EDT Groups: Navy Sonar Threatens Whales

A new low-frequency radar that the U.S. Navy wants to deploy in the hunt for enemy subs has set off a wave of criticism by environmental groups.

Associated Press Actor Pierce Brosnan speaks at a news conference where plans were announced to fight a new U.S. Navy sonar system they and others claim will harm marine life, Thursday, April 26, 2001, in Santa Monica, Calif.

The National Marine Fisheries Service held a hearing Thursday in which groups concerned with the welfare of undersea life appealed to the federal agency to deny the Navy's request to use the sonar, which operates in the 240-decibel range.

Navy sonar engineer Joe Johnson, whose job is to gauge the impact of sonar devices on the environment, told the Associated Press that there's no doubt mammals would probably be disturbed by the new tracking devices.

"We have a very loud sonar system," he said.

An attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council said that sound waves from the sonar would be comparable to a jet fighter taking off. That kind of ear-pounding could cause whales and dolphins to suffer permanent damage, including brain hemorrhages, the attorney said.

Actor Pierce Brosnan was among those denouncing the navy plan at Thursday's hearing.

"We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that active sonars cause whales to beach themselves .... I don't believe we can take the risks," Brosnan said.

Some environmentalists claim that the Navy's use of super low-frequency sonar last year during exercises around the Bahamas resulted in the mass stranding of four species of whales and dolphins. Navy officials reject that theory, arguing that the mammal deaths were related to a mid-frequency sonar in use since before World War II.

The federal government has given tentative approval for some vessels in the U.S. fleet to utilize the new sonar, with the promise that sonar operators first scan the waters to make sure there are no whales or dolphins within a kilometer of the ship.

Navy's Requested Exemption from Whale Protection Law Sparks Outcry

BY KENNETH R. WEISS
LOS ANGELES TIMES

The U.S. Navy is asking to be exempted from a federal law that forbids the harassment or killing of whales as it begins exercises with a powerful new sonar designed to hunt for super-quiet submarines.

The controversial sonar system, designed to blast swaths of ocean with low-frequency sound waves, was the subject of protests Thursday in Los Angeles and then a public hearing.

The hearing was the first of three to be held around the United States by the National Marine Fisheries Service since government scientists confirmed that a different Navy sonar was likely responsible for the mass stranding of beaked whales in the Bahamas in March 2000. Necropsies showed six whales died from hemorrhaging around the brain and ear bones —presumably from intense internal vibrations caused by bursts of mid-frequency sound waves.

Environmentalists have pounced on that case as proof that high-power sonar systems can disorient and kill whales and other sea mammals.

Associated Press Actor Pierce Brosnan, left, joins Joel Reynolds, center, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, as they watch a video presentation at a news conference where plans were announced to fight a new U.S. Navy sonar system they and others claim will harm marine life, Thursday, April 26, 2001, in Santa Monica, Calif.

"It is undeniable evidence of just how dangerous and unpredictable intense sound can be in the ocean," said Joel Reynolds, senior attorney of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "We simply cannot afford toplay Russian roulette with our oceans."

He and others fear whale strandings will become more commonplace if the Navy conducts peacetime exercises across 80 percent of the world's oceans with its new high-intensity, low-frequency sonar. But Navy scientists say such fears are unfounded.

The deaths in the Bahamas were linked to a mid-frequency sonar that has been around since World War II. It would be wrong, the Navy and National Marine Fisheries Service say, to assume a low-frequency sonar system could result in the same tragedy if operated with proper precautions.

"Damage attributable to one sonar doesn't mean that all sonars are harmful," said Roger Gentry, coordinator of acoustic teams for the National Marine Fisheries Service. "Because of technical differences and anatomical differences in animals, you must parse out the effects."

The Navy is now trying to persuade the fisheries service that the low-frequency active sonar can be operated safely, without posing significant danger to whales or other sea creatures.

Joe Johnson, a Navy sonar engineer in charge of environmental studies on low-frequency sonar, said the Navy is seeking an exemption from the Marine Mammal Protection Act because of its concern for violating the law's ban on harassing whales, not the ban on whale deaths.

"There is no doubt that there will be some harassment of marine mammals," Johnson said. "We have a very loud sonar system."

To avoid more significant harm, Navy officials promise to use shipboard observers and fish-finding sonar to make sure no marine mammals or sea turtles are within a kilometer of a sonar broadcast. Should a whale come too close, the sonar would be shut off.

Four boats with U.S. Navy's Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System would operate low-frequency sonar at least 12 miles offshore. That way, for instance, they would remain out of the way of the annual migration of gray whales along the California coast.

The sonar will remain even farther off the Eastern seaboard to stay clear of the range of the Atlantic's endangered northern right whale. Sonar arrays also will be restricted from waters near Antarctica where whales from across the Southern Hemisphere converge and from whale habitat around the Hawaiian Islands and off the west coast of Costa Rica.

The calculation of what decibel level causes physiological damage has created a loud, and divisive, debate among marine researchers.

"Friends have stopped talking to us," said Kenneth Balcomb, director of the Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbor, Washington. "We're getting a bit of character assassination."

Balcomb was outside his home on Abaco Island, Bahamas, on March 15, 2000, when a 16-foot Cuvier's beaked whale stranded in shallow water. With some help, he managed to push the two-ton animal back into deeper water. Soon, he found a total of 16 whales, two minke whales and the rest beaked whales, stranded over a 200-mile area. All this occurred immediately after a day of Navy sonar exercises in the area.

Although a similar mass stranding had occurred in Greece, this time a marine mammal researcher had fresh samples.

Balcomb collected the whale heads and sent them to Harvard Medical School for CAT scans. His research concluded that the loud sounds caused "resonance phenomenon" in the air cavities of the whales' heads. The sound vibrations were literally "tearing apart delicate tissues around the brain and ears," he said, leading to hemorrhage and death.

For more information, visit the Natural Resources Defense Council Web site at http://www.nrdc.org/, the National Marine Fisheries Service Web site at http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/, or the U.S. Navy Web site at http://www.navy.mil/. To write your senator or congressman regarding whale preservation or other environmental issues, visit http://www.senate.gov or http://www.house.gov.

Back to The Pierce Brosnan Gallery.