Navy training, rare whales a divisive mix off Fla.

Richmond Times-Dispatch ^ | 10/3/2009 | Staff

[Saije]

Florida isn't known for whale watching, but every winter the coastline offers a haven for endangered North Atlantic right whales. They migrate to warm, shallow waters to give birth and nurse little -- relatively speaking -- 1-ton bundles of blubber.

Their spot is right next to where the U.S. Navy wants to conduct anti-submarine training.

The Navy has selected a site bordering a federally protected whale nursery stretching from Savannah to Sebastian for an undersea warfare range, where ships, submarines and aircraft outfitted with powerful sonar can practice hunting subs.

Citing voluminous studies, the Navy concluded that training 58 miles off Jacksonville would rarely, and barely, disturb right whales.

But environmentalists say the Navy has soft-pedaled risks from the 500-square-mile range. Ship strikes already rank as the top right-whale killer. The Navy also intends to heavily employ sonar that can disrupt feeding and communication, cause hearing damage and, in extreme cases, trigger mass strandings such as one in the Bahamas that killed six beaked whales in 2000.

"It's one of the worst possible places," said Catherine Wannamaker, an attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, one of 21 groups that contested the choice. "It's right next to the calving grounds for one of the rarest whales in the world."

The groups contend that the range poses a disruptive, potentially deadly threat to a whale population numbering no more than 400 -- and that's after producing 39 calves last year, the most in decades. Florida and Georgia environmental regulators have raised similar concerns. The Navy approved the site in August after getting a crucial, if qualified, approval from the National Marine Fisheries Service... Though the Navy can build the $100 million range, scheduled to open in 2014, it will need a separate permit to use it.

[Saije]

Endangered whale stories always remind me of Star Trek IV. (The best one in the series IMO.) We need to be careful about this sort of thing.

[MHGinTN]

Me too, The Journey Home was my favorite. But that 'KHAN" thingy which preceded it was pretty darn good, too, reviving Ricardo as a prime villain.

[HereInTheHeartland]

Our nations national security interests must always come first.
If it hurts the whales to train there, and the Navy can train elsewhere; then fine.

If not, then train there.

[jmcenanly]

Unfortunately, our enemies care as much for cetacean life as they do for human life. I can only assume that the Koran is silent on the subject of whales.

[subterfuge]

Why does a “range” 58 miles offshore cost $ 100 million?