Judge: Navy must cut sonar use off California to protect whales and dolphins

Navy must cut sonar use off California

Judge orders tough restrictions to protect whales and dolphins. Officials fear training will be hampered.
By Kenneth R. Weiss, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 4, 2008


A federal judge in Los Angeles on Thursday ordered the toughest set of restrictions ever imposed on the U.S. Navy's use of mid-frequency sonar off the Southern California coast as part of a protracted court battle to protect whales and other marine mammals from underwater sonic blasts.

The order was the first time the judge has spelled out specific rules the Navy must follow to avoid a court-imposed ban on training missions with a type of sonar that has been linked to the death and panicked behavior of whales and dolphins.

U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper ordered the Navy to refrain from using the powerful submarine-hunting sonar within 12 miles of the coast, a corridor heavily used by migrating gray whales, dolphins and other marine mammals.

She also ordered that the Navy spend an hour before it starts any training mission searching for marine mammals in the area and that it continue using shipboard observers and aircraft to monitor for whales and dolphins while the sonar is in use.

If any marine mammals are spotted within 2,200 yards of a ship using sonar, the Navy will have to cease its use immediately.

In her 18-page order, Cooper said the Navy's proposed strategy of slowly reducing sonar power and then shutting it off when whales or dolphins come within 200 yards "is grossly inadequate to protect marine mammals from debilitation levels of sonar exposure."

The judge, who has spent years poring over studies about whale deaths and injuries after Navy exercises, has suggested in her rulings that she wants to balance competing interests of national security and fleet readiness with environmental protections.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-sonar4jan04,1,5472074.story?track=rss&ctrack=3&cset=true

:hi:

feed up and down the coast - neither species got the Navy "detour" memo :eyes:

And may dolphins forever rescue your descendants from the cruel sea.

F-I-N-A-L-L-Y!

The NRDC, Sierra Club and others have been fighting
for this for years!

Thanks for posting this.

:applause: