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The US Supreme Court Wednesday ruled the US Navy can continue to use long-range sonar in exercises off the California coast, dismissing arguments that the practice was harmful to whales. "Even if the plaintiffs have shown irreparable injury from the navy's training exercises, any such injury is outweighed by the public interest and the navy's interest in effective, realistic training of its sailors," the court said in a opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts.

<p>It seems that the animal rights morons were trying to get the Navy to stop using sonar during submarine training off the coast of California. It seems they think the sonar is too loud and hurts the sensitive whale ears. Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the Court, calls bullsh*t on that bullsh*t.</p>

The US Supreme Court has removed restrictions on the navy's use of sonar in training exercises near California. The ruling is a defeat for environmental groups who say the sonar can kill whales and other mammals. President George W Bush intervened in the long-running dispute, citing national security interests. In its 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court said the navy needed to conduct realistic training exercises to respond to potential threats. The court did not deal with the merits of the claims put forward by the environmental groups. It said, rather, that federal courts abused their discretion by ordering the navy...

The Supreme Court, dividing deeply, upheld the Navy’s power to use sonar in military training exercises, even though the technology threatens marine life in the training zone off the Pacific Coast. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., wrote for the majority; there were three full dissents and one partial dissent. The decision, the Court’s first ruling of the Term, came in the case of Winter (Navy Secretary) v. National Resources Defense Council, et al. (07-1239). The Court partially overturned a federal judge’s order against the use of the active sonar at least until the Navy took additional measures to mitigate...

The Navy has decided that a controversial sonar training range it proposed building off North Carolina's coast would be better located off Florida, where its East Coast sub-hunting helicopters are based...The border of the proposed 625-square-mile range would come within a few dozen miles of calving grounds of the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

SAN FRANCISCO—The U.S. Navy agreed in a settlement approved Tuesday to limit where it operates certain sonar systems criticized by environmentalists as a threat to whales and other marine mammals. The settlement approved Tuesday by a federal judge in San Francisco restricts the Navy's use of low-frequency sonar to specific military training areas near Hawaii and in the western Pacific Ocean.

Defense: The Supreme Court has agreed to decide if the safety and security of whales trumps that of the United States. Protecting Shamu may make both the California Coastal Commission and the Iranian navy happy.In 2006, the U.S. Navy settled a lawsuit filed by the National Resources Defense Council seeking to permanently halt the use of active sonar in training exercises. This temporary reprieve let the Navy practice and train in anti-submarine warfare exercises against some of the most modern and quiet diesel-electric submarines in the world. The RIMPAC 2006 exercise was one of the rare opportunities the Navy had...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court will settle a fight that pits Southern California dolphins against the U.S. military. In a closely watched case involving national security and the natural environment, the court agreed to review restrictions on the Navy's use of sonar off the California coast. The Bush administration contends that the sonar rules, meant to protect marine mammals, hinder military preparedness. "The chief of naval operations determined ... that those restrictions unacceptably risk naval training, the timely deployment of (naval) strike groups and national security," Acting Solicitor General Gregory Garre said in a legal filing. The California Coastal Commission...

The Justice Department is asking the Supreme Court to review a federal appeals court decision limiting the Navy's use of sonar off the Southern California coast because of potential harm to dolphins and whales. In a petition filed Monday, the Justice Department argues that the decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco jeopardizes the Navy's ability to train sailors and Marines for service in wartime.

A federal appeals court has ruled that the Navy must protect endangered whales from the potentially lethal effects of underwater sonar during anti-submarine training off the Southern California coast, rejecting President Bush's attempt to exempt the exercises from environmental laws. In a Friday night ruling rushed into print ahead of the next scheduled exercise on Monday, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld a federal judge's decision that no emergency existed that would justify Bush's intervention. The Navy is engaged in "long-planned, routine training exercises" and has had ample time to take the steps that the...

Honolulu (AP) -- A federal judge has ordered the Navy to take additional precautions when conducting sonar exercises off Hawaii that environmentalists say can seriously injure or kill marine mammals. U.S. District Judge David Ezra said Friday the Navy cannot conduct exercises within 12 nautical miles, or 13.8 miles, of the shoreline, where species that are particularly sensitive to sonar, such as the beaked whale, are found. Among other requirements, the Navy must look for marine mammals for one hour each day before using sonar, employ three lookouts exclusively to spot the animals during sonar use and stop sonar transmission...

San Francisco -- For the second time this week, a federal court found today that a Navy anti-submarine training program threatened to subject whales and other sea creatures to harmful blasts of sonar and ordered protective measures in several sensitive zones, including one near Monterey Bay. The ruling by U.S. Magistrate Elizabeth Laporte of San Francisco applies to the Navy's use of low-frequency sonar in submarine detection exercises conducted in large areas of the world's oceans. She said Navy officials, who had agreed to restrictions after she issued a similar ruling in 2002, failed to take adequate precautions when seeking...

LOS ANGELES — President Bush cannot exempt the Navy from environmental laws placing strict limits on sonar training that environmentalists argue is harmful to whales, a federal judge ruled Monday. "We are aware of the court's decision and we are studying it," said Navy spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Cindy Moore in Washington D.C. The president signed a waiver Jan. 15 exempting the Navy and its anti-submarine warfare exercises from a preliminary injunction creating a 12-nautical-mile, no-sonar zone along California's Southern coast. The Navy's attorneys argued in court last week that he was within his legal rights. U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper...

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- The Navy must follow environmental laws placing strict limits on sonar training that opponents argue harms whales, despite President Bush's decision to exempt it, a federal judge ruled Monday. A federal judge ruled that the Navy must limit sonar training that some say hurts whales. The Navy is not "exempted from compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act" and a court injunction creating a 12 nautical-mile no-sonar zone off Southern California, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper wrote in a 36-page decision. "We disagree with the (exemption) judge's decision," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said. "We...

LOS ANGELES - President Bush cannot exempt the Navy from environmental laws banning sonar training that opponents argue harms whales, a federal judge ruled Monday. Navy officials did not immediately respond to the ruling by U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper. Mark Matsunaga, spokesman for the Navy's Pacific Fleet, headquartered in Hawaii, said officials needed time to review it before commenting. The president signed a waiver Jan. 15 exempting the Navy and its anti-submarine warfare exercises from a preliminary injunction creating a 12 nautical-mile no-sonar zone off Southern California. The Navy's attorneys argued in court last week that he was within...

SAN DIEGO The Navy has resumed sonar training off the coast of Southern California despite the continuing legal battle over how the exercises affect whales and other marine mammals. The training by the carrier strike group of the USS Abraham Lincoln is part of a broader exercise to prepare the group for deployment, the Navy said in a news release. During the exercises, which began Wednesday and were scheduled to last through February 1, sailors train in anti-submarine warfare, ocean security operations and other areas. The anti-submarine warfare exercises use mid-frequency active sonar that environmentalists say hurts whales and other...

"Pod of whales bearing zero-zero-zero, range 2,000 metres," a US sailor shouts to his commander, warning whales have moved in front of the ship as it hunts a submarine off the California coast.Within minutes, the whales have moved to within 200 metres of the ship, forcing its commander to turn off the active sonar being used to search for a sub that has eluded the USS Momsen and other ships for three days during a training exercise.Below deck, the regular ping of the sub-hunting sonar - which environmental groups claim hurts and even kills whales - goes quiet and four...

WASHINGTON — President Bush exempted the Navy from an environmental law so it can continue using sonar in its anti-submarine warfare training off the California coast — a practice critics say is harmful to whales and other marine mammals. The White House announced Wednesday that Bush had signed the exemption Tuesday while traveling in the Middle East. The Navy training exercises, including the use of sonar, "are in the paramount interest of the United States" and its national security, Bush said in a memorandum. "This exemption will enable the Navy to train effectively and to certify carrier and expeditionary strike...

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge has ordered the Navy to adopt stringent new safeguards intended to improve protection of whales and dolphins during its sonar training exercises off Southern California. The ruling, issued Thursday by Judge Florence-Marie Cooper of the United States District Court for the Central District of California, orders the Navy to limit its use of medium-range sonar to an area beyond 12 nautical miles from shore. Closer to the shore, marine mammals have exhibited frenzied and disoriented behavior during the emissions of sonar blasts as part of the Navy’s practice missions. Judge Cooper’s order also outlined...

PEARL HARBOR (NNS) -- Navy officials said they are optimistic that a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Nov. 13 ordered a lower court to rewrite restrictions on the Navy's use of sonar in certain Southern California exercises. That ruling was part of a lawsuit challenging the Navy's ability to train Sailors before they deploy to potential hotspots. The Navy had asked the appeals court to overturn a preliminary injunction that was granted by a U.S. district judge on Aug. 6, 2007, that bars the Navy from using active sonar in certain multi-ship exercises off Southern...

SAN FRANCISCO - A federal appeals court on Tuesday ordered the U.S. Navy to lessen the harm its high-power sonar does to whales and other marine life during exercises off the Southern California coast. The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals sent the matter to a trial judge in Los Angeles to figure out exactly how to fix the problem it says is apparent with the sonar. The three-judge panel said the sonar needs to be fixed before the Navy's next planned exercise in January. The action was taken because the court said it's likely the Natural Resources Defense Council...

San Francisco (AP) -- A federal appeals court on Tuesday ordered the U.S. Navy to lessen the harm its high-power sonar does to whales and other marine life during exercises off the Southern California coast. The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals sent the matter to a trial judge in Los Angeles to figure out exactly how to fix the problem it says is apparent with the sonar. The three-judge panel said the sonars need to be fixed before the Navy's next planned exercise in January. The action was taken because the court said it's likely the Natural Resources Defense...

A federal appeals court allowed the Navy today to resume using underwater sonar blasts in anti-submarine warfare tests off the Channel Islands in Southern California, saying the nation’s military needs outweigh the safety of endangered whales. In a 2-1 decision, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco suspended an April 6 injunction by a federal judge in Los Angeles that ordered the Navy to halt the sonar experiments during training exercises scheduled through 2009. In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper said the underwater sound waves could harm nearly 30 species of marine mammals, including five...

National security is more important than protecting whales or other marine life that could be harmed during exercises scheduled for this month off the coast of San Diego County, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday. The 2-1 decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction issued Aug. 6 by a lower court. The injunction barred the Navy from conducting sonar training off Southern California until a lawsuit brought by environmentalists is resolved. The appellate ruling is a setback for a coalition of environmentalists led by the Natural Resources Defense Council, which is suing to force the...

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 31 — A three-judge panel of a federal appeals court here ruled Friday that the Navy could use high-intensity sonar during military exercises in the Pacific, despite worries about its potentially lethal effect on whales and other marine mammals. The 2-to-1 decision, by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, stays a temporary injunction on the sonar’s use that was handed down in early August by a federal district judge in Los Angeles. It is the latest turn in a lengthy seesaw battle between the military and environmental groups over this so-called midfrequency sonar,...

WASHINGTON (NNS) -- The National Marine Fisheries Services issued a final rule Aug. 16 that allows the Navy to continue operating Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System Low Frequency Active (SURTASS LFA) sonar in the western Pacific Ocean for the next five years, subject to a yearly authorization renewal. SURTASS LFA consists of two separate components. The LFA portion of the system is suspended vertically below the ship and transmits low-frequency sound energy into the water. SURTASS, the passive portion of the system, is towed behind the ship and is made up of a series of underwater microphones that detect natural...

The Enemy Wins One August 9, 2007: A federal judge has managed to wreck the Pacific Fleet's ASW training in the most sweeping ruling concerning Navy sonar to date, prohibiting the Navy from using active sonars through 2009. How has this happened? Simply, put, the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a suit demanding a halt to the Navy's use of active medium-frequency sonars. The judge's ruling is a boon to countries that are acquiring advanced diesel-electric submarines like the Amur/Lada, Type 212/Type 214, and Scorpene. This is not the first attack on the Navy's efforts to properly train its sailors...

National Security: A judge has told the Navy that it cannot use high-powered sonar in its training exercises off the California coast. Saving marine animals, it seems, is more important than protecting American lives. The Navy has 11 training exercises scheduled for Southern California waters over the next two years. Part of the training focuses on the use of mid-frequency sonar which is strong enough to track even the quietest submarines. Environmentalists, however, believe the sonar harms marine life. They say there are several cases in which the sonar caused whales to panic and beach themselves, including an incident in...

A federal judge in Los Angeles banned the U.S. Navy from using high-powered sonar in nearly a dozen upcoming training exercises off Southern California, ruling today that its use could "cause irreparable harm to the environment." U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper issued the preliminary injunction after rejecting the Navy's request to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council. The lawsuit, along with a similar one filed by the California Coastal Commission, argues for broader safeguards to protect marine mammals from powerful blasts of mid-frequency sonar that have been linked elsewhere to mass die-offs of whales and panicked...

The Navy says it won't comply with sonar training restrictions that aim to protect marine mammals off the California coast, arguing that the commission that imposed the rules does not have the jurisdiction to do so. The U.S. Pacific Fleet said in a statement Monday that the California Coastal Commission's rules cannot be applied beyond the scope of state waters, three nautical miles from shore. "The Navy does not take lightly our responsibility to the environment and marine life," said Vice Adm. Barry Costello, commander of the U.S. 3rd Fleet in San Diego. "And we can be responsible environmental stewards...

HONOLULU - The Defense Department gave the Navy permission Tuesday to keep training with sonar for another two years, a move denounced by activists who say the sound waves can harm dolphins and other marine mammals. Navy officials had sought the two-year exemption from the Marine Mammal Protection Act, allowed under the 2004 National Defense Authorization Act, saying they needed time to study how sonar use at major underwater training ranges affects the environment. The environmental impact statements required by the Marine Mammal Protect Act will take about two years, Navy officials said. The ranges are off Hawaii, Southern California...

In early September, a 14-year-old kid with empty eye sockets strode on stage for a taping of the talk show Ellen. "I'm not blind," he told the host to wild applause, "I just can't see." The story seemed lifted from the pages of a comic book: At the age of 3, Ben Underwood lost his eyes to retinal cancer. Three years later, he discovered that he could sense objects around him by making little clicking noises with his tongue and then listening for the echoes. Now, he uses these clicks to find doorways and locate cars on the street. That's...

STRAWBERRY RESERVOIR, Utah (AP) -- For more than a decade, the remains of several boaters have been hidden in the dark, cold depths of this 26-square-mile lake high in the Uinta National Forest. Then, in a span of just two weeks, Strawberry Reservoir gave up six of its dead during a search for a couple whose boat capsized November 8. What loosened the reservoir's grip on the dead was sonar, which transmits high-frequency waves through water and registers vibrations that bounce off an object. Search and rescue crews in the past dragged the lake for bodies with a triangular sheet...

LOS ANGELES - The Navy can use high-intensity sonar in some circumstances for Pacific warfare exercises under an agreement reached Friday with environmental groups, four days after a judge banned the sonar over concerns it could harm marine mammals. The settlement prevents the Navy from using the sonar within 25 miles of the newly established Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument during its Rim of the Pacific 2006 exercises, and also imposes a variety of methods to watch for and report the presence of marine mammals. The environmental groups, led by the Natural Resources Defense Council, had obtained a court...

HONOLULU — The Navy said it will rely on a different type of sonar during exercises off of Hawaii after environmentalists won a temporary restraining order stopping the service from using a high-intensity sonar that could harm marine mammals. U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper's order came after the Defense Department granted the Navy a six-month exemption from the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act to allow use of the "mid-frequency active sonar." Environmentalists had argued the exemption was aimed at circumventing the lawsuit they filed last week to stop the Navy's use of the sonar in the Rim of the Pacific...

HONOLULU -- While the Navy was staging war games and hunting down "enemy" submarines with sonar off the island of Kauai two summers ago, more than 150 lost and disoriented whales were swimming chaotically in the shallows of Hanalei Bay. That mass stranding was a scene neither the Navy nor environmentalists want to see repeated as 40 ships from eight countries return to the islands this month for the world's largest international maritime war games. But the two sides agree on little else, including whether sonar was to blame for that incident. The continuing dispute highlights a deep divide over...

WASHINGTON -- Federal regulators granted the Navy a permit Tuesday to use sonar in a maritime exercise despite environmentalists' concerns it could disturb or even kill whales and dolphins. It was the first such permit granted to the Navy, and one environmental group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, said it would file a lawsuit Wednesday to prevent the sonar's use. The monthlong exercise, which includes anti-submarine training, involves naval forces from eight nations. It began Monday off the Hawaiian Islands. The sonar part of the exercise begins after July 4 and lasts three weeks. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration...

PARIS (AFP) - The French navy made a red-faced admission that it had lost a multi-million dollar sonar navigation device after its cable ripped in stormy waters. Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie confirmed a report in the satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaine, and said an investigation had been launched into how the three-million-euro (3.7-million-dollars) device was mislaid. "An inquiry is underway to determine whether a technical or a human error is at the origin of this problem," she told reporters. Le Canard Enchaine reported that the captain of the De Grasse frigate, decided against his lieutenants' advice to try out the...

Young, now helping to rebuild three damaged New Orleans canals between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, said design drawings show that steel pilings reinforcing the levees should have been driven to a depth of 17 feet below sea level. That does not appear to have been the case, based on preliminary findings by an investigative team led by Louisiana State University civil engineering professor Ivor van Heerden. Using sonar, his tests have shown sheet pilings at the canal went to only 10 feet below sea level. Steve Spencer, chief engineer for Orleans Parish levees, said his agency did the...

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) - Environmentalists filed suit against the U.S. Navy Wednesday, claiming that its most widely used form of sonar disturbs and sometimes kills whales and dolphins who beach themselves to escape the noise. The sonar "is capable of flooding thousands of square miles of ocean with dangerous levels of noise pollution" according to the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles. The Navy settled a similar lawsuit two years ago by agreeing to limit the peacetime use of experimental low-frequency sonar to specific areas along the eastern seaboard of Asia. The new lawsuit by the Natural...

MIDDLEBURY — Scientists at Middlebury College unveiled a three-dimensional map of Lake Champlain's bottom Thursday, culminating nearly a decade of work that not only discovered more than 70 previously unknown shipwrecks, but is expected to greatly advance pollution-control measures. The $1 million effort is the first comprehensive attempt to chart the lake's bottom since the U.S. government mapped its depth in 1879, said Art Cohn, executive director of the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum in Vergennes. The previous survey charted less than 10 percent of the lake bottom, while the new effort captured more than 95 percent, he said. "This map...

Underwater Sub Detection: SBIR Tries to Think Like a Shark Posted 06-Jul-2005 05:10 DID has covered evolving US anti-submarine warfare strategy before, including the growing importance of dealing with super-quiet diesel-electric submarines in shallow-water littorals.In response, one of the early-stage Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) approaches involves thinking entirely outside the sonar box. We talk about "submariner dolphins" - but maybe the creature they really need to emulate is the shark. Unlike dolphins, sharks don't use sonar. Instead, they rely on both an acute sense of smell and on jelly-filled canals that pick up on the tiny electrical charges a...

Dutch Sending Jets to Find Missing Teen By PETER PRENGAMAN, Associated Press Writer 11 minutes ago Aruba's Attorney General Karin Janssen speaks to the Associated Press in her office in Oranjestad, Aruba, Friday, July 1, 2005, regarding the case of missing Alabama teen Natalee Holloway. (AP Photo/Leslie Mazoch) ORANJESTAD, Aruba - Holland will send three F-16 warplanes rigged with search equipment to find Natalee Holloway, Aruban authorities said Saturday, as U.S. lawmakers increased pressure on the Aruban government to do more to find the Alabama teenager nearly five weeks since she disappeared. The three planes, equipped with infrared and sonar-scanning...

Scientists Interrupt Search for the “Mayan Atlantis" in the Caribbean. Cuban Newpaper: GRANMA Mexico City, November 6, 2004 Forwarded by David Drewelow This story updates this prior story . - A group of scientists searching for a hypothetical “Mayan Atlantis" found a pyramid of 35 meters under the waters of the Caribbean, but it had to interrupt the mission due to technical problems, as reported by the Mexican newspaper Millenium, today. After 25 days of work in the sea, near the southwestern end of Cuba, the investigations deeper than 500 meters had to be abandoned due to problems with the...

The Navy and marine wildlife experts are investigating whether the beaching of dozens of dolphins in the Florida Keys followed the use of sonar by a submarine on a training exercise off the coast..... A day before the dolphins swam ashore, the USS Philadelphia had conducted exercises with Navy SEALs off Key West, about 45 miles from Marathon, where the dolphins became stranded.... Navy officials refused to say if the submarine, based at Groton, Conn., used its sonar during the exercise. Some scientists surmise that loud bursts of sonar, which can be heard for miles in the water, may disorient...

The world's whales, porpoises and dolphins have no standing to sue President George W Bush over the US Navy's use of sonar equipment that harms marine mammals, a federal appeals court has ruled. The ruling was made by a three-judge panel of the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, widely considered one of the most liberal and activist in the country. It said it saw no reason why animals should not be allowed to sue but said they had not been granted that right. "If Congress and the President intended to take the extraordinary step of authorising...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The world's whales, porpoises and dolphins have no standing to sue President Bush over the U.S. Navy's use of sonar equipment that harms marine mammals, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, widely considered one of the most liberal and activist in the country, said it saw no reason why animals should not be allowed to sue but said they had not yet been granted that right. "If Congress and the President intended to take the extraordinary step of authorizing animals as well...

LOS ANGELES — Environmental and animal rights groups threatened Wednesday to sue the Navy unless it takes new steps to protect whales and other species from booming waves of sonar designed to detect enemy submarines. In a letter to Secretary of the Navy Gordon England, the groups said dozens of whales off the coast of Washington, Puerto Rico, the Canary Islands, Portugal and other locations have beached themselves during Navy maneuvers — sometimes hemorrhaging blood through their eyes and ears. The letter said the groups recognize the Navy’s “critical importance in protecting and preserving the quality of our lives,” the...

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge Friday let marine biologists keep testing a sonar system for detecting deep-sea whales, despite environmentalists’ fears that the noise will harm animals. U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti said the National Marine Fisheries Service had properly issued a permit last month for the Pacific Ocean testing during the annual winter migration of gray whales. Environmental groups including Australians for Animals and Sea Sanctuary had contended that the high-frequency sound could distress and disorient whales, drive them from their habitat and separate calves from their mothers. Scientific Solutions of Nashua, N.H., argued that no whales have...

<p>For more than a year, the U.S. Navy and environmentalists have been in close combat over sonar and its effect on marine mammals. On Monday, their fighting will culminate in court.</p> <p>The Navy says it needs a wide berth to test its controversial, ultra-loud, low-frequency sonar system. The Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC, and other green groups counter that the military has to be more mindful of whales and other marine mammals when it runs the tests. Whales depend on their ears to make their way around the oceans, after all. The sonar in question can be as deafening to marine mammals as a Saturn V moon rocket.</p>