ABOARD THE USS HOWARD — When sailors spotted a submarine on their sonar screens during exercises in March, Cmdr. Curtis Goodnight sent a helicopter to drop a sonar buoy to track it.
It’s a routine tactic for a destroyer commander. But several whales were in the area where the crew needed to drop the buoy. And under a recent federal appeals court ruling designed to protect marine mammals during Navy training, the sailors were prohibited from using active sonar within 2,000 yards, or over a mile, of the whales.
The commander of the USS Howard faced a dilemma: should the ship linger, hoping the whales would clear and allow him to resume hunting the sub? Or should he turn around so the sub wouldn’t be able to detect and torpedo the USS Howard and its 300 sailors?
“These become commanders’ decisions that you probably wouldn’t make if someone is really trying to shoot at you,” Goodnight told reporters as another round of exercises started off Hawaii recently. He let the submarine escape.
To environmentalists, the episode shows the Navy can abide by the law and protect marine mammals. To the Navy, it shows how the court’s interpretation of the law impairs sonar training and, over time, may harm military readiness and national security.
The issue may head to the U.S. Supreme Court next. The Navy earlier this year appealed the ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The highest court hasn’t indicated whether it will accept the case.
Mid-frequency active sonar can disrupt whale feeding patterns, and in the most extreme cases can kill whales by causing them to beach themselves. But scientists aren’t sure why sonar affects some species more than others. They also don’t fully know how it hurts whales.
The Navy acknowledges sonar may harm marine mammals but says it already takes steps to protect whales.
The litigation’s timing in some ways couldn’t be worse for the Navy. Since the end of the Cold War, other countries have been acquiring diesel-electric submarines that are quieter and harder to detect than older subs. The U.S. is especially concerned about those owned by China, Iran, and North Korea.
The Navy, particularly the Pacific Fleet, has made sonar training a priority so its strike groups can find these stealthy subs and sail safely around the world.
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