BANGOR — A Navy plan to use dolphins and sea lions to patrol its Hood Canal submarine base is set for environmental hearings next month.
Nearly two years ago, Navy officials announced the start of work on an environmental impact statement for the Swimmer Interdiction Security System at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor.
The resulting draft impact statement, listing five options for securing the 4-mile waterfront, is the subject of hearings Feb. 11 in Silverdale and Feb. 12 in SeaTac.
The Navy’s preference is for a combination of trained California sea lions and Atlantic bottlenose dolphins to guard against swimmers breaching the base’s water perimeter. Other alternatives are to use sea lions only, human swimmers, remotely operated equipment, and no change, although the final option would fail to meet anti-terrorism requirements were adopted after Sept. 11, 2001.
A final impact statement is expected in late July and a final decision by the secretary of the Navy is expected in October, Navy spokeswoman Sheila Murray said.
Under the preferred plan, dolphins would be used only at night and would be accompanied by handlers in small power boats. The dolphins would be trained to return to the boat and alert the handler if they noticed an intruder. The handler would then place a strobe light on a dolphin’s nose, and the creature would return and bump the intruder, causing the light to come free and float to the surface as a location marker.
Guards would then be sent to find and subdue the intruder.
Murray said the sea lion-only option was added in response to public suggestions after the use of dolphins was proposed in 2007.
Sea lions would be trained to carry in their mouths a special cuff attached to a long rope and clamp the cuff around the leg of a suspicious swimmer, who then could be reeled in for questioning.
Effects on the environment from the five options range from none to minor and fall within federal and state standards, according to the draft impact statement.
Eight nuclear missile-carrying Trident submarines, two subs with conventional missiles and a spy sub are based at Bangor.
The Navy has been training marine mammals for about four decades, mostly in San Diego, and dolphins are used for patrolling the nation’s only other Trident base at Kings Bay, Ga.
In public meetings two years ago, however, opponents of a similar move at Bangor said Hood Canal is too cold for bottlenose dolphins.
Murray said the problem is the temperature of the air in winter rather than the water, adding that the Navy’s latest plan is for two-hour dolphin shifts and to keep them in heated enclosures when they are off duty.
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