USA Navy use of active sonar

USA Navy use of active sonar





    
January 2007  - The Defense 
Department has exempted the U.S. Navy and its use of 
mid-frequency active sonar from the Marine Mammal Protection 
Act for two years, raising protests by environmental 
organizations that say the loud blasts of sound harm whales 
and dolphins. 
The Navy’s position is that continued training with active 
sonar is "absolutely essential in protecting the lives of our 
sailors and defending the nation." Sonar is needed to detect 
increasingly quiet diesel-electric submarines that continue to 
proliferate throughout the world, the Navy said in a statement 
Wednesday. 
Mid-frequency active sonar projects from a ship's bow. (Photo 
courtesy Whale Acoustics) 
The Natural Resources Defense Council, NRDC, and other 
conservation groups are suing the Navy to stop its use of 
sonar. They maintaint that the high intensity, mid-frequency 
sonar "has been directly associated with mass strandings and 
other fatalities in marine mammals around the world." 
Joel Reynolds, a senior attorney at NRDC and director of its 
Marine Mammal Protection Project, said the exemption, 
"constitutes clear admission by the U.S. Navy that its current 
operations violate the protective standards for whales, 
dolphins, and other marine life under the Marine Mammal 
Protection Act." 
"It’s not that the Navy can’t comply with the law; it’s that 
the Navy chooses not to," Reynolds said. 
The pending lawsuit was brought by the NRDC, the International 
Fund for Animal Welfare, the Cetacean Society International, 
the Ocean Futures Society, and Jean-Michel Cousteau. It was 
filed in fall 2005 in the U.S. District Court for the Central 
District of California, in Los Angeles. 
Navy Rear Admiral James Symonds, director of environmental 
readiness, said, “The Navy has worked closely with the 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on our 
long-term compliance strategy, and the National Defense 
Exemption is an agreed upon part of the strategy. It allows 
both agencies to apply resources to the long-term plan." 
U.S. Navy Rear Admiral James Symonds in 2005 when he was Capt. 
James Symonds, Commanding Officer of USS Ronald Reagan in the 
Pacific Ocean. (Photo courtesy U.S. Navy) 
"We will continue to employ stringent mitigation measures, 
developed with NOAA’s concurrence, to protect marine mammals 
during all sonar activities," said Admiral Symonds. 
The exemption means that mid-frequency active sonar can be 
used on ranges off Hawaii, Southern California and the East 
Coast. 
The sonar also can be used during RIMPAC 2008, the world's 
largest naval war games that take place in waters around the 
Hawaiian Islands, including the new Northwestern Hawaiian 
Islands Marine National Monument. 
Mass stranding and mortality events associated with 
mid-frequency sonar training exercises by NATO and the United 
States have occurred, among other places, in North Carolina 
(2005); Haro Strait off the coast of Washington State (2003); 
the Canary Islands (2004, 2002, 1989, 1986, 1985); Madeira 
(2000); the U.S. Virgin Islands (1999, 1998); and in Greece 
(1996). 
One of the best documented incidents occurred in the Bahamas 
in 2000 when 16 whales of three species stranded along 150 
miles of shoreline during a Navy exercise. The entire local 
population of beaked whales was never seen again. 
The U.S. Navy later acknowledged in an official report that 
its use of sonar was the likely cause of the stranding. It 
appears that the whales were exposed to sounds in the range of 
145 decibels, the loudness of a rifle blast. 
In 2002, the Navy began implementation of what it calls a 
"comprehensive, fully funded strategy" to ensure the Navy 
complies with applicable federal laws. 
The Navy says the two year limited exemption enables the Navy 
to continue execution of that plan which is being undertaken 
in coordination with the National Marine Fisheries Service. 
In 2006, an execution plan was finalized that will result in 
completion of full environmental documentation of all major 
Navy training and exercise areas. 
"The process of completing this documentation, including the 
required analysis and public comment periods, is a multi-year 
effort. This limited exemption provides a bridge as this plan 
is executed," the Navy statement says. 
The provisions of the exemption apply only during the period 
required to complete each area’s environmental documentation, 
the Navy explains. As each is completed, the exemption will no 
longer apply in that area. 
Beached humpback whale in Alaska. (Photo courtesy NOAA) 
The Navy’s compliance plan will ultimately cover all major 
U.S. Navy ranges and operating areas with environmental impact 
statements under the National Environmental Policy Act, and 
any necessary letters of authorization under the Marine Mammal 
Protection Act, and consultation under the Endangered Species 
Act. 
Navy policy mandates that all its ranges and operating areas 
be covered by overarching compliance actions by the end of 
fiscal year 2009. 
Several of the operating area projects have Notices of Intent 
to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement already published 
in the Federal Register, the beginning step in the 
comprehensive procedure which will involve public 
participation. 
Authority for the exemption was included by Congress in the 
National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2004. 
But the NRDC's Reynolds says, "Whales and other marine mammals 
shouldn’t have to die for practice. The Navy has more than 
enough room in the oceans to train effectively without 
injuring or killing endangered whales and other marine 
species." 
"Because the Navy trains with this dangerous technology in 
some of the richest underwater habitat on Earth, it is legally 
obligated to take simple, common sense steps to protect marine 
life," Reynolds said. 
Reynolds listed preventive measures that the Navy has refused 
to accept.
  a larger safety zone at all times around the sonar source, 
  as the Navy uses for other sonar systems; 
  reducing the sonar power level at night or at other times 
  when spotters’ visibility is compromised; 
  avoiding areas in or near significant marine mammal habitat 
  like whale breeding and feeding areas and migratory routes