NEW YORK (Oct. 13, 2003) -- The U.S. Navy will drastically limit the use of a controversial low-frequency sonar system, which environmental groups say disorients and kills endangered whales and other species, under a court agreement disclosed yesterday. Even as it accepted a permanent injunction against most applications of the new sonar, however, the Navy said it will press for final action on pending modifications to the Marine Mammal Protection Act and other laws to allow it to deploy the system more widely. The low-frequency sonar can detect modern, quiet submarines over long distances. The accord, which limits the Navy to less than 1 percent of the global range that was initially approved by federal authorities, was reached last week in federal district court in California. Environmental groups cheered the Navy's decision to accept a permanent injunction against wider use of the new sonar as "groundbreaking" and vowed to begin a worldwide campaign against the high-powered sonar. As part of the campaign, a bill was introduced in the European Parliament yesterday to limit NATO's use of the technology. A Navy spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. Cappy Surette, said the Navy does not see the agreement as a positive development and that "it will limit the readiness of our sailors and Marines to meet the submarine threats of the new century." He said the agreement and permanent injunction "highlight why legislative change is required to achieve a statutory regime that effectively considers important national interests and national defense." Both the House and Senate have passed versions of a bill sought by the Pentagon, called the Range and Readiness Preservation Initiative, as an amendment to the pending Defense Department appropriations bill. It is still being debated in a conference committee to resolve significant differences in the two drafts. Surette said the Navy wants changes to clarify what constitutes "harassment" of whales, dolphins and porpoises, and to set standards for how many can be inadvertently harmed without breaking environmental laws. Under last week's permanent injunction, the Navy will be allowed to use the new sonar -- which emits very loud, low-frequency sound that can travel for hundreds of miles -- only off the eastern seaboard of Asia, an area of about 1.5 million square miles. Both sides said they could not discuss the reasons for that exception. The agreement prohibits the use of the sonar, called Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System-Low Frequency Active (SURTASS-LFA), within 30 to 60 miles of the coastlines of the approved area, which includes China, Korea, Japan and the Philippines. In addition, the sonar cannot be used when marine mammals are migrating through. Surette said that the Navy still believes low-frequency sonar does not harm sea creatures and that it spent $10 million on an environmental impact assessment that supported its position. But in recent years, as more whale strandings have been tied to the loud sounds of mid-frequency sonar, also used to detect submarines and other underwater hazards, some prominent researchers have warned that low-frequency sonar could be equally harmful. | | Researchers are still not certain how the loud sonar blasts affect whales and other marine mammals, but the animals are known to be very sensitive to sound, which they use to communicate and determine their location. Last week, English and Spanish researchers reported in the journal Nature that they had found gas bubbles in the tissues of some beached whales, indicating they may have risen too quickly to escape sonar noise and developed decompression sickness, or "the bends." The whales tested had beached in the Canary Islands, just a few hours after active, mid-frequency sonar had been used as part of a Spanish-led international naval exercise. Joel Reynolds, director of the Marine Mammal Protection Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit against the Navy, said the new restrictions would not be in force during times of war or times of officially-declared increased threat. "This agreement safeguards both marine life and national security," he said. "It will prevent the needless injury, harassment and death of countless whales, porpoises and fish, and yet allow the Navy to do what is necessary to defend the country." The new court agreement replaces a temporary injunction ordered in August by U.S. Magistrate Elizabeth Laporte, who struck down the permit issued 15 months ago by the National Marine Fisheries Service. At that time, Laporte told the Navy and the plaintiffs -- the NRDC, the Humane Society International and Jean-Michel Cousteau's Ocean Futures Society -- to negotiate a permanent injunction consistent with her ruling. The environmental groups said yesterday that they would start an international campaign to win global regulation of all types of active sonar, which send out blasts of sound that bounce off underwater objects whose location can then be identified. The International Fund for Animal Welfare, which is based in Europe and says it has 2 million members worldwide, said it will actively lobby European governments and the European Union to limit the deployment of the high-powered sonar. Although much information about low-frequency active sonar remains secret, environmental officials said they believe some European nations, and the NATO organization, are testing new systems. Reynolds of NRDC said he did not believe any low-frequency sonar systems have been deployed except experimentally. SOURCE - Washington Post |
