Environmental attorney blasts agency's sonar proposal

NORFOLK

The National Marine Fisheries Service's preliminary authorization of naval sonar use in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico is drawing fire from a frequent critic of the Navy.

The fisheries service, a federal agency charged with enforcing the Marine Mammal Protection Act, would allow the deaths of 10 beaked whales over five years due to naval sonar.

Zak Smith, an attorney specializing in marine mammal issues for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Santa Monica, Calif., said the agency "is abdicating its responsibility to protect marine mammals under the act."

Public comments on the proposed authorization are due Nov. 13. (To learn how to comment, go to http://tinyurl.com/5jbhqf)

In early 2007, partly in response to a federal lawsuit filed by the NRDC challenging sonar use in the Pacific, the secretary of defense granted the Navy a two-year "national defense" exemption from environmental permits related to the harassment of marine mammals. That exemption expires in January.

Hundreds of whales and dolphins could suffer temporary injuries from sonar, according to the Navy's submitted analysis. The fisheries service determined in a preliminary analysis that sonar would have a "negligible overall effect" on multiple species, including the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

Jim Lecky, director of the Office of Protected Resources at the fisheries service, said there are a lot of public misconceptions about sonar.

The estimated 400 right whales that live along the Atlantic seaboard are not particularly vulnerable to sound, Lecky said. He said he's confident Navy lookouts would detect right whales at the surface, giving ships time to move away or shut down sonar.

"The fact that a couple of species of beaked whales have the potential to be affected, that concern gets generalized in the public and expanded to all marine mammals, and that's not the case," Lecky said.

The Navy would be required to follow mitigation measures as part of the authorization, including "limiting" sonar exercises in six marine mammal habitat areas and "largely avoiding" sonar use in the right whales' critical habitat.

Smith said some of the wording in the proposed authorization is too vague and transfers too much responsibility to the Navy.

For example, it states that the Navy will operate sonar at the lowest practicable level, "except as required to meet tactical training objectives."

Another section says that during right whales' migration season, Navy vessels would practice "increased vigilance" to avoid coming into contact with the creatures.

"All of the mitigation measures they add contain language that basically makes them meaningless," Smith said.

Jene Nissen, acoustics program manager for the Navy's Fleet Forces Command, said the Navy is working with regulators to develop additional monitoring methods.

Nissen said independent marine mammal observers would work aboard Navy ships during certain sonar training exercises off the coast of North Carolina and Florida. At the same time, researchers would conduct aerial surveys to document whale sightings.

Kate Wiltrout, (757) 446-2629, kate.wiltrout@pilotonline.com