Only about 70 breeding female North Atlantic right whales are left on Earth. Now a tech company wants to test an underwater data center in the waters where these whales feed. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) must reject this project before the first survey boat heads out.

The company, DeepGreen Western Passage SPV LLC, wants to place the data center on roughly 27 acres of seafloor in the Bay of Fundy, off the coast of Eastport. On August 25, FERC accepted its application to study whether the project could work. That study alone could bring more boats and more underwater noise into the bay. Noise and boat traffic can change how whales call to each other, find food, and move through the area, and can raise the risk of collisions.

And it could get much worse. If the data center is built, marine life could face construction noise, pollution, heated water released into the bay, and the danger of getting trapped. DeepGreen has even floated a second phase that could grow the project to as much as 400 acres.

Right whales cannot afford that. Only a few hundred are still alive, fewer than 400 in total, and getting hit by boats is already one of the top threats they face. Fin whales, the second biggest whales on the planet, are endangered too. Sturgeon and other wildlife also depend on these waters.

"Experimenting with an underwater data center in the habitat of one of the world's most endangered whale populations is a truly terrible idea," according to Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

These waters belong to the whales, the wildlife, and the Maine coastal communities who share them. Tech companies can find somewhere else to experiment. Endangered whales have nowhere else to go.

FERC should deny DeepGreen's permit and keep this project out of right whale habitat for good.

Sign now to stop this data center before the surveys begin and it's too late for the right whales.