Posted on 11/01/2002 4:37:34 AM PST by Pern
A federal judge yesterday prohibited the U.S. Navy from combing the world's oceans with a powerful new sonar, ruling the booming sounds meant to detect enemy submarines could cause irreparable harm to whales.
The temporary injunction bans a type of low-frequency sonar that has not been conclusively linked to marine-mammal deaths.
Although the ruling could allow the Navy to resume using the sonar in some places, U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth LaPorte imposed a worldwide ban until Navy brass and environmental experts can agree on a list of spots where sailors can deploy the sonar without harming marine life.
In her 58-page opinion, the judge, who is based in San Francisco, said the Navy may use the sonar to detect enemy submarines during wartime and must be allowed to train with it beforehand.
She gave the Navy and environmental groups that filed the lawsuit until Nov. 7 to report back to her with an interim solution.
The Navy and federal marine-fisheries officials declined comment.
But environmental groups were elated. They had sued to overturn the Bush administration's decision in July that gave the Navy permission to "harass" or injure whales in training missions using the sonar designed to search for super-quiet diesel submarines.
"There was no justification for giving the Navy a blank check to operate this sonar in 75 percent of the world's oceans," said Joel Reynolds, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Yesterday's ruling is the most recent legal victory for environmental groups trying to rein in powerful sonar and other loud sounds that science is increasingly linking to deaths and injuries of marine mammals.
The Bush administration is pushing to exempt military activities from a variety of environmental constraints. In September, a federal judge rejected arguments that sonar use in the deep ocean was exempt from the National Environmental Policy Act.
In early 2000, 16 beaked whales beached themselves in the Bahamas in a mass-stranding that the Navy and other authorities have linked to bursts of midfrequency sonar. A similar die-off of whales occurred in September in the Canary Islands after naval operations by warships from the United States and about 12 NATO allies.
"From a scientific point of view, there is very little question that, given the right set of circumstances, active sonar can kill marine life," said Naomi Rose, a marine-mammal scientist with the U.S. Humane Society.
Yet military officials point out that naval operations in the Bahamas and Canary Islands were not using the new Surveillance Towed Array Sonar System banned yesterday. That system broadcasts low-frequency sonic waves through 18 speakers dangled behind a ship on cables hundreds of feet long.
Such active sonar emits 215-decibel bursts of low-frequency waves that can "light up" enemy submarines with acoustics, much the way a floodlight can light up an intruder in a darkened back yard. These intense waves travel 300 miles through the ocean before dissipating. As such, they are much more effective at detecting submarines than passive listening devices.
Environmentalists say that frequency of the sonic waves matters less than intensity and that the new low-frequency system spreads intensely loud sound farther than any other sonar.
The National Marine Fisheries Service decided in July that the sonar would have "negligible impact" on any marine species so long as it operated at least 12 miles from shore and was shut down if sailors detected any whales.
Environmentalists sued, saying the federal government violated federal laws designed to protect whales and endangered species.
Yesterday, LaPorte wrote that environmentalists were likely to win their lawsuit: "It is undisputed that marine mammals ... will at a minimum be harassed by the extremely loud and far traveling (low-frequency) sonar."
The judge said she intends to modify her injunction to balance the public interest in "the survival and flourishing of marine mammals and endangered species" with "ensuring military preparedness and safety of those serving in the military from attacks by hostile submarines."
To achieve that balance, she ordered the Navy to meet with environmentalists and work out specific places acceptable to both sides.
The lawsuit focuses only on peacetime training and testing of the sonar, the judge noted.
I am in the business of subhunting myself, aboard the mighty P-3 ORION ASW aircraft. In particular, I work with underwater acoustics and sonar. Matter of fact, I am an Instructor of them.
Rest easy if y'all are worried. This descision will NOT bother us to any great extent. That's all I can say.
Hey, shipmate.
Ex-AX1 IFT NATOPS instructor here. -Bs, B-MODs and Charlie Update IIs (what a piece of junk - but you may know that).
Glad to hear the Do What's Right attitude is alive and well in my Navy.
Pull chocks. Fly Safe.
Elizabeth LaPorte
Somehow, she looks exactly like I expcted her to.
All I'm saying is, don't sweat THIS one. We've got your back, America. BTW, ORIONs are more than up to the task, thank you. My life and career are devoted to just that goal, and there are a LOT like me.
Slick didn't drive us ALL away...
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