US Supreme Court Allows Sonar Use

gollum123 writes "The US Supreme Court has removed restrictions on the Navy's use of sonar in training exercises near California. The ruling is a defeat for environmental groups who say the sonar can kill whales and other mammals. In its 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court said the Navy needed to conduct realistic training exercises to respond to potential threats. The court did not deal with the merits of the claims put forward by the environmental groups. In reinstating the use of sonar, the top US court rejected a lower federal judge's injunction that had required the US Navy to take various precautions during submarine-hunting exercises. The Bush administration argued that there is little evidence of harm to marine life in more than 40 years of exercises off the California coast. It said that the judges should have deferred to the judgment of the Navy and Mr Bush. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said overall public interest was 'strongly in favor of the Navy.' 'The most serious possible injury would be harm to an unknown number of the marine mammals,' Chief Justice Roberts wrote. 'In contrast, forcing the Navy to deploy an inadequately trained anti-submarine force jeopardizes the safety of the fleet.'"

Comments

Navy's response.

[DoofusOfDeath]

"Can you hear me now? Good!"

What?

[CWRUisTakingMyMoney]

They didn't deal with the claims put forth by the environmentalists? Then what the hell DID they consider besides the Navy's side? (No, I didn't RTFO.)

Re:What?

[Mishotaki]

While the US government relies on the fear of an enemy threat to get as little opposition from the legal system as possible...

Re:What?

[shma]

My guess is they considered the science, not the Chicken Little hyperbole.

Environmentalists (as opposed to conservationists) depend on emotional appeal rather than science and rational analysis to further their agenda. Ergo, the court rightly dismissed their claims for the bullshit that it is.

Maybe you should have tried applying some of that rationality by reading the actual article instead of, I don't know, making shit up.

In its 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court said the navy needed to conduct realistic training exercises to respond to potential threats. The court did not deal with the merits of the claims put forward by the environmental groups. It said, rather, that federal courts abused their discretion by ordering the navy to limit sonar use in some cases and to turn it off altogether in others.

They didn't consider the science at all.

Re:What?

[martinw89]

Environmentalists (as opposed to conservationists) depend on emotional appeal rather than science and rational analysis to further their agenda. Ergo, the court rightly dismissed their claims for the bullshit that it is.

Seriously? And this sentence isn't emotional appeal with a lack of science how?

Jepson et al. reporting in Nature has stated that there is a "generally accepted link between some beaked-whale strandings and sonar use" [1]. More specifically, during a Spanish mid frequency sonar exercise 14 beaked-whales beached themselves. Spanish scientists autopsied 10 of the whales and all had damage similar to decompression sickness [2].

There is some science regarding this issue. To completely throw it out the window without consideration, calling it bullshit, is more emotionally driven than the environmentalists you accuse in your post.

And as a side point, what would emotionally charged environmentalists have to gain by stopping sonar exercises around whales?

Re:What?

[otopico]

Wow, questioning the patriotism of people with a different view than yours, wonder where you learned that?

Since you claim the environmentalists want dead sailors and a weakened America, please cite your proof, or are you just name calling because you have no other reason to hate them aside from the fact you hate them?

You can make make up all the shit you want, but unless you have proof of something, at least admit you're spouting shit.

Re:What?

[pavon]

Their job is to decide whether a law is constitutional
Not quite. It's their job to interpret the entirety of the law, of which the constitution is the highest authority. If the law merely grants departments broad powers, in vague circumstances it does become the job of the Supreme Court to determine whether those circumstances apply. You can blame congress for passing crappy laws for that.
I too am having a hard time finding out exactly what laws this case was decided based on (without reading the whole decision). Here is some more info, admittedly in favor of the Navy.

It sounds like the actual laws being questioned changed over the duration of the trial. First they were charging that Navy hadn't filed an environmental impact study (which they hadn't although they have studied the heck out of it), which the law "requires" but the law lists no punishment for not doing so. Furthermore, the Navy already had an exemption (from at least some laws), and got another one after the trial started dealing directly with this law. It sounds like after all was said and done this turned into something like the "EPA is required to regulate CO2" lawsuit, requiring the Court to decide based on the powers and responsibilities of that agency.

Re:What?

[Max Littlemore]

Bollocks. The argument that 40 years of sonar use had not shown any problems would be thrown out by any reasonable scientific study. It's like saying it is impossible for humans to fly based on a thousand years of history. Stupid stupid stupid, as is to be expected from the outgoing administration.

Active sonar really fucks with whales. Others have posted above about evidence, but as you don't get it, hear it is in simpleton terms: Try driving a car at night with someone flashing multi coloured strobing lights in your eyes. You reckon you're no less likely to crash? Why do they make such a big deal about laser pointers being beamed at aircraft?

Maybe you think that the Navy is more important than whales, but I'm not American, so I don't give a shit about your paranoia or your need to flex muscle at no one in particular. Just because environmentalists are against it too does not mean it is automatically bad science, you primitive oaf.

Re:Little evidence my ass

[usul294]

Thats why they put microphones in the water with a marine biologist listening constantly during testing and another on the bridge with binoculars looking for whales. Its why they observe a half hour before starting a sequence as standard procedure to make sure there are no marine mammals. They do what has to be done to ensure that there is nothing that can be harmed by the sonar in the vicinity.

I wonder if you will stand by your words

[denzacar]

When the "fucking whales" go mad from all the pinging and start tipping over boats. Full of babies. American babies. Who will have white skin. All of them.
Or when they start humping US submarines thus giving away their position when those evil terrorist Al-Qaeda submarines come along.

And haven't you seen that documentary earlier this year? It was in all theaters.
You don't fuck with the big underwater creatures.
Or they will come out, rip off the head off of the Statue of Liberty, rape it, and throw it in the middle of Manhattan.

Cause that is what happens when you fuck a whale in the ass, Larry.

Re:Let the wolves decide whether to eat the sheep

[Rich0]

Hey - I'm all for protecting the enviornment. However, it certainly isn't the ONLY consideration in a case like this. I don't think that anything could be worse for the enviornment than hundreds of nuclear ballistic missles, and yet I certainly sleep better knowing that they're present as a deterrant against a nuclear attack.

Yes, we ought to care for the planet we live on, and that includes its ecosystems. It is in our own interest, and it also is generally the right thing to do. However, when the interests of humans collide with the interests of animals, you need to be realistic. A navy that is inadequate for the task of defending US interests encourages an attack upon those interests. Some have implied that submarines are unnecessary in the modern world - nothing could be further from the truth. However, a perfect army is one that never needs to fight a battle. When you have the perfect army then nobody messes with you in the first place. That doesn't mean that we should go around picking fights - but it is not in the interests of the US to fall behind either.

A sailor chimes in..

[Anonymous Coward]

I routinely spend large amounts of time at sea for the US Navy. The ship I am on doesn't have active sonar, but:
  - We have a OS(W)or AB(W) topside at all times watching when we are underway watching for whales. The whale has the right of way.
  - We're not allowed to intentionally encroach within 1km to a whale. Dolphins and similar are fast moving/smart enough to think we might eat them. Most whales appear to think we are a really big whale and seem to like coming over to visit.
  - If our direction of travel is blocked by a whale, we must either steer to avoid or perform a rather unloved manuveur known as a 'crash stop'.
  - If we are operating with another ship we must abort operations if a whale enters the area.

Re:Little evidence my ass

[LynnwoodRooster]

how about test it on underwater divers... they signed up and it's safe for whales. We could try supreme court justices (with out air tanks though that might skew results)

What kind of device potentially damages animals in a 50 mile radius? Really think about that, this would be equivalent to allowing sonic booms at 1000 feet altitude near cities... and to heck with the broken glass and ear drums. The army has nothing that invasive, the air force has nukes or days of carpet bombing and supersonic aircraft, but they pick the same spots to train where there is minimal wildlife to harm and reuse it over and over.

I'm sure this is just a case of "boys with toys" making things bigger and louder because they can and pulling rank when asked to tone it down.

Well, there IS no device - short of a nuclear bomb - that would create the 50 mile radius damage you quote. Directed sound in water falls off at a rate of 20logR, meaning that at a distance of 10 meters you are down 20 dB; at 100 meters you are down 40 dB. At a distance of 10,000 meters - about 6 miles - you are down 80 dB.

An EXTREMELY powerful SONAR system might be capable of 250 dB ref 1 uPa within its beam angle. Meaning that at 10,000 meters and within the beam angle you would have a level of 170 dB. At that 50 mile radius? You would have 150 dB.

How much pressure is that? Considering that 10m of water is approximately 1 atmosphere (~193 dB SPL, or ~219 dB ref 1 uPa), that would be equivalent to having a ~15cm wave go over you.

Even closer, we see that at a range of 100 meters the level is down to 210 dB, meaning about the same as a 3m wave passing over your position underwater. How that damages an animal living IN the water in the open ocean I can't fathom.

I submit it is NOT the pressure at all; in fact, the pressure generated from the fluke of baleen whale is near 230 dB (and the pressure at 10m from an ocean freighter's prop is about 230 dB as well). If there IS an impact on marine mammals it is probably from the frequency and the sudden "appearance" of an audible frequency. In other words, like walking up behind someone and going "boo".

There is a tremendous amount of precedence for this hypothesis too; for example, blueback herring are highly sensitive to ~105 kHz signals and will scatter at the slightest noise in that range (which happens to be the third harmonic of the primary click range of bottlenose dolphins). You can blast those herring all day long with 230+ dB SPL at 200 kHz, or at 70 kHz without a problem, and get accurate biomass estimates; go near them with an ultra-low power (140 dB SPL) 105 kHz carrier and they scatter like leaves on the wind.

And yes, I was (for nearly 7 years) a real live SONAR engineer working in the marine and fisheries research SONAR world, and am still a practicing acoustician (20 years experience).