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Larry Goldstein
Lokahi
267 Posts |
 Posted - 05/17/2007 : 06:53:17 AM
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Here is an article you may find of interest.
Larry
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U.S. Navy Sued to Protect Endangered Whales from Sonar
HONOLULU, Hawaii, May 16, 2007 (ENS) - Conservation and animal welfare organizations have filed a legal challenge to the U.S. Navy's plan to use high-intensity, mid-frequency active sonar in antisubmarine exercises in Hawaii's waters.
The planned sonar would emit blasts far louder than levels associated with mass whale strandings and fatalities, according to the plaintiff groups.
The Navy has announced plans to use the sonar in up to 12 separate sets of Undersea Warfare Exercises during 2007 and 2008 in Hawaii's waters, including within the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary and near the new Marine National Monument in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
Attorneys from Earthjustice filed suit in Hawaii federal district court today on behalf of Ocean Mammal Institute, the Animal Welfare Institute, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Surfrider Foundation and KAHEA - the Hawaiian Environmental Alliance.
Marti Townsend of KAHEA said, "The Navy is not above the law. Just the reverse - as a government agency, the Navy should be setting an example. Protecting the country includes following its laws, not skirting them."
The plaintiffs complain that the National Marine Fisheries Service, NMFS, relying almost entirely on the Navy's assessments, made little effort to analyze the sonar's effects or require the Navy to implement protective mitigation, such as that to which the Navy agreed for the 2006 RIMPAC exercises in Hawaii.
The plaintiffs have sued NMFS as well, for violating the Endangered Species Act.
The Animal Welfare Institute's Susan Millward said, "It's disappointing that NMFS abdicated its responsibilities by allowing the Navy to decide for itself the mitigation it will use."
Dr. Marsha Green of Ocean Mammal Institute added, "The Navy knows protecting whales is possible. It used more protective mitigation in the 2006 RIMPAC exercises than it plans to use in these."
Hawaii is the winter breeding grounds for thousands of endangered humpback whales, and endangered blue, fin, Northern Pacific right, sei, and sperm whales also are found here, along with thousands of whales and dolphins of other marine species that will be exposed to the sonar.
The Navy acknowledged in its Environmental Assessment, EA, for the Hawaii exercises that its sonar will reach whales at levels up to 215 decibels - at least 100,000 times more intense than the levels at which the whales stranded in the Bahamas in 2000.
The Navy's EA admitted that the sonar will, at a minimum, likely significantly alter or cause the abandonment of the whales' migration, surfacing, nursing, feeding, or sheltering behaviors.
Recognizing it will harm whales in violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Navy in January exempted itself from that law.
The plaintiff groups allege that the Navy refused to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act, refused to include protective mitigation, and dismissed as insignificant the impacts to thousands of marine mammals, including humpbacks with nursing calves in Hawaii's protected nearshore waters.
It also failed to comply with the Coastal Zone Management Act and National Marine Sanctuaries Act, the lawsuit alleges.
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