NMFS Gives Permission to Navy to Deploy Low Frequency Active Sonar

On July 14, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) granted the Navy its long sought exemption to the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) moratorium on the harassment and killing of marine mammals. This "small take authorization" allows the Navy to deploy the intensely loud low frequency active sonar (LFA) and kill untold numbers of marine creatures without being prosecuted under the guise of protecting our shores from enemy submarines. The Navy's own Environmental Impact Statement, estimates the device could "take" over ten percent per year of certain populations of marine mammals, including blue whales.

Stopping LFA has been a major AWI campaign since we organized swimmers to block its testing on calving and mating humpback whales off Hawaii in 1998. During the tests, the maximum level of sound used was 155 decibels. Even at this level, a human swimmer was injured and the whales left the area, prompting whale-watching businesses to sue for lost profit. The operational level of the deployed LFA is over ten million times louder than the test.

AWI held a press conference in April of 2000 to tell of Navy exercises the month before that killed seventeen individuals of five different species of whales and dolphins in the Bahamas. The Navy issued a denial it was responsible for the "acoustic event" that blew out the creatures' ears (CAT scans showed ear hemorrhages leading to brain hemorrhages).

After a year of denial, the Navy finally admitted responsibility but blamed a mid-range active sonar it was using at the time. The main difference between mid and low range active sonar is that the low frequency sonar goes much farther with less loss of power.

Over the last few years, every legal avenue pursued in challenging this insane device has been sabotaged. We testified at public hearings held by NMFS in San Diego, CA and Silver Spring, MD that LFA is a violation of the harassment section of the MMPA. The military responded by trying to weaken the MMPA drastically by changing the definition of harassment.

We petitioned individual states to oppose this device under the Coastal Zone Management Act. California refused to give the Navy permission to use LFA in their waters. Maine first agreed then revoked permission. Now the Bush administration is challenging the Coastal Zone Management Act reauthorization in Congress.

When the Natural Resources Defense Council announced it was suing to stop LFA and other active sonar devices under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Bush Administration stated that NEPA does not apply beyond the three-mile territorial limit of the USA. NMFS was overruled in its assertion that this most basic environmental law extends to 200 miles from our coast.

The deployment of LFA may be the greatest violation of the precautionary principle ever concocted. The device has the potential to cause death in any ocean creature within reach with air passages-not only whales and dolphins but fish, fish eggs, larvae, and turtles. AWI was the first and only group to block use of this device physically. We will continue working on land and, if necessary, on the high seas, to protect ocean creatures from this unnecessary and catastrophic sonic bombardment.