SAN FRANCISCO — The U.S. Navy agreed in a settlement approved Tuesday to limit where it operates certain sonar systems criticized by environmentalists as a threat to whales and other marine mammals.
The agreement overseen by a federal judge in San Francisco restricts the Navy’s use of low-frequency sonar to specific military training areas near Hawaii and in the western Pacific Ocean.
Environmentalists argued that the extremely loud, low-pitch sounds used to detect submarines at great distances disrupted the behavior of whales hundreds of miles away.
“When you put that much sound in the ocean, there’s a need to be careful in how you use it and where you go,” said Michael Jasny, a policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council, a plaintiff in the case.
“This agreement succeeds in balancing the Navy’s need to train with the need to protect marine mammals and endangered species in their habitats.”
A Navy spokesman said they were satisfied with the settlement.
The Everett-based destroyer USS Shoup found itself in hot water over the sonar issue five years ago. Environmentalists said the Shoup’s sonar caused a mass stranding of marine mammals in Haro Strait, between Vancouver Island and San Juan Island, in May 2003.
A subsequent study by the Navy found no relationship between the ship’s sonar and the deaths.
The Navy already has 29 safeguards in place and is spending $18 million per year on research on the health of marine mammals, said Sheila Murray, environmental public affairs officer for the U.S. Navy in Bangor.
In February, U.S. Magistrate Elizabeth Laporte found that low-frequency sonar blasted beneath the ocean’s surface to detect submarines threatens the animals’ ability to find food and avoid predators.
A lawsuit filed by conservation groups last year argued that regulators violated multiple federal environmental laws by issuing a permit allowing the Navy to use the sonar systems around the world.
In some areas where the agreement allows low-frequency sonar, the Navy must limit its use to certain times of the year to protect whale breeding grounds.
The settlement restricts low-frequency sonar to more than 50 nautical miles from Hawaii’s main islands and prohibits training near the Hawaii Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary and the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.
In a separate case, the Navy is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider a federal appeals court ruling limiting the more widely used midfrequency sonar in training exercises off Southern California’s coast.
The Navy argues that the decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco threatens the readiness of sailors and Marines while providing limited environmental benefit.
Herald writer Bill Sheets contributed to this story.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
