Sonar suit
against Navy
is dismissed

The Green Party wanted
to protect whales from
future underwater tests

By Lori Tighe
Star-Bulletin

Green Party attorney Lanny Sinkin arrived at federal court wearing a T-shirt. He turned his back, took it off, and put on a button-down shirt with whales on it.

"Fresh out of the phone booth, I'm ready," he said, smiling, at a news conference before entering the court building.

The Green Party wanted to make sure the Navy doesn't conduct more tests in Hawaii on the effect on whales of a submarine detection system, which environmentalists decried as harmful to sea life.

But U.S. District Judge Alan Kay yesterday ruled in favor of the Navy, declaring the Green Party's lawsuit moot since the Navy ended its sonar experiments in March.

"We're pleased with the dismissal," said Navy spokesman Lt. Flex Plexico. "The judge said it best when he said the litigation should be ended because the Navy plans no more research at this time."

The spokesman said he has no idea if the Navy will return in the future and blast its low-frequency sonar at whales in Hawaiian waters.

Scientists performing the Navy experiments off the Big Island's Kona coast are evaluating the data now, Plexico said. They will report their findings in an environmental impact statement for the public to review. Plexico said he doesn't know when the report will be finished.

The Navy's silent-submarine detection system won't be scheduled for use or training until the public reviews the environmental impact statement, Plexico said.

Sinkin said the Navy refuses to review anyone else's evidence on the sonar's impact. The scientists conducting the research are from independent universities but still are paid by the Navy.

The federal court previously called the Green Party's evidence against the Navy as anecdotal.

Sinkin yesterday brought an analysis of the impact by Joe Mobley, a University of Hawaii professor and researcher hired by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources to independently monitor the experiments.

Holding up Mobley's charts of the Big Island, Sinkin said they showed how the whales moved from their favorite spot off Keahole Point - where the Navy blasted the sonar - to the north and south.

"The humpback whales found the Navy's sounds obnoxious and moved," Sinkin said.

But DLNR head Michael Wilson, said Mobley told him otherwise.

"He said there was no indication at all the whales were aware of the testing," Wilson said. "The level of noise the Navy used was not louder than the background noise in the ocean."

Wilson said the results made him feel comfortable with the Navy's experiments. "I'll keep it until the Navy decides to come back," he said.