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

bye

[mboverload]

Good bye, and thanks for all the fish....you sonar blasting n00bs.

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

[MrFlannel]

You play like you practice.

Re:Yeah right

[TimmyDee]

No, it's more like telling radio and microwave tower operators to use white blinking lights instead of red ones because the red ones interfere with bird migration (really -- they do).

This sort of thing does not interfere with any sort of economic well-being, nor does it require a significant cost up front, like your analogy presumes.

Re:Yeah right

[harlows_monkeys]

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

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.

So, don't be too sure the Navy couldn't live with some restrictions.

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

[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

[HardCase]

I can say that, after spending 10 years as a sonar tech on a surface ship in the US Navy, there are a lot of people writing a lot here about something that they don't know much about - and pretty much getting it wrong. Even in littoral waters, passive sonar is an effective asset, but for a final targeting solution, nothing beats the accuracy of active sonar.

Subs tend to not use active sonar for what ought to be obvious reasons. Surface ships don't use it as a primary sensor because it's relatively easy for the target to hide below the thermal layer. Even aviation assets don't use it for the number one reason that everyone else doesn't use it: once you ping the enemy, they know that you're coming.

But, once you've made the decision to attack, you've got to have a very accurate fix on the target. Active sonar does that. Active sonar is the sensor of last resort - once you start pinging, you've given away the fact that you know where the enemy is - and the enemy knows that, too. No ship, submarine or aircraft in any Navy cruises around with their active sonar blaring away - number one, it's like waving a big old flag saying "here I am" and number two, it's about impossible to sleep through if your berthing area is below decks. You won't go deaf, but you won't sleep, either.

Also, just as anectodal evidence, when we participated in exercises off of the Bahamas and Florida, we never suffered a dearth of dolphins swimming with the ship, even when we were actively pinging a target. The sonar would be going off like crazy and the dolphins would stay right with the bow of the ship. And in the Gulf of Oman, there didn't seem to be any shortage of whales, either, even though there were destroyers alongside of a repair tender operating low and mid frequency active sonar for maintenance.

So don't get the idea that the Navy is out there pounding the water with sonar - they're not. And based on what I've seen and read, I'm not even close to being convinced that sonar is negatively affecting the cetacean population.

-h-

Re:Priorities?

[Anonymous Coward]

OOOH evil TERRORISTS!

Do you believe everything your government tells you?

Smallville...

[cldellow]

Sounds eerily like the plot of this week's Smallville episode.

Re:Smallville...

[endlessoul]

Maybe Clark and Aquaman can save the day and ruin the evil Navy's plans!

Pfft. Gotta agree with the parent, though.

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..

[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..

[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..

[maxpublic]

And yet I noticed that you failed to cite a single empirical source published in an accredited, peer-reviewed scientific journal. The closest you came was the vague reference to "whale bends", which is NOT linked to sonar in any way, shape or form - except by environmentalists, who apparently can't be bothered to do research or get published.

Next time, try for some *real* science articles, not propaganda pieces. The propaganda only impresses the choir.

Max

Just wait until they hear about THIS one

[smeenz]

They are obviously not aware of the Navy's latest plans to use high intensity soundwaves to destroy incoming torpedos

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

[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

[sco08y]

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.

That's also a pretty fair estimation of how it works in other branches of the military. The Army, for example, has an Environmental Compliance Officer and NCO in every company. I'd say that for the common sense stuff, like energy conservation, protected habitat and proper disposal of POL, the rules are followed 95% of the time. Where I work, we have various chunks of the training area marked for an endangered bird and no one goes in those areas unless they're lost.

If it were a case where someone blatantly broke existing rules then I'd expect the PR guys to try to cover up or find a scapegoat. But that's not the situation here.

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.

I don't believe Sonar hurts whales

[joh_tank]

Let me start by saying I'm a retired Sonar technician. I spent 20 years in the US Navy working on various Sonar systems. Never mind the fact active Sonar is the best way to catch a diesel powered submarine. Never mind the fact almost every country in the world has diesel submarines, including Iran. Lets just focus on whether or not Sonar hurts marine mammals. The Navy has been using Sonar for over 50 years and there hasn't been a mass extinction of marine mammals due to Sonar. If you believe the environmentalists and then consider the number of ship's that have been blasting sonar into the ocean in the vicinity of San Diego, CA and Norfolk, VA, the natural assumption would be massive marine mammal deaths in those areas. Guess what? It hasn't happened. In fact, one of the joys of my job was the listening to the dolphins that were attracted by the Sonar. They certainly didn't appear stressed. The Navy has spent millions of dollars trying to determine if Sonar hurts marine mammals. The Navy already complies with most of the environmentalist requests just in case Sonar "might" hurt a marine mammal. I was personally involved in an investigation over the death of a dozen beak whales off of the Canary islands. There was 5 Spanish ships and 1 US ship. The Spanish ships were closer to shore than the US ship. Guess who got blamed for these whales beaching themselves? In the end, it was determined the whales beached themselves trying to get away from the shipping traffic, not the Sonar. The Spanish ships sonar operate in the same frequency range as the US. Since these ships transmit in this area on a regular basis and there have been no mass deaths of beak whales Sonar was absolved of the cause. There still has been no definitive proof after 50 years. If you want to protect marine mammals, go after the industries that regularly dump trash and industrial waste. Have whales beached themselves? Yes! Does anyone know why? No! "Hmmm look around...oh yeah! The Navy has money, lets sue them for research dollars!" It's a frivolous lawsuit by a bunch of folks that have nothing better to do than hate their own government.

Re:I don't believe Sonar hurts whales

[novus ordo]

"I was personally involved in an investigation over the death of a dozen beak whales off of the Canary islands...Guess who got blamed for these whales beaching themselves? In the end, it was determined the whales beached themselves trying to get away from the shipping traffic, not the Sonar."

Are you talking about this?

FTA:
"Last year 14 beaked whales were stranded during an international naval exercise off the Canary Islands. They appeared on beaches four hours after the sonars were turned on."

I don't know about "definitive proof" but lets look at our options. Maybe the sonars in some way affected the beachings, or there happened to be a flotilla of shipping traffic due to the heavy volume of canary purchases at ebay.
It's also mentioned in this article. The Nature article they both refer to is entitled "Gas-bubble lesions in stranded cetaceans" if you can get your hands on it. They are, however, cautious to reach any blatant conclusions without sufficient evidence. Also here's some background information on acoustic sensitivities of marine life from NRDC. Sorry, but these "government haters" are trying to save marine life from being trampled by our preparations for armageddon.

Not needed. We have better technologies.

[Deputy Doodah]

I've been a part of these sonar experiments, and let me tell you, there is a big misunderstanding of the physics of sound going on here.
So that the animals have time to flee????
Flee where? The next ocean? These are exremely low frequency transmissions. The only thing literally preventing the sound from traveling around the world is the placement of the continents. Once when these transmissions were being transmitted from Alaska, I was in a submarine just south of Hawaii and I was being woken up in my rack. It was very damned loud. When sound penetrates the hull of a sub it's notable for being either very close or very powerful.
I question the need for this technology because we have better means of tracking enemy ships and subs. We have MAD (magnetic anomaly detection), SOSUS, etc.
We don't have to be killing wildlife. And it does kill them....I've seen the reports.

Re:It's like some super-hero story

[hey!]

third-party enviromentalists (and lawyers of course) standing by (in Armani suits of course)

I spent almost fifteen years of my career in environmental organizations, and I can tell you in all that time I never saw a single Armani suit, unless it was on TV. Sandals -- check. Jeans and T shirt -- check. Above costuming made "dressy" by throwing a blazer over -- check.

Of course, you do need to look rich to ask for a lot of money. Things may be different on the West Coast, but in the Northeast Armani would definitely mark you as a poseur. I've seen more of comfortably scuffed, rumpled Boston Brahmin costume affected. Dockers, stout walking shoes, tweed jacket and polo shirt for every day; for meetings dress shoes, blue blazer, suitably themed tie. Suits are mainly worn by accounting and finance types, I can't think of many instances where I've seen them on others. Usually if the distinctive old money look (basically something you might wear tramping around the stables while making it completely clear you're not a groom) isn't right, then you go right for evening wear.