Whales And War

By William Rossiter

In this new era imposed on 11 September, we are all the enemy of those who would do inconceivable evil, fanatics who believe that the same God we pray to for peace will honor their violence with salvation. As each of us tries to make sense of the senseless we must not act in ways that would aid and abet the terrorists. We must not put aside our values. One of these values is our obligation to our children. The environment we will leave to our children has never been under such threat.

It must be said: The priorities of war do not include environmental concerns. The profits of war exploit the environment by default. Short-term economic woes accelerate environmental assaults. This administration had previously staked its claim to exploit anything and everything. Suddenly every environmental advance of the past decades is threatened even more by this war and recession. But right-minded decision makers must look ahead to what we all will be left with when this war is over, as it will be. We, the people, must feel free to urge restraint instead of accepting environmental exploitation. We all crave some semblance of normalcy; one way is to keep up the fight to keep the environment safe for the future. In this time of anxious preparation and uncertainty CSI pleads with our leaders to keep sight of the future, beyond this shadowy war against terrorism. We plead with anyone reading this to support the environmental movement more than ever. Let's fight terrorism, not the environment.

Predictably, the U.S. Navy's Low Frequency Active Sonar (LFA) has been thrown in the queue of profiteers eager to exploit the Congressional furor to support military needs in the aftermath of the attacks. But why? How can anyone believe that the fanatics we must defend ourselves from will now come by stealth submarine? No government that previously supported terrorism would survive the discovery that they were supplying terrorists with submarine support.

Prior to the attacks Congress was becoming skeptical of the LFA, with a growing sense to cut off LFA funding. The Senate Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, and Fisheries hearing to include testimony critical of the LFA was postponed from September, but the House Subcommittee on Fisheries, Conservation, Wildlife and Oceans was held on 11 October, just after this newsletter went to press. This was an oversight hearing to examine how the Marine Mammal Protection Act is working, not to propose new legislation. A special panel at the hearing discussed the LFA issue, and included Dr. Darlene Ketten and Dr. Ken Foote of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Dr. Kurt Fristrup, Cornell University, Dr. Hal Whitehead of Dalhousie University, and Dr. Naomi Rose of the Humane Society of the United States. It should be noted that there is intense pressure to weaken the MMPA.

Meanwhile, NOAA Fisheries (NMFS) has not announced any decision regarding the U.S. Navy's Application for a "Small Take Exemption" Letter of Authorization (LOA) to operate the LFA under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and in a separate review, Section Seven of the Endangered Species Act. A significant number of critical comments by highly qualified experts were received on the MMPA application. The Section Seven review was not open for public comment, but CSI believes that if one or more endangered species will be in "jeopardy" as a result the permit cannot be issued. Anyone concerned with the 325 surviving, critically endangered North Atlantic right whales cannot reconcile that they will be unwitting victims of any low frequency sonar systems. But the political pressures to make believe that they will be safe are very strong, and may be amplified by war cries. While a supporting contingent promotes the LFA, the Navy continues to develop competing systems, both active and passive. The troublesome, delayed and expensive LFA may not be worth the effort, and a command decision to focus on a less controversial solution may be forthcoming. Without this rational change in policy, the LFA will be deployed as soon as it is approved, apparently on four TAGOS series seismic survey ships, 19-22. TAGOS 19, "Victorius", is now reported in the Far East, perhaps with an all-civilian crew. The second ship is nearing completion. Once deployment begins lawsuits to stop the LFA will be filed.

To help overcome all the obstacles, the Navy has been seeking Congressional exemption from compliance with several environmental laws that restrict operations, systems development and training. After several years of apparent commitment to comply with environmental laws, but facing growing obstacles to LFA deployment, the Navy allowed their true position to surface in a serendipitous campaign begun in August: environmental compliance is not worth the effort and cost, and military preparedness and environmental protection are not compatible. The LFA was specifically mentioned as a new system hindered by precautionary concerns. Simply put, the Navy's position is that, unless science can prove absolutely any significant negative impacts to marine life, environmental compliance to protect threatened or endangered species should not be imposed. The Navy demands that someone prove that they will do harm, rather than the Navy prove that they will not do harm. In this highly political campaign the Navy seeks statutory exemptions from the Marine Mammal Protection Act, Endangered Species Act, National Marine Sanctuaries Act, Coastal Zone Management Act, Magnuson-Stevens Act, and two Clinton Executive Orders on coral reefs and marine protected areas. The Endangered Species Coalition, http://www.stopextinction.org, has compiled the reference documents, and is expected to coordinate an appropriate response.

A large and growing coalition of organizations, including CSI, has requested formally that the Navy withdraw its request to deploy the LFA in the following statement: "The undersigned organizations are concerned about the growing use by the United States Navy of intense active sonar systems in oceans around the world. The Navy has requested, and the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) may give, a permit to harass and injure marine mammals while operating a new low frequency active (LFA) sonar system. The impact of high intensity sonar and expansion of its use in the sea present an unacceptable risk to marine species and their habitat. We respectfully urge the Navy to withdraw its request for global deployment of the LFA system." Under the current mood this may not even get a reply from the Navy.

Harder for the Navy to ignore, the Maine Coastal Commission reversed an earlier vote to concur that deployment of the LFA within their jurisdiction is acceptable, after an extensive presentation by LFA critics. The California Coastal Commission was the first to decline to concur. Several other coastal states are reconsidering their positions.

Environmental groups in late September sued the U.S. Navy for not performing mandatory environmental reviews of its Littoral Warfare Advanced Development Program (LWAD) sonar tests in coastal waters, despite evidence that sonar noise can harm marine life. Although the Navy stated that the test scheduled to start 30 October had been canceled, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Humane Society of the United States, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Santa Monica BayKeeper moved ahead with legal action challenging the lack of environmental review for LWAD, which has conducted as many as four sonar tests every year, including the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, Mediterranean and off the coast of the Carolinas, New York, Oregon, and, most recently, Japan.

The LWAD tests must be assessed carefully before they proceed because the Navy has unwittingly shown that local circumstances may cause sonar noise to kill or injure marine life. The much-reported cetacean mass stranding in the Bahamas in March of 2000 was caused by sonar signals in a specific environment. Military ships were in transit and an LWAD test was operating in the area. The LWAD tests use multiple sonar systems in variable configurations to understand how coastal shallows and canyons affect sonar performance. The concern with the LWAD tests is that all the variables may produce significantly damaging impacts on marine life that may not be predictable or measurable. If environmental destruction cannot be predicted, and if such tests cannot be conducted safely, LWAD should not be allowed.

To illustrate what we mean, imagine that you are singing as you step into the shower. Perhaps you like the way your sound changes in the shower. But suppose a particular shower affected the noise of your singing very badly, enough to make you dizzy or deaf. Of course you would stop singing, but what if the harmful noise was coming from something else, and you couldn't get out? The whales that died in the Bahamas couldn't escape what the environment did to the sonar noises either, and they died. Sounds can be changed like this, as we now know, and the results can be surprising, even deadly. The potential for harm from normal sonars under certain conditions is apparently behind a British Royal Navy misguided decision to test and deploy an LFA derivative on Type 23 frigates by 2006. As in the Bahamas, there was a link between sonar use and dead whales found on the Western Isles of Scotland.

There is always hope for enlightened change: Russia's Ministry of Nature in early September stopped Exxon's seismic exploration "Sakhalin" project at the Odoptu oil field at the North-West of Sakhalin. The Ministry had concluded that the threatened Korean-Okhotsk population of gray whales might be negatively affected by the seismic survey.