Judge bars shrill Navy sonar
Temporary order issued in suit seeking to protect whales, porpoises
The Navy is forbidden to use an intense form of sonar -- known to have spooked Puget Sound orcas in the past -- during combat exercises this month in the Pacific, a federal judge ruled Monday.
Environmentalists suing to halt the sonar use offered "considerable convincing scientific evidence" that the exercise would harm or even kill whales, porpoises and other marine creatures, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper ruled in Los Angeles in granting a temporary restraining order.
Among the areas the Navy had previously obtained permission to use the midfrequency sonar were the biologically rich waters of the northwest Hawaiian Islands. Last month, President Bush proposed creating the largest marine sanctuary on the planet there.
"Whales and other marine species shouldn't have to die for practice. The Navy can accomplish its national security mission in a manner that's consistent with environmental protection," said Joel Reynolds, a Natural Resources Defense Council lawyer involved in the case. "It simply makes no sense for the Navy not to incorporate the full range of practical, common-sense measures available to it to reduce the harm to whales, porpoises and other marine creatures."
The Navy was preparing a statement in response to the ruling, Navy spokesman Lt. John Gay said, but it was not available by late Monday.
In the past, though, the service has said a new generation of super-quiet submarines is being developed by nations such as Iran and North Korea.
"Without active sonar, our young men and women serving aboard ships are blind and vulnerable to attack from submarines," the Navy said in a 2003 statement responding to a study in the science journal Nature that said naval sonar kills whales.
The Navy's June 26-July 28 RIMPAC 2006 exercise, which includes seven Pacific Rim nations, is designed to train sailors in the detection of the stealthy new subs.
That apparently also was what was going on in the San Juan Islands when the USS Shoup, a guided missile destroyer, started using sonar in a 2003 exercise at Haro Strait.
The intense, screechy whistling was loud enough to be heard above the water by boaters more than 10 miles away.
Witnesses said orcas halted their feeding and huddled close to shore in an odd configuration.
Dall's porpoises also gathered in a bay, and a minke whale swam off as if in a panic.
Fifteen harbor porpoises were found dead on beaches in the region in the days that followed, an unusually high number for that time of year.
A scientific inquiry said the levels of sound were high enough to affect the porpoises' behavior, but it was inconclusive about whether the sonar actually caused the deaths.
Fish may be at risk, too.
Environmentalists point to anecdotes suggesting that midfrequency sonar kills or drives away fish, and the National Marine Fisheries Service has cited scientific evidence it interferes with fish spawning.
And the Navy admitted that its sonar was "highly likely" the cause of the deaths of whales that beached themselves in the Bahamas in March 2000.
Continue reading this article from the Seattle P-I:
Judge bars shrill Navy sonar
