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Sonar of Little Harm to Whales, Navy Says

Posted on: Saturday, 15 March 2008, 18:00 CDT

By CAREN BURMEISTER

The Navy says its sonar training could affect North Atlantic right whales but won't significantly harm the endangered mammals, which spend the winter calving season off Jacksonville's coast.

After two years of study, the Navy recently issued a 774-page report on sonar training in a 12-nautical-mile-wide zone along the coast from Maine to Sebastian Inlet, including the area around Mayport Naval Station, the third-largest naval facility in the continental U.S.

Not everyone agrees with the Navy's conclusion that it doesn't need to change its sonar training.

The public is invited to express opinions on that conclusion in the Navy draft environmental report at a public hearing Tuesday. The meeting is set for 5 to 9 p.m. in the Lakeside Conference Room in the Nathan H. Wilson Center for the Arts at Florida Community College at Jacksonville, 11901 Beach Blvd. The presentation starts at 7 p.m. and will be followed by a public comment session.

Environmental groups charge that the sonar generates loud underwater sounds across thousands of square miles of ocean, which can harm marine mammals' hearing, disrupt their eating and mating habits, strand groups of whales and kill marine life, including five endangered species such as the North Atlantic right whale.

The Navy defends the sonar, saying it's critical for identifying enemy submarines' locations and protecting sailors and the country.

A legal challenge over the same issue in California led President Bush to intervene on behalf of the Navy. That lawsuit could end up in the U.S. Supreme Court.

On Feb. 29, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the Navy not to use the sonar within the 12-mile buffer zone along California's coastline and to shut down sonar when a lookout sailor sees marine mammals within 2,200 yards.

The order granted a 30-day period that lets the Navy continue sonar training off California's coast with certain modifications while it decides whether to appeal the decision to the country's highest court.

Whether that evolving court case will influence Navy sonar training policy along the East Coast remains to be seen, said Jim Brantley, spokesman for the U.S. Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., who will lead Tuesday's meeting.

The Navy's environmental impact report said it's difficult to measure sonar's impact on marine mammal injuries and behavioral disruptions because of variations in sonar intensity and duration and because hundreds of unique marine species have different habitat conditions.

There are about 350 northern right whales in existence. The area from the Altahama River in Georgia to Sebastian Inlet is designated as a critical habitat for those whales during calving season, from November to March.

It's the only known calving ground for the whale, the report says.

Source: Florida Times Union

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