Navy to limit use
of sonar systemSeveral groups sue over the
sub detection device's potential
to harm marine animals
SAN FRANCISCO >> The Navy has agreed to limit its peacetime use of a new sonar system designed to detect enemy submarines because it may harm marine mammals and fish, according to an environmental group that sued the military over the issue.
The Natural Resources Defense Council and the Navy reached a legal settlement last week in which the military agreed to use the new system only in specific areas along the eastern seaboard of Asia, according to documents provided by the environmental group.
The system, a form of "low frequency active" sonar, produces underwater booming sounds as loud as a jet engine, according to researchers who tested it in Hawaii waters in 1998.
The agreement still must be approved by federal Magistrate Elizabeth Laporte in California to become permanent. If implemented, the deal would greatly restrict the Navy's original plan for the sonar system, which once was slated to be tested in most of the world's oceans.
Navy officials familiar with the case could not be reached for comment yesterday.
"We're very pleased," said Hilo attorney Lanny Sinkin, who has a related case pending on appeal in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
The California case deals with the inadequacies, confirmed by the judge, of studies on low-frequency active sonar under routine conditions. Sinkin's case deals with the failure of the Navy to study the effects of the sonar during times of threat or war.
In Sinkin's case, the Navy argued that it doesn't "currently" have plans to use the sonar during times of threat or war, Sinkin said.
But in the California case, Navy lawyers argued that the sonar is needed because of threats posed by North Korea, Sinkin said.
The Navy is arguing opposite positions in different courts, a practice which is barred by law, he said.
"Essentially the environmental groups won the (California) case," Sinkin said.
Laporte just created an exception for the situation around North Korea, he said.
Attorney Isaac Moriwake of the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund in Honolulu said, "It was a great decision by a California judge that even in times of national security, our military has to take care that it does not do irreparable harm to our marine environment."
Earthjustice was not involved in the California case, but did oppose the 1998 testing in Hawaii.
The Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups sued the Navy over the new system last year.
In August, Laporte ordered the environmentalists and the Navy to negotiate a settlement.
That settlement largely mirrors restrictions imposed by an earlier injunction by Laporte.
The Defense Council commented, "In her ruling, Judge Laporte found that a permit issued to the Navy by the National Marine Fisheries Service to deploy LFA sonar violates the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act because it did not adequately assess or take steps to mitigate the risks posed by the system to marine mammals and fish."
In addition to restricting the system to the eastern seaboard of Asia, the Navy also agreed to seasonal restrictions designed to protect whale migrations, and to avoid using the system near the coast.
None of the restrictions applies during time of war.
Environmentalists point to a different system the Navy used in 2000, when at least 16 whales and two dolphins beached themselves on islands in the Bahamas.
Eight whales died and scientists found hemorrhaging around their brains and ear bones, which could have been caused by exposure to loud noise.
Star-Bulletin reporter Rod Thompson and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
