Bush’s sonar OK The Bush administration cleared the way yesterday for Navy use of a powerful low-frequency sonar to identify enemy submarines, a move environmentalists say will lead to increased strandings and deaths of whales.
raises concern
His approval to use the new
Navy tool worries environmentalists
and whale advocatesStaff and news reports
The Commerce Department's National Marine Fisheries Service granted the Navy, which has spent $300 million developing the system, a five-year exemption from the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The exemption allows "harassment" of marine mammals by the Navy with its intense low-frequency sonar, called the Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System, or Surtass LFA.
The National Marine Fisheries Service said in a statement that with proper monitoring and safeguards, "Marine mammals are unlikely to be injured by the sonar activities and ... the sonar will have no more than a negligible impact on marine mammal species and stocks."
"It's a sham," said Big Island attorney Lanny Sinkin, who in 1998 filed a lawsuit to stop the Navy's sonar experiments off the Kona coast.
"We think they're using bad science, calculating the results to fit the needs of the Navy."
"When they were here testing the system, during those tests all the humpback whales which were here for their birthing and breeding season fled the test area. ... The Navy still refuses to acknowledge that happened, and so does the National Marine Fisheries Service."
The exemption is due to be reviewed on an annual basis.
The Navy plans to use the new sonar on two warships capable of sweeping 80 percent of the world's oceans. The original plan had called for four ships, but that was scaled back due to budget constraints.
The Navy says the sonar is important to national security because other nations, such as Russia, Germany and China, are developing superquiet submarines to avoid traditional detection.
Whales are particularly susceptible to sonar interference because they rely on sound for communication, feeding, mating and migration. According to the Navy, each of the sonar's 18 speakers transmits signals as loud as 215 decibels, equivalent underwater to standing next to a twin-engine F-15 fighter jet at takeoff.
Environmentalists say, however, that with the convergence of sound waves from each of the speakers, the intense effects of the system would reach farther, as if the signals were 235 decibels.
"The Bush administration has issued a blank check for the global use of this system," said Michael Jasny, a senior policy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
"Today's decision is far too broad to provide any meaningful protection for whales, dolphins and other marine life."
Fisheries officials outlined protective measures calling for Navy personnel to visually scan for marine mammals and sea turtles and to shut down the sonar whenever they are detected. Detection is expected to be almost 100 percent effective from a distance of 1.1 nautical mile away.
The Navy says it will restrict the sonar's routine use to at least 12 nautical miles away from coastline and outside biologically important areas.
The intense low-frequency sonar can travel several hundred miles, and the transmissions are on the same frequency used for communication by many large whales, including humpbacks.
Some biologists believe whales are irritated by sounds louder than 110 decibels and that a whale's eardrums could explode at 180 decibels.
Environmentalists' fears are partly based on the Navy's deployment of a powerful midrange sonar in March 2000 during a submarine detection exercise in the deep-water canyons of the Bahamas.
At least 16 whales and two dolphins beached themselves on the islands of Abaco, Grand Bahama and North Eleuthera within hours. Eight whales died. Scientists found hemorrhaging around the brain and ear bones, injuries consistent with exposure to loud sounds.
Twelve Cuvier beaked whales beached themselves in Greece during NATO exercises in 1996 using the low-frequency sonar, but the whales decomposed before scientists could investigate.
"It's not surprising but it is frustrating," said Hawaii Sierra Club Director Jeff Mikulina. "The impacts on marine mammals aren't just hypothetical, they have tangible evidence.
"The decision itself is just another Bush decision that leaves sound science at the doorstep," Mikulina said.
>>Navy Surtass site: www.surtass-lfa-eis.com
>>Natural Resources Defense Council: http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/marine/nlfa.asp