Federal regulators weigh a noise permit for a Douglas Island cruise terminal, with sea otters in the balance

Federal regulators are weighing whether to let construction of a new cruise ship terminal on Douglas Island proceed, under a permit that would allow the underwater noise of pile driving to harm sea otters in the surrounding waters. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed the authorization but not granted it, and is taking public comment through Sept. 11.

The project is a two-berth cruise terminal on the western shore of Douglas Island, about nine miles northwest of downtown Juneau, being built by Turnagain Marine Construction. The permit covers the first of two phases. Pile driving would run up to 122 non-consecutive days over a year — the kind of sustained marine construction that generates enough underwater sound to affect nearby marine mammals.

The Service's estimate of that effect is specific. It projects that accumulated noise could cause permanent hearing loss in 98 sea otters and behavioral disturbance among as many as 119, out of a Southeast Alaska population it estimates at 22,359. The agency calls that 119 a "small number" — 0.53 percent of the stock — which is the threshold the Marine Mammal Protection Act sets before it can authorize this kind of incidental harm. To hold the numbers down, the permit would require the contractor to ring the largest piles with bubble curtains that muffle the sound, ramp up gradually with "soft starts," clear shutdown zones, and post observers to watch for otters and halt work when they enter.

The law that governs the permit also protects Alaska Native subsistence harvest and traditional handicraft use of sea otters, and the work would fall near marine subsistence areas used by Alaska Natives from Juneau and nearby communities. The Service concluded the project would not significantly overlap those uses, noting that all 29 sea otters harvested in the Juneau area since 2010 were taken in 2024 and 2025, most of them at Hawk Inlet on Admiralty Island. It is asking tribes to be among those weighing in.

The account so far is the Service's own; its notice carries no comment from the contractor, any tribal government, or any conservation group. Turnagain holds other federal clearances in the same waters, including a separate marine-mammal authorization issued in July for the Aak'w Landing project in Juneau. The draft environmental assessment behind the proposal is open for review through Sept. 11 alongside the permit.