U.S. judge to decide fate
of Navy’s whale experiments

By Lori Tighe
Star-Bulletin

The battle between the environmentalists vs. the Navy hangs on the question: Why is the Navy experimenting with sounds on mating humpback whales?

Is it to find out the lowest sound that causes behavioral changes in whales, which will help decide whether to use anti-submarine technology, as the Navy says?

Or is it to support the Navy's worldwide deployment of its anti-submarine detection system, the low-frequency active sonar, as the environmentalists say?

The answer is up to U.S. District Judge Helen Gillmor, who will decide by the week's end whether to stop the Navy's whale experiments currently under way 10 miles off the northwestern coast of the Big Island.

If the experiments are connected to the low-frequency active system, then the Navy must do an environmental impact statement to let the public review the possible impacts first, before it experiments further, argued Paul Achitoff, attorney with Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, representing a half-dozen marine mammal and environmental groups.

"Of course, the experiments and the LFA system are connected," Achitoff argued. "It depends on the LFA program to do the test."

Architoff asked the court where the mothers and calves are supposed to go when they hear a sound of 140 decibels, when it's been proven that they avoid sounds of 120 decibels.

"It's like continuously blasting a maternity ward with nursing babies," he said. "They are being bombarded with loud sounds for 42-second periods, 30 times a day."

The Navy countered it needs data from the experiments first to do the environmental impact statement, before it decides whether to use its low-frequency active system to detect silent submarines.

"The mere relationship of action doesn't mean they're connected," said Charles Findlay, attorney from the Department of Justice, representing the Navy and the Department of Defense.

"We believe this research is important to determine the effects of the LFA system. It will in no way commit the Navy to deploy the LFA system," Findlay said.

The Navy has taken no measures to employ the LFA system at this time, Findlay said. It will prepare an environmental impact statement before it makes a decision on the anti-submarine technology.

The Navy is currently building its first low-frequency active ship, the TAGOS 23, confirmed Joe Johnson, in charge of the Navy's sonar experiments on Hawaii's humpback whales.

"From what the data says so far, there's a good possibility to safely employ the LFA system," he said.

The ability to conduct this experiment and include the data for possible LFA use is a matter of national security and saving human lives, Findlay told the judge.

"The Navy is after evidence here," he said, "not paper shuffling."

But Benjamin White, International Coordinator for Animal Welfare Institute, questioned how the experiments are affecting the mating and calving of the endangered humpback whales and foraging sperm whales. White, one of two protesters, swam up to the Navy's research vessel Tuesday with a Hawaii flag and a world flag to protest the experiments.

"They are creating an electronic torture wrack to find out at what point the whales will react. The premise was enough to get me here and jump in the water," said White, who flew in from the San Juan Islands near Seattle.

"Will the experiments stop the Navy from deploying LFA? No. Will it force super tankers to build quieter engines? No. Will it change anything for the better for these whales? No."