Navy Sued for Sonar-Blasting Whales

An anonymous reader wrote to mention a CNN report about a suit brought against the U.S. Navy for sonar pollution. From the article: "The environmentalists want the Navy to use harmless passive sonar -- listening for sounds made by marine mammals themselves -- to locate the animals before using mid-frequency sonar. They also want the Navy to avoid migration and calving areas and to turn on sonar systems gradually so that the animals have time to flee."

Comments

Yeah right

[jtrainor]

Sonar is too useful for the Navy to accept restrictions on how it's used. This suit will go nowhere.

Re:Yeah right

[biryokumaru]

It'd be like tearing up all the highways because they interfere with bird's migratory patterns.

Re:Yeah right

[pinkocommie]

Don't see why this is considered outlandish (I admit I havent RTFA but) if they can minimize environmental impact in non war conditions for low costs (some sort of power ramp up circuitry?) I dont see why they shouldnt. Seriously doubt anybody would expect them to do that in a war scenario but for training exercises and other routine uses dont see it as being a bad and/or outrageous thing

Re:Yeah right

[MrFlannel]

You play like you practice.

Re:Yeah right

[chenjeru]

It's true, active sonar is almost never used by military subs since it's a clear broadcast of the source position. However, for coastal monitoring networks, active sonar is becoming much more common.

Re:Yeah right

[tsotha]

I live near Bremerton, Washington, and so know a lot of ex sub-mariners. Most of them tell me that in all their years on subs, they NEVER used active sonar. It gives out too much useful information to anyone who might be trying to locate the sub.

Well, yeah, they were on a platform that depends on stealth for safety. Subs don't go active unless they're sure they've been discovered. On the other hand, there's lots of platforms that use active sonar, like helos, sonobouys, and destroyers.

The other point to consider is whether or not this stuff would be used against another navy in wartime. If you plan to use a system under pressure, you have to test it frequently and train under the most realistic conditions possible. My prediction is this suit won't go anywhere, except maybe a face-saving settlement that doesn't have any real effect. Personally, I'd rather the navy was given every lattitude to train - when a war comes it's too late.

Re:Yeah right

[Chris Mattern]

If the training exercise is not as close to how you actually fight as you can make it, then when the time comes to actually fight, you will discover that you haven't trained in how to fight, you've trained in how to do well in training exercises.

Chris Mattern

Re:Yeah right

[medelliadegray]

real war, versus training are two different beasts. the training aspect SHOULD be altered to be less dangerous to marine life.

i fully believe that training is hella important beforhand. BUT you dont see the navy jets firing real rockets at each other in training because it'll kill.

Why is it so hard for them to use the sonar differently in training? I didnt RFA but the headline even said that they wanted the navy to first listen for animals, then progressively turn on their sonar systems such that animals had a chance to flee. whats so hard about that? how is having animals within your training area going to adversely effect your training?

dumb.

Re:Yeah right

[lgw]

There are all sorts of military training excercises done without the destructive potential of the real event. There's no automatic reason for this to be any different. Some of these tree-hugger (kelp-hugger?) requests are quite reasonable. Avoiding a few problem areas for training excercises involving active sonar shouldn't be a big deal, and learning what you can with passive acoustics before using active sonar is SOP for subs anyway. Scaring away the local wildlife would be impractical for some excercises (where all players are hidden at the start), but I suspect could be arranged most of the time.

Of course, national security takes precedence, but that doesn't mean you can't the easy steps to protect the wildlife in those cases where the cost is minimal.

Re:Priorities?

[Anonymous Coward]

OOOH evil TERRORISTS!

Do you believe everything your government tells you?

I love Westerners..

[boomgopher]

I hope everyone realizes that it's shit like this that gives environmentalism a bad name - and why regular guys like me vote against anyone who says they are environmentalists.

It's nice that we have (for the most part) stopped killing whales, but this is ridiculous. People need to get a life, and go protest something more important, like, say, the enslavement of 6 year old girls as prostitutes in Cambodia.

Re:I love Westerners..

[Mjaum]

The reason 'regular guys' like you vote against environmentalists is your immense ignorance and unwillingness to learn anything. Sorry.

  Active sonar is *extremely* loud and concentrated sound. It kills. Using such in fish spawning grounds and near whale gathering places is *stupid* and a criminal waste of resources.

  Environmentalists oppose this waste of resources.

  -Kristian da Mjaum

Re:I love Westerners..

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, we haven't been doing this for decades... nor has the whale population been on the increase...

Re:I love Westerners..

[MooUK]

Which are you more likely to have an effect against? Unnecessary and wasteful killing of marine life by people in your own country, or child prostitution in another country?

Comments like saying "Go protest something more important like..." are exactly the same as saying "We're fighting terrorists overseas, we should completely ignore all human rights at home until we're done" or "We should ignore people stealing things because we're not catching all those who are killing others".

Re:I love Westerners..

[TerminaMorte]

No... it's not ignorance. I think the reason that 'regular guys like him' vote against enviornmentalists is because they are bat-shit insane.
 
For example, comparing the killing of animals to the holocaust. http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Northeast/02/28/peta.ho locaust
 
Sadly, this isn't the worse things enviornmentalist groups have done. No, that would probably be comparing the owning of pets to owning human slaves. http://www.animalrights.net/archives/year/2005/000 353.html. And that's not even bringing up the Animal Liberation Front (a group of terrorists who firebomb research labs)
 
It's hard to vote for a group of people who are so morally replusive that they make W.A.R. look reasonable.

Re:I love Westerners..

[MooUK]

I don't disagree with that, but I do disagree that we should ignore a problem simply because there's a bigger problem.

Re:I love Westerners..

[aether_1980]

This seems like a poorly thought-out comment to me. Basically, you are claiming that all environmentalists are terrorists and/or insane? I guess the same would then apply to all Christians, given some of the less than intelligent things a small fractions of their number have done in the past.

The CNN article doesn't really have much detail. Some trivial googling yielded the following links:

http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/marine/nlfa.asp
http://www.eurocbc.org/sonar_lfas_implicated_in_wh ale_deaths_30oct2002page1253.html

which have more useful information. I think the bigger problem is that the US Navy want to deploy a large scale, permanent sonar system to monitor the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Such a system would flood both areas of sea with very high volume sonar:

http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file =/headlines01/0618-03.htm

Anyway, there is a lot of additional information around about this. Personally, I think the problem of finding submarines should be solvable in a more elegant way than flooding 2 oceans with sonar.

Cheers,

Rhys Hill

Re:I love Westerners..

[Deskpoet]

Like a previous poster said, if we weren't meant to eat animals they wouldn't be made out of meat. Should be simple enough to grasp.

You know, this is a perfect justification for eating human flesh, too. Do you want some Soylent Green with your steak, sir?

As Mr. Smith said, humans are a disease. Perhaps if we eat each other the contagion can be contained.....

Re:I love Westerners..

[LurkerXXX]

Replace Environmentalists with Christians and I could say pretty much the same thing. "tendency to place politics above science, practicality and common sense", "conveniently ignoring scientific evidence that goes against their dogma's, falsifying studies if the results are not as dire as to warrant a screaming fit protest, and decrying methods and policies other than their own", I get the feeling that many of these groups are in it for the power to meddle with people's lives".

Extremists of any time are bad. You hate environmentalists? Should I hate all christians because some of the lunatic fringe blow up abortion clinics and do other nasty things?

There is nothing wrong with being an environmentalist. You just said that this group seems to be sensible and sensitive to what the navy needs to do. Therefore, they don't seem to all be the lunatic fringe elements that you naturally have problems with.

Extremists are bad, but don't confuse all people who consider themselves environmentalists with the extremists.

Re:I love Westerners..

[PeterBrett]

Track with Satellites.

You'd be suprised how easy it is to hide from NRO satellites. There are a limited number, and if you keep a careful eye on the satellite orbits it's perfectly easy to conceal an entire carrier battlegroup, let alone a single submarine, in plain sight. The ocean is big.

Basically, the problem is as follows. One has to assume that sneaky people in very quiet and fast submarines armed with nuclear tipped torpedos are trying to disrupt your carrier battlegroups. It's not possible to have continual real-time satellite coverage of the whole of a battlegroup's area of operation, and the sort of vessels being used for that kind of mission would be running ultra-quiet -- you almost certainly wouldn't pick them up on passive sonar.

Now, people will argue that no-one's trying to do that at the moment, but in the event of a war with country which has fast attack submarines armed with nuclear warheads -- like Iran, for instance -- a single mistake could really ruin your day. So carrier battlegroups train for that all the time.

Re:I love Westerners..

[Bo'Bob'O]

Clearly a troll, but I guess I'll bite.

It's interesting how when the left groups together Middle America or Christians, founded or not, there is plenty of outrage over "arrogance" or whatever. However, when environmental issues come up, they have no trouble throwing everyone in with PETA, the ALF, or the ELF.

The fact is for the vast majority of environmentalists, maintaining and improving the current standard of living in the long term is really what is important. This is what the movement is about.

Have you ever noticed that both liberals and conservatives feel the media is biased? It's because they give attention to the squeaky wheels, and the views of the majority are rarely reflected. The media is after eyeballs, and outrage is easy to sell. Putting everyone with a concern in the environment in with the ALF, is the same kind of unfounded, reactionary FUD that you say you are so repulsed by.

Re:I love Westerners..

[DrSkwid]

I was addressing the "meant to" aspect.

For me there is no "meant". You body is *not* made to ingest meat, it just happens to be capable of doing so.

It is also capable of realising that animals suffer pain. I choose not to cause that pain.

hehe your sig is funny, nice.

well, here's a cynical explanation

[Quadraginta]

What struck me about this article was the Navy's response, namely that they were already doing most of what the NRDC wanted. They sounded a bit bewildered, actually.

So what's up? Well, for a really cynical explanation, consider this. According to the linked article, the peak season for getting people to donate money to nonprofits and charitable groups is just before Christmas, a time rapidly approaching, and nonprofit execs are already forseeing a reduced supply because of the previous demand from Katrina, a sort of bad-news burnout.

Now if I were fundraiser in chief at NRDC, contemplating our usual Christmas appeal for donations mailing, I'd be worried about this. I might, depending on how desperate I was, consider advising that we do something to get our name in the news, something we could describe in our fundraising letter to illustrate how dire is our need for contributions right now.

Of course, I'd recommend that we be careful to pick a cause sure to tug at the heartstrings in the Christmas season. Say, a threat to mommy and baby whales in their breeding grounds.

Not saying this is true at all. Just that it's something to consider. Just because they carry weapons doesn't mean the Navy are always uncaring brutes. Just because they have photos of adorable animals on their newsletter doesn't mean nonprofit XYZ isn't as willing as the next firm to cynically grandstand a bit for the sake of next year's salary increases.

Re:well, here's a cynical explanation

[killjoe]

"Not saying this is true at all."

No you are just making an accusation without any facts whatsoever. Since you were modded up to four I guess that's what passes for insightful around here.

"Just because they carry weapons doesn't mean the Navy are always uncaring brutes"

These people are training to kill humans, why would they care about killing a few animals?

Re:well, here's a cynical explanation

[killjoe]

"What struck me about this article was the Navy's response, namely that they were already doing most of what the NRDC wanted. They sounded a bit bewildered, actually."

No you read the article wrong. The actual quote is "Navy spokesman Lt. William Marks said the Navy already is doing many of the things demanded in the suit." Notice the weasel word "many". You got fooled by the weasel word "many" which became "most" in your head and instantly convinced you that the Navy is a harmless organization who would never harm any animals while the Natural Resources Defence Council cares nothing about the environment but is merely seeking to raise millions of dollars so they can drink expensive champagne and drive around in Feraris.

The Navy PR people are trained in psy-ops. They do this for a living. They know how to spin the story to hook people like you.

Re:well, here's a cynical explanation

[Quadraginta]

Well, no. They're not training "to kill humans." They're training to defend humans, if necessary with their lives. It may be some other humans get killed in the process, but that is not their purpose. And, someone who cares about people he's never met with such selfless dedication that he's willing to lay his life down for them seems like a good candidate for caring about defending innocent lives in general, including those of animals.

The reasons why someone is prepared to kill another human are very important when we ask what that preparedness means. The issue cannot be reduced, as you have, to a trivial syllogism: "If they prepare to kill, they must be callous killers."

In another /. comment thread, a parent commented that he might be prepared to hurt someone who for stupid and hateful reasons prevented him from getting medical care to his child. I think most people see that as admirable dedication to a child, an example of selfless devotion to the welfare of someone weak. But by your cramped moral calculus, we ought to have been surprised -- if he is prepared to hurt a person for any purpose, he can't really care for a child. I hope you can see how absurd that argument would be.

Killing someone may be a depraved evil act, an act of murder, and preparing to do so may demonstrate that a person is a true wretch. But killing a person may also be a great and moral act as well, an act of courage and noble purpose which saves the lives of countless others. It all depends on the circumstances. You can't expect a slogan to substitute for careful thought in deciding what a preparedness to kill means.

Re:well, here's a cynical explanation

[Quadraginta]

The Navy PR people...do this for a living. They know how to spin the story to hook people like you.

Alas, my point is that the NRDC people also "do this for a living" and also "know how to spin the story to hook people," albeit not people like me.

In fact, your argument seems more relevant to the NRDC than the Navy. The Navy mostly gets paid for driving ships around and looking fierce. Keeping up the PR image at home with respect to whales is rather a secondary mission. If they screw it up, well, they might have to get along with more restrictions on how they drive their ships around, but they're hardly in any danger of being disbanded and having to earn a living driving taxis, water taxis I guess.

On the other hand, if the NRDC doesn't convince people that the Navy (or whatever bad guy they've got in the crosshairs) isn't a threat dire enough to require you sending them a check for $20, $50, or whatever you can afford (every bit helps), then the corporation might well break up and everyone will have to get a job flipping burgers.

In other words, for the Navy proving the NRDC wrong is a matter of convenience, but for the NRDC proving the Navy wrong is a matter of survival. Which group is more motivated to, well, exaggerate things a smidge?

Re:well, here's a cynical explanation

[maxpublic]

So who do you trust more? The US Military or the Natural Resources Defence Council? I'd say that's a no brainer.

Yep, the military wins hands-down. The NRDC is well-known for it's inability to accept new information which might put certain of its fundraising activities in question, especially where science is concerned. They have a track record for lambasting any scientist who doesn't toe their party line and support them in every proclamation, no matter how thinly supported by evidence that proclamation is. They're fanatics to the core, little different than GreenPeace, Earth First!, or PETA.

The military, despite what the conspiracy fools say, doesn't outright lie nearly as often as people think. They just say "that's classified, now get the fuck out of my face" and leave it at that.

Max

Re:well, here's a cynical explanation

[Quadraginta]

Are you in the navy?

Nope.

But if your comment is meant to suggest that you suspect people often have practical and personal motives for public statements that purport to defend innocents -- why, you'll have seen from my earlier posts that I quite agree.

Re:well, here's a cynical explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

but believe me when I say, force on our part is ALWAYS a last resort.

Good one. Could you fwd that on up to your commander-in-chief? He could use the heads-up. Thx.

I think this is a great idea

[masterpenguin]

turning off sonar at predictable times sounds like a great idea. Its a good thing that groups like drug cartels can't get their hands on advanced military equipment like russian submarines Its not like terrorists groups learn from drug runners on how to get past american security.

Re:I don't believe Sonar hurts whales

[aquatone282]

And yet you failed to address a main point of his argument - that after 50 years of active sonar use there has been no noticable change in the whale population.

Hmmm.

Re:I don't believe Sonar hurts whales

[mkcmkc]

The Navy has been using Sonar for over 50 years and there hasn't been a mass extinction of marine mammals due to Sonar.

The fact that sonar hasn't killed off a substantial fraction of marine mammals doesn't necessarily mean that it's benign. The obvious presumption here would be that sonar is tantamount to torture--this wouldn't have to be fatal in order to be horribly immoral.

I don't know what the answer is here, but the question clearly needs to be studied scientifically.

Mike

who's going to pay?

[falconwolf]

It is high time that the enviromentalists start bearing the costs of their whacky policies. Regardless, they should keep their unwashed mits out of my wallet.

Are you also for making pollutors pay for pollution and the damage they cause to ecological systems or for health problems?

Falcon