Many urge WHALE LOVERS from Maui and the Big Island packed a local public hearing to protest Navy use of low-frequency sonar to search for quiet enemy submarines.
Navy sonar be
silenced
A hearing draws 150, most
protesting as others testify
devices don't hurt whalesBy Diana Leone
Star-Bulletin"I can't understand why we're allowing a technology that's harmful to marine mammals," said Big Island sailor Ralph Blancato. "If NMFS (the National Marine Fisheries Service) is truly the steward of our oceans, it has an important job -- to stop the LFAS (low-frequency active sonar) now."
The hearing yesterday was one of three by the fisheries service to hear public comment on whether the Navy should be allowed to use a sonar system that took $400 million to develop over the past dozen years. The first hearing Thursday in Los Angeles included actor Pierce Brosnan speaking against the sonar. The last hearing is set for next Thursday in Silver Springs, Maryland.
Most of the 150 people present at the four-hour hearing at the Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort were against allowing the Navy to use its new technology, which emits up to 215 decibels of low-frequency sound.
Big Island attorney Lanny Sinkin blasted the Navy for testing the system for years before it completed an environmental impact statement.
"This was a mistake the Navy made 20 years ago that they cannot admit to now," Sinkin charged.
Sinkin said the completed environmental study is flawed and should be rejected by the fisheries service. If it accepts the study, Sinkin promised that environmental groups will challenge the Navy in court.
U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink opposes the technology and wants additional public hearings on the islands of Maui, Hawaii and Kauai and an extension of the deadline for comments from May 18 to June 18, according to testimony delivered by her administrative assistant, Joan Manke.
But biologist Kurt Fristrup, one of three lead scientists hired by the Navy to study the effects of the sonar on whales, said that whales didn't react any more to sonar tests he observed than they did to being approached by a small boat.
Joe Johnson, a Navy-employed civilian who oversaw preparation of the environmental impact statement, said the study was "done right" and that scientists hired by the Navy were given free rein to reach their own conclusions.
Several Big Island residents countered Fristrup's allegation that whales didn't react much to the sonar. They testified that most whales left the Big Island testing area in 1998 shortly after the Navy began testing.
Others questioned why so few whale species (four) were studied and whether the tests realistically represented how the low-frequency sonar would be deployed, especially in wartime or conflict situations.
Some questioned the sonar's effect on fish, which was not studied at all.
Speaking for the "Cetacean Nation," Michael T. Hyson noted that whales' brains are "six times larger than ours and they've been on the planet five times longer than our evolutionary history. It's important how we approach them. We have zero right to do this."
"Uncle" Leslie Ku'o'oio compared allowing the use of the system to "open season on all our family of mammals, our ohana."
The fisheries service is expected to make a decision on whether to allow the Navy to use the sonar this summer, said hearing officer Ken Hollingshead.