire Pacific coast and the Gulf of Mexico.

The Alaska portion of the plan proposes 21 lease sales through 2031, five of them in Cook Inlet, two in the Beaufort Sea, two in the Chukchi Sea and the others in other marine areas. Those include a lease sale in a newly designated “High Arctic” area that lies beyond the 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone and where U.S. territorial rights are not yet clear.

The only federal Alaska offshore area without a proposed lease sale is the North Aleutian Basin, where oil leasing is under an indefinite ban to protect salmon-rich Bristol Bay.

Read the full article at Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: New rule could clear path to harm Cook Inlet’s endangered whales

August 19, 2025 — A new rule proposed to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) would allow companies working on the Alaska Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project in the Cook Inlet to “take” marine mammals.

The rule was proposed on July 29 by 8 Star Alaska, LLC, a subsidiary of Alaska Gasline Development Corporation (AGDC).

The proposed rule falls under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMAP) and would allow the company, over the next 5 years, to harass, hunt, capture or kill mammals by carving out acceptable ways of taking.

Currently, the taking of mammals is prohibited, unless a rule is proposed and directed in a specified area while engaged in a specific activity.

Read the full article at Alaska News Source

Cook Inletkeeper, partners file lawsuit against Cook Inlet gold mine

July 23, 2025 — The Kenai Peninsula’s Cook Inletkeeper joined a lawsuit last month opposing the proposed Johnson Tract gold mine project on the west side of the Cook Inlet in Southcentral Alaska. Also listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the Center for Biological Diversity, the Chickaloon Village Traditional Council and an unnamed local stakeholder who fishes in the adjacent Tuxedni Bay.

The project site is located at the headwaters of the Johnson River, on nearly 21,000 acres of land privately owned by Native corporation Cook Inlet Region, Inc. within Lake Clark National Park. According to Cook Inletkeeper, however, should the mine project move forward, it will adversely affect both surrounding wilderness areas and long-time businesses owned and operated by local stakeholders. At risk are the Johnson River itself, subsistence harvesting grounds in Lake Clark National Park, the largest seabird nesting colony in the Cook Inlet, and critical habitat areas for the endangered Cook Inlet beluga whale population.

Johnson Tract past and present

CIRI acquired the Johnson Tract inholdings in the 1976 Cook Inlet Land Exchange, prior to the establishment of Lake Clark National Park via the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act in 1980. In addition to mineral and surface rights, in January CIRI was also granted port and transportation easements, in agreement with the National Park Service, across adjoining parkland for mineral extraction and development. Exploratory mining on the tracts was conducted from 1982-1995 by different companies, until the project reverted back to CIRI in the late 1990s.

Read the full article at Juneau Empire