Cook Inlet's oil and gas discharge rules expired in 2021, and EPA is finally rewriting them

The permit governing what oil and gas exploration can discharge into federal Cook Inlet waters expired in 2021 and has been running on an administrative extension ever since. EPA is now moving to rewrite it, and is taking public comment through Sept. 21.

EPA Region 10 proposes to reissue the general permit covering wastewater and other pollutant discharges from exploration facilities in federal Cook Inlet waters. The draft would authorize certain discharges subject to limits meant to protect water quality. It applies only to exploration facilities in federal waters, not every Cook Inlet oil and gas operation.

The current permit took effect in 2016, expired Aug. 31, 2021, and has been continued administratively in the years since. Alongside the notice, EPA posted the proposed permit, a fact sheet and a 2026 evaluation of the discharges' effects on the ocean.

The notice doesn't approve any specific exploration project. It opens the record on the discharge rules that would apply if covered exploration happens in federal Cook Inlet waters, where energy development, commercial fishing and marine habitat all overlap.