U.S. judge limits Navy underwater sonar
to protect whales

Photo courtesy NOAA Fisheries Service

By Julia Cheever

February 8, 2008

A federal judge in San Francisco has ruled that the U.S. Navy must stop blasting powerful underwater sound waves in several areas of the ocean, including one off the Monterey coast, because whales and other sea creatures could be harmed.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte issued the ruling Wednesday in a lawsuit in which environmental groups are seeking to limit the Navy's use of low-frequency sound waves in training and testing of a program to detect enemy submarines.

The Navy uses the sound waves, which can travel hundreds of miles, to detect submarines. Conservation groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Humane Society and the Ocean Futures Society, say the intense noise threatens whales, dolphins, sea turtles and other marine animals.

Laporte wrote, "It is clear that marine mammals, many of whom depend on sensitive hearing for essential activities like finding food and mates and avoiding predators, will at a minimum be harassed by the extremely loud and far-traveling low frequency active sonar."

Under Laporte's ruling, the Navy will be able to continue using the sonar for training purposes in much of the world's oceans and will be able to use it even in the protected areas if there is an actual danger of a submarine.

But Laporte added new sites to ocean areas that were previously off-limits for routine exercises. The new areas include the Davidson Seamount, an underwater former volcano near the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary; the Galapagos Islands; the Pelagos in the Mediterranean Sea; the Great Barrier Reef and an area northwest of Hawaii.

Laporte said she will issue a preliminary injunction, but ordered the environmental groups and the Navy to confer on the terms of the order and report back to her on Feb. 19.

Joel Reynolds, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said, "This order protects marine life around the world from a technology that can affect species on a staggering geographic scale. But the court also gives the Navy the flexibility it needs to train effectively."

Navy Pacific Fleet spokesman Mark Matsunaga said the Navy currently has two ships equipped with the sonar, both operating in the Western Pacific.

He said the ruling "allows us to continue testing and training with low-frequency active sonar in the Western Pacific, an area of great strategic interest, and it allows flexibility for use in coastal areas."

The ruling is the second time this week that a federal judge ordered limits on Navy use of sonar.

On Monday, a federal judge in Los Angeles barred the Navy's use of mid-frequency sonar, a different system, in training exercises off southern California.

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