Two-year exemption allows U.S. Navy to continue sonar trainings

In a saga lasting longer than Moby Dick, the U.S. Navy will be allowed to train with sonar for two more years, despite evidence that the technology's use has injured and killed whales and other creatures of the deep. The Defense Department has provided an exemption from the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act so the Navy can undertake an environmental impact study. Which is sort of like letting someone shoot a guy to see how it affects him, but we digress. "We cannot stop training for the next two years," said a Navy rep. "That would put our sailors ... at considerable risk." But others say it's possible to promote both national security and marine health: "The Navy has more than enough room in the oceans to train effectively without injuring or killing endangered whales and other marine species," said an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has sued the Navy over its sonar use. Man, what is it with green groups and their obsession with "the law"?

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Navy divers clean up coastal messes

Navy divers are the latest crazy hippies clamoring to clean up coastal messes. For problems too expensive or vast for civilian government agencies to handle, military divers provide cutting-edge technology and finely tuned abilities -- and in turn, they get to sharpen their diving skillz. This summer, Army and Navy divers helped collect tons of old fishing nets from the bottom of Puget Sound in Washington state -- experience that could come in handy if they one day need to remove harbor-blocking nets during hostilities. Navy divers may also clean up the newly designated national marine preserve in the Hawaiian islands, and plan to remove a 37-acre failed artificial reef of old tires off Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "When you actually see the magnitude of the tires, it doesn't take an environmentalist to know ... we need to get the tires out of there for the good of our country," says Navy Chief Warrant Officer Dan Mikulski. But don't call them tree-hugging (ahem) pansies, he warns: "We're big, bad, hairy-chested deep-sea divers."

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Deal lets Navy make limited use of sonar in exercises off Hawaii

A temporary ban on Navy sonar use has been lifted, after the Navy agreed to take steps to protect whales in return for the dropping of a lawsuit by the Natural Resources Defense Council. The Navy is in the midst of the world's largest naval war exercise near Hawaii; for the remainder of the exercise, mid-frequency active sonar will be disallowed within 25 nautical miles of the brand spankin' new Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument. Also, some Navy sailors and pilots will be designated with the important if not glamorous job of, well, whale watching -- keeping eyes and ears out for whales in distress. "Military readiness does not require, and our laws do not allow, our natural resources to be sacrificed in the name of national defense," said Joel Reynolds of NRDC. He added that while enviros didn't get everything they wanted, they believed the settlement was the best they could do. Marine mammals have been harmed or killed in at least 11 naval exercises worldwide since 1998.

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Judge temporarily restricts Navy's sonar use to protect whales

The U.S. Navy is temporarily forbidden to use high-intensity sonar in war-game exercises off the coast of Hawaii, a federal judge declared on Monday. She ruled that environmental groups had provided "considerable convincing scientific evidence that the Navy's use of ... sonar can kill, injure, and disturb many species, including marine mammals." Two summers ago, Navy war games off of Hawaii disoriented more than 150 melon-headed whales (no, we're not making fun of them -- that's what they're called), which left their deep-water habitat and were found swimming chaotically in the shallows of a bay. On Friday, the Department of Defense granted the Navy a six-month national-security exemption from the Marine Mammal Protection Act, apparently in an effort to circumvent the lawsuit, but the judge ruled that the exemption did not cover the National Environmental Policy Act, so the suit could go forward. The Navy and NRDC have until July 12 to discuss a settlement; on July 18, the judge will consider making the ban permanent.

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Defense Bill Will Exempt Military from Species-Protection Laws

The U.S. military may be having trouble achieving its goals in Iraq, but at least it's getting what it wants on Capitol Hill: exemptions from key environmental laws. President Bush today is scheduled to sign a $401 billion defense authorization bill that includes provisions exempting the military from components of the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act. After the bill becomes law, the Navy will be able to make broader use of low-frequency sonar, despite the fact that it is believed to cause serious harm to whales, dolphins, and other marine life, and military bases won't have to follow some rules designed to protect habitat for endangered animals. Not satisfied with that, the Defense Department is also pushing for exemptions from other long-standing environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act and the Superfund Act; it argues that environmental laws interfere with military training and readiness, a contention that enviros dispute.

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Every year, scuba divers make tens of thousands of excursions into the waters off Okinawa, Japan, drawn by the spectacular array of sea life on display. Soon, though, that sea life may be blasted out of the water by an unwelcome sonic barrage.

The Okinawan coast is not clear.

Photo: Jeff Shaw.

Almost everywhere in the world except in this patch of ocean, denizens of the deep won a reprieve this month, when a court agreement between environmental organizations and the U.S. Navy limited the military's use of low-frequency active sonar (LFAS). Experts contend that the sonar, which uses high-intensity bursts of sound to track submarines, is deadly for marine mammals and other sea life. Under the terms of the agreement, use of the technology is now restricted to East Asia, including portions of the Sea of Japan, Philippine Sea, South China Sea, and East China Sea -- meaning the Navy may soon visit earsplitting noises on endangered animals in Okinawa's peaceful waters.

Joel Reynolds, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Marine Mammal Protection Project, calls the recent settlement "a major step forward" toward protecting marine life and a measure of protection "against the proliferation of sonar around the world." He's right -- but however important the settlement is, it is just a step. And this incomplete victory comes at great cost for threatened species in an ecologically significant part of the world.

"The waters off of Okinawa are some of the richest in biodiversity in the world," says Peter Galvin, Pacific director for the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity. "It's been described as the Galapagos of the East, and it's under siege."

Dugong but not forgotten.

Photo: GBRMPA.

That rhetoric isn't hyperbole: Okinawa supports a dizzying variety of marine species. The island's coral reefs rank behind only Australia's Great Barrier Reef in terms of ecological diversity, sustaining more than 1,000 types of fish and a host of other spectacular wildlife. One prime example is the critically endangered Okinawa dugong, a manatee-like creature that holds a special place in local culture because it is traditionally regarded as a messenger from the sea gods. Only about 50 of these animals remain alive today in the waters off Okinawa. Any new threat could push this unique dugong population over the brink to extinction.

"We're very concerned about impacts to the fragile dugong population," Galvin says. "There's every reason to believe that these sonar impacts are across the marine mammal spectrum. That's what the science shows."

While no study has found that low-frequency sonar threatens the dugong particularly, the risks posed by the technology to other marine mammals are well documented. The sonar can boom out a signal reaching 215 decibels -- as loud as an F-15 fighter plane at takeoff. In the acoustic environment of the ocean, this deafening roar can cause stress and severe physical harm to sea life, including marine mammals such as the humpback whales that use the East China Sea for breeding and migratory grounds.

Species like whales and dolphins that communicate with sound face a distinct risk, but it's not just marine mammals that are affected. Compelling evidence shows that sonar can also be deadly for sharks, fish, and endangered sea turtles, at least three species of which exist off the coast of Okinawa.

At loggerheads over turtles.

Photo: U.S. FWS.

When U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte issued the initial injunction prohibiting use of the sonar in October 2002, she cited the threat to turtles specifically. Laporte wrote that "endangered species, such as sea turtles, will ... be in LFA sonar's path" and that the sonar risked causing "irreparable harm to the marine environment that supports the existence of these species." The hawksbill, loggerhead, and green sea turtle are all included on the United States' Endangered Species List as well as the global Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. All are found in Asian waters, and all lay their eggs on Okinawan beaches.

These facts point to one inescapable conclusion: This is not the place to deploy an invasive, noisy, and ecologically devastating technology. "This will affect the wildlife around Okinawa very severely, but it will also affect the entire area, from Indonesia to Sakhalin," says Chalmers Johnson, head of the Japan Policy Research Institute.

If these seas are so important and sensitive, why were they chosen as the sacrifice area? The nations whose waters will be affected had no role in the court settlement negotiations. Talks between the Navy and environmental groups "were conducted under a veil of confidentiality," says Reynolds of NRDC, so it's impossible to say with certainty how this arrangement was reached.

Okinawa's got the Navy blues.

Photo: U.S. Navy.

It isn't too hard to make an educated guess, though. Okinawa is already home to a huge U.S. military presence, so making the surrounding seas a training ground is convenient for the Navy. Moreover, because of a vexing dual colonialism, Okinawa is largely powerless to resist.

Though legally part of Japan, Okinawa's ethnically and culturally distinct people are often looked down upon by mainland Japanese. Okinawa is further politically isolated by its status as Japan's poorest prefecture and by the lack of a shared history with the rest of the country. (Okinawa's islands were part of the independent Kingdom of the Ryukyus until they were annexed in the 19th century.)

The U.S. military has been all too willing to exploit Tokyo's reluctance to stand up for Okinawa. The tiny island chain has been forced to house 75 percent of Japan's American military bases -- though all of the Okinawan islands put together comprise just six-tenths of one percent of Japan's territory. Okinawa bears the resultant burdens, including pollution on land and at sea.

Johnson, one of the foremost Asia scholars in the U.S., says he isn't surprised the same technology that raised an outcry when used in Puget Sound is being shipped to the North Pacific instead. "This seems like typical Navy racism," he says flatly.

The outcome also raises uncomfortable questions about U.S. environmental groups' right to decide the fate of Okinawa's ocean life. If LFAS is a real threat to marine natural resources, as almost every credible scientist seems to believe, then shifting its use to a place most Americans don't see smacks of environmental racism.

A shore thing.

Photo: Jeff Shaw.

Still, it is difficult to fault NRDC and the five other plaintiffs in the lawsuit for settling; after all, the global environment is better off for it. Indeed, under the settlement agreement, less than 1 percent of the world's oceans faces the disruption and death caused by LFAS, as opposed to about 75 percent. The settlement also adds seasonal restrictions to sonar tests and limits sonar use near the coastline. "[The plaintiffs] probably thought [the agreement] was the best they could do," Johnson says. Probably -- but the bottom line is that an impoverished and oppressed sea-based culture takes the fall to protect the environment elsewhere.

Moreover, without vigilance, other seas may share East Asia's burden. Taking advantage of their elevated status in today's security-conscious environment, the U.S. military is asking Congress to exempt it from the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act. This legislative end run would circumvent the court's ruling on sonar and enable what Galvin calls "a full-scale assault on environmental law."

"The overall context to keep in mind is that the military is trying to exempt itself from these requirements all around," says Galvin. "The military is talking out of both sides of their mouths, signing this settlement at the same time that they're asking to be exempted from all environmental protections."

Facts haven't gotten in the way of the military's push. Even former U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman admitted before Congress that she couldn't come up with one example of environmental regulations that prevented the military from carrying out its duties. Still, Congress is considering granting these wide-ranging exemptions, which would gut two flagship environmental laws and effectively reverse every victory the new settlement secured.

Now is a pivotal time for developing a real solution for seas around Okinawa and the world. The first step is to defeat these exemptions, which Johnson calls "attempts to establish the military as a force beyond the law that can do whatever it damn well pleases." The second is to prevent Okinawa and the rest of East Asia from becoming the world's environmental whipping boy.

NRDC, Reynolds promises, "absolutely" plans to reach out to Japanese and Okinawan environmental groups as part of an international effort. If that happens, and this agreement is followed by a policy that protects oceans everywhere -- with no exceptions -- from acoustic assault, then the work leading up to the settlement will have been worthwhile.

If not, this agreement represents at best a holding pattern, and at worst, a Faustian bargain. If Puget Sound deserves to be free of low-frequency sonar, then so does the East China Sea.

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U.S. Navy Agrees to Reduce Use of Sonar System Linked to Whale Deaths

In a sweet but possibly temporary victory for environmentalists, the U.S. Navy has agreed to dramatically decrease its use of a low-frequency sonar system that has been associated with the deaths of whales and other marine mammals. A court agreement announced yesterday limits the Navy to using the sonar system in less than 1 percent of the global range originally approved by federal authorities. That's the good news. The bad news is that despite accepting the agreement, Navy officials say it will impair military readiness and are pushing to modify the Marine Mammal Protection Act and other laws to allow it to use the sonar more extensively. Still, sonar systems are rapidly losing favor worldwide: On the same day that the U.S. agreement was announced, a bill was introduced in the European Parliament to limit NATO's use of the technology.

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Navy Sonar Is Causing the Bends in Marine Mammals, Report Says

Sonar from navy ships appears to be giving whales and other marine mammals the bends, that infamous bane of scuba divers and other deep-sea adventurers, according to a report published in the latest edition of the journal Nature. Researchers from England and Spain found air bubbles in tissues and blood vessels of whales that died in the Canary Islands shortly after a naval exercise in 2002; such bubbles are a sign of the bends, also known as decompression sickness. The researchers offered two hypotheses for how sonar induces the bends: Either it could cause the animals to panic and rise to the surface too quickly (the cause of the bends in humans), or it could directly cause bubble formation on gas nuclei in whale tissues. The findings could have major implications for the U.S. Navy's ongoing efforts to gain approval for widespread use of very loud, low-frequency sonar, which is in the auditory range of some of the world's largest and most endangered whales.

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U.S. Navy Ships Get Ready for Transatlantic Trip, Toxics and All

Thirteen is not a lucky number, and many fear that bad luck could trail in the wake of 13 decrepit and pollution-laden U.S. ships that are set to embark on a 4,500-mile voyage from Virginia to the British region of Teesside.* The ships are part of the U.S. Navy's "ghost fleet," a flotilla of 120 aging vessels with toxic loads including asbestos, oil, and PCBs. For $17 million, a British company, AbleUK, has agreed to transport the ships across the Atlantic for dismantling, despite warnings from environmentalists and salvage experts that the vessels are in no condition to make such a journey. Experts fear the ships will begin to break up en route, leaking their toxic cargos into the sea. "They're leaking and listing, and that's just sitting at anchor in a river," said Tim Mullane of Virginia-based Dominion Maritime. "If they get to sea, some will definitely start to break up. A pollution slick will follow them all the way across the Atlantic."

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Judge Orders Navy to Curtail Use of Sonar to Protect Marine Life

In a victory for ocean advocates, a federal judge in California ruled yesterday that the U.S. Navy can't globally deploy a new submarine-hunting sonar system because the military neglected to follow federal laws when determining whether the sonar could harm whales and other marine animals. At the same time, Judge Elizabeth Laporte rejected requests from environmentalists for a total peacetime ban on the sonar. She ordered the Navy and enviro groups to negotiate a plan that would allow limited use of the technology in areas that are not considered to be rich in marine life. Enviros, who have argued for years that the very loud, low-frequency sounds emitted by the sonar can cause serious damage to whales, dolphins, and porpoises, were pleased with the decision. But the Bush administration, which wants to curtail a number of environmental laws in the name of national security, could get around the ruling by pushing a bill through Congress that would allow wider use of the sonar technology.

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The debate over oil and gas drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has been in the limelight a lot lately -- but what about energy exploitation in the rest of the state? On Friday, the Bush administration released a report on the likely environmental impact of new drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve, an Indiana-sized chunk of Alaska set aside in 1923 as an energy source for the U.S. Navy. The administration is weighing the benefits of leasing off parts of the reserve to private energy companies. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the reserve is home to between 6 billion and 13 billion barrels of oil; it is also home to spotted seals, arctic peregrine falcons, and beluga whales, among other species. Environmentalists fear that Interior Secretary Gale Norton will call for oil and gas leasing in nearly all of the 9 million acres of the reserve's currently untouched northwest corner.

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The U.S. Navy regularly tests one of its weapons by firing radioactive ammunition into prime fishing waters off the coast of Washington state, a practice that fishers, scientists, and activists say could be harmful to human and environmental health. The weapon, known as the Phalanx or the Close In Weapons System, fires up to 4,500 rounds per minute of depleted uranium (DU), a highly dense metal that remains radioactive for around 4.5 billion years. The Navy insists that DU poses no threat to its crew members or to Washington's coastal environment. No major studies have been done on the effects of the DU-containing weapons on the ocean environment, but the use of DU in land combat has led to radiation releases and the production of toxic dust that can enter the food chain. A coalition of Northwest environmental groups and anti-war activists is considering seeking an injunction to halt the weapons tests.

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In better news for environmentalists, a federal judge has rejected an effort by the White House and the U.S. Navy to exempt underwater military testing and other deep-sea activities from environmental review. Judge Christina Snyder ruled yesterday that the National Environmental Policy Act applies to such activities even if they are conducted beyond U.S. territorial water (but within 200 miles of U.S. shores). At issue was a Navy sonar system using bursts of sound so loud they could cause temporary or permanent loss of hearing in marine mammals, abandonment of habitat, and disruption of mating, feeding, nursing, and migration, according to some scientists. The ruling was cheered by environmentalists, who had feared that a victory by the Bush administration could also have exempted from review such activities as ocean dumping and commercial fishing.

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Donald Schregardus, who was nominated by President Bush to head the U.S. EPA enforcement division but withdrew from consideration following public outcry and opposition in the Senate, has been appointed to an environmental post in the Navy. Schregardus spent 17 years with the federal EPA and was director of the Ohio EPA for eight years; environmental organizations say that in the latter capacity he consistently failed to enforce federal clean air and water standards. His responsibilities as a Navy environmental officer are unclear, although such officials usually oversee the cleanup of hazardous waste sites. Maria Weidner, a policy analyst with Earthjustice, said, "We are pleased that the White House is taking an interest in recycling."

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