Sonar And Seismic Noise

By William Rossiter

DDT and Sonars have something in common. The link between DDT and the decline in many species took years of research, and the management of DDT as a well proven environmental threat still is not mitigated worldwide. For decades the makers and users of DDT obstructed common sense and proven strategies, always focused on short term profit. Will the issue of sonars versus marine life follow that trend, with decades of resources wasted by one side or the other, while Nature suffers the greatest waste? We can learn from the DDT war that the underlying obstructions must be faced first. It is not enough to prove a link between sonars and harm, because the motive for using sonars are considered far more important to the users than the harm the noise may cause, with the harm seen as acceptable collateral damage.

The European Parliament, the International Whaling Commission and the IUCN-World Conservation Union recently called for restrictions on military high-intensity sonars. They are a sample of international entities accepting the mounting evidence that sonars harm and kill marine mammals. Several related papers and a workshop were part of April's meeting of the European Cetacean Society. In one, mass strandings of beaked whales recorded since 1839 showed only a handful before the early 1960's, coinciding with the advent of sonars. To be fair, observer effort increased greatly after that as well.

The Navy's sonar policies continue to battle such developments. Rejecting international concern over the harm caused by sonars, the US in February announced that: "The US strongly opposes any international regulatory framework addressing military use of active sonar because of the potential to restrict the ability of individual States to balance the relevant security and environment." As proven over and over by US government actions, "balance" means the environment is almost irrelevant. The US Navy engineered the policy, finding no irony in the oft-quoted: "The Navy prides itself on being a good environmental steward of the oceans and says it is committed to conducting active sonar in a way to minimize risk to marine mammals. The service is also the world's largest funder of ocean research." The Navy strained even to allow the policy to say that "Research concerning active sonar's potential effects has demonstrated that, under certain circumstances and conditions, use of active sonar has an effect upon particular marine species."

CSI has made a suggestion to fill in the many gaps left by current research, but the Navy has given no sign of considering it. We propose that, if the Navy is going to be making loud noises anyway, as part of an exercise, why not engage security-cleared experts to be in place to monitor cetaceans and the environment before, during and after the noise event? Why not alert local experts, also security cleared, to be on standby for possible strandings and other signs of distress? Too many opportunities have been missed. We will never get ahead of this growing problem by playing catch up.

Predicting conflicts between marine life and Navy noise by location and date would help steer Navy vessels clear of problems. To their credit the Navy now is enthusiastic about the concept, although they did not like it when recommended by CSI a decade ago, during the early days of the LFA. Now becoming a semi-operational reality in the US, the predictive programs use an enormous data stream from past research to live satellite feeds. Putting the pieces together, the $969,000 predictive project by Duke University scientists began in 2002, funded by the federal Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program, with a sister program for the west coast, and other to keep Mediterranean operations away from probable beaked whale habitats. Applications include ship strikes, explosions, polluting discharges, and of course sonars. In the end the choice of using the data is up to the ship's captain, whose first priorities are security and the mission. But when they make a mistake . . .

The USS Shoup's sonars were found to have had a negative behavioral impact on the cetaceans of Haro Strait, Washington, when the guided-missile destroyer passed through in May 2003. The NMFS report was finished in late January, but not released until mid-March, and concluded that the stranded animals were too decayed to provide proof of acoustical trauma, that the noise caused the killer whales to try to escape, but that the noise was not loud enough to cause temporary threshold shift (TTS). Let's remember that the Navy's PR department had immediately denied any connection between the marine mammal events and their ship's transit, just as they have before.

NATO's military alliance of 26 nations together deploys more active sonars than any other coordinated force. Active sonar exercises have been linked with cetacean strandings and deaths in the US (2003), the Canary Islands (2004, 2002, 1989, 1986, 1985), the Bahamas (2000), Madeira (2000), the U.S. Virgin Islands (1999, 1998), and in Greece (1996). In February NATO was urged by a coalition of international conservation organizations, representing millions of members, to reduce harm from high-intensity sonar systems. The Natural Resources Defense Council, Green Cross International, Humane Society International, International Fund for Animal Welfare, Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, Ocean Futures Society and its founder Jean-Michel Cousteau all joined in a plea for common sense to save marine mammals without compromising military readiness.

Several strandings with coincidental naval activities nearby have occurred in recent months. But it is as wrong to assume an automatic link between them as it is for the Navy to proclaim innocence. Just as no one should believe the Navy's PR, we should be skeptical of knee-jerk reactions to everything military. The point is that there may be a link, but proving it requires an immediate professional response, with precise protocols, and an inevitable delay as all the facts are pieced together. Common sense dictates that most of the marine mammals harmed by sonar do not strand, and therefore are never counted. Here is a sample of recent events to ponder:

The USS Philadelphia (SSN 690) was innocently dropping off a Navy SEAL team to blow up something the day before 70 to 110 rough-toothed dolphins stranded at Marathon, FL, approximately 39 nautical miles northeast of the attack sub's location. Immediate concerns were expressed about the sub's sonars as a possible cause. To the Navy's credit, an investigation began, and within days the public was aware that the sub had used mid-frequency active bow sonar in reduced visibility for a period of 21 minutes, and high-frequency surfacing sonar briefly on three separate days.

The dolphins, mostly adult females and young, were helped by a massive volunteer effort that included several facilities that took dolphins for rehabilitation. The Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution's marine mammal division was the primary responder. About 26 dolphins were being cared for by Key Largo's Marine Mammal Conservancy. One of the females taken to Mote Marine Laboratory on Summerland Key struggled more than 12 hours to deliver a stillborn calf. Two other dolphins delivered stillborn babies in Key Largo, Fla., and another aborted a near-term fetus at a facility on Key Biscayne, near Miami.

Some reports said at least 20 dolphins were thought to have escaped, but at least 28 had to be euthanized. Necropsies on the dead animals included acoustic trauma tests, and toxicology tests for red tide, an explosive algae bloom that is harmful to marine mammals. Southwest Florida had a red tide bloom in early January. Even before tests are complete it is far more likely that a red tide caused the event than the sub's sonar, but we will wait for the test results to be sure.

37 whales from three different species stranded in North Carolina in January, coinciding with a Navy high-intensity sonar training exercise, but the two may have been separated by 200 miles. Perhaps there was closer sonar in use?

A beaked whale stranded on Andros Island, near the Atlantic Undersea Testing and Evaluation Centre (AUTEC) range operated by the US Navy. Think of AUTEC as a shower stall filled with noise, and pity any cetacean that comes close.

The Navy wants a 661-square-mile submarine-warfare training range 65 miles off the North Carolina coast, near the Marine base at Camp Lejeune. Sonar training would be a primary purpose of the range. A sister range is rumored to be planned off California.

NATO's Noble Marlin 05 was held in the Mediterranean in early March. The world's largest annual anti-submarine warfare exercise included assets from ten nations, including the US, and must have made a lot of noise in some sensitive areas. There appears to have been no effort to ensure that experts were notified so they could standby for any strandings or other suggestions of sonar impacts.

NATO Reaction Force (NRF) Noble Javelin 05 exercise near the Canary Islands in April will include a military effort to detect whales that may be present in the exercise area, and if so ask participating vessels to constrain sonar use. The gesture is meaningless. Even if the best experts were invited to watch in the best weather imaginable, rather than minimally trained sailors on rainy nights, only one percent of the beaked whales in an area might be seen, and even if seen sonars would be used as the captain commanded. The exercise refutes Spain's declarations that military sonars would be under strong constraints in the region, after previous exercises were linked to the deaths of beaked whales.

Seven Gray's beaked whales that had died about a week before being found, in a March stranding on a Northland beach of New Zealand, were reported by some as linked to sonar use. While this was the largest recorded mass stranding of Gray's beaked whales on mainland New Zealand, the species is known to have mass stranded 32 times. If there were any naval activities around they proved impossible to trace, and the bodies were too decayed to suggest anything.

The Strait between China and Taiwan must be noisier to marine life than the loudest heavy metal concert that ever deafened teenagers. It became even more noisy and tense after China recently debated a law authorizing "non-peaceful means" if Taiwan acts for independence. China views Taiwan as a renegade province whose return to Chinese rule is inevitable, and will soon complete 23 new amphibious ships to ferry tanks and troops, and 13 new subs to protect that force. Taiwan will stage defensive exercises from April to August. Taiwan will receive the first of 4 US Kidd-class destroyers later this year, equipped with the 53c sonar implicated in a growing list of strandings. The US Navy LFA system is rumored to have been used in local waters, and Taiwan may have purchased two land-based LFA sonar units. The Taiwan Relations Act commits the US to help Taiwan defend itself. The naval activity is fast and furious. But why is this included in Whales Alive?

Because a small, restricted population of humpback dolphins off central western Taiwan has been identified as being in serious risk of extirpation, local extinction. The Taiwanese exercise noted above will be right in the center of the very small habitat these dolphins depend on.

Because 36 pygmy killer whales mass stranded over two days in two events in late February, near Tainan, southern Taiwan. The species is rarely seen near off the island's western shores where they stranded, and military activities are almost non-stop. Other nearby strandings were noted as well. The events were responded to by the Taiwan Cetacean Society, which has restricted access and limited information on the events, probably to deflect concerns over conservation issues and military links. There have been scattered reports of beaked and pilot whale strandings, the latter a ten animal event in February of 2004 with other nearby strandings of other species. Within days another mass stranding of pilot whales was reported in Shejiang Province, China. One of the beaked whales examined by experts showed classic signs of blast trauma. It is unlikely that all events were reported.

Because the 2004 events were a few days after a large scale military exercise by the US and Philippine navies, just south of Taiwan. Taiwan deserves more attention than most NGOs give it, such as the estimated 25,000 to 40,000 cetaceans incidentally killed each year in the coastal driftnet fisheries, but Taiwan is also well prepared to deflect that attention. A consistent regional policy of emphasizing economic growth and military power has pushed conservation concerns to a remote corner.

After a while the sheer numbers of events become numbing, but it is vital that a worldwide collection of such events be archived and shared. The time will come when the numbers will add up to provide some solutions. Right now the numbers show that everything is getting louder.

The National Defense Authorization Act of November 2003 allows the US Navy to do pretty much what they want. When the Low Frequency Active Sonar program was constrained by court actions an unwelcome message was received by the Navy: challenges to sonars and other potentially harmful activities might result in operational restrictions or compromises. From a historical perspective, any restrictions to Navy operations are almost automatically resisted.

The Act redefined marine mammal harassment for "military readiness activities" and "scientific research activities conducted by or on behalf of the Federal Government consistent with section 104 (c)(3) of the MMPA as (i) any act that injures or has the significant potential to injure a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild [Level A harassment]; and (ii) any act that disturbs or is likely to disturb a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild by causing disruption of natural behavioral patterns, including, but not limited to, migration, surfacing, nursing, breeding, feeding, or sheltering, to a point where such behavioral patterns are abandoned or significantly altered [Level B harassment]." The concern for anyone who cares about marine mammals is that Level A Harassment for the military now starts with injury, including deafness or Permanent Threshold Shift (PTS).

Noise Exposure Criteria guidelines now being developed for every other noisemaker may end up at the same level. In a predicted move to allow more noisemakers to have the same freedom the Navy won, PTS is part of several Alternatives being proposed in the EIS. NMFS is preparing an Environmental Impacts Statement "to analyze the potential impacts of applying new criteria in guidelines to determine what constitutes a `take' of a marine mammal under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and Endangered Species Act (ESA) as a result of exposure to anthropogenic noise in the marine environment."

The Criteria will attempt to regulate permitted noise below levels of "significant biological impact", an ill-defined but much used term. The National Research Council's 2005 Marine Mammal Populations and Ocean Noise provides what may become a standard definition, initially as the human activity that is "biologically significant to an individual animal when it affects the ability of the animal to grow, survive, and reproduce." The NRC Report goes further, with models designed to relate behavioral responses caused by anthropogenic sound to biologically significant, population-level consequences. In the end it is not the individual that counts, but the population.

Complicating the issue is that the burden of proof may not fall on the noisemaker to prove they will not cause a significant biological impact, but instead fall on the protester to prove there will be an impact. Complicating it much further, the Criteria are being developed around a matrix of possibilities that is simply too complicated to even outline here, but the point is that the matrix asserts that a very few examples from prime-aged captive disciplined bottlenose dolphins and belugas can be used to define acoustical impacts for all cetaceans, and behavioral responses are not given their due.

To reasonable people the process seems unready and unable, as underlying all the words about noise should be the admission that science does not yet understand when noise becomes an impact, much less what to do about it. But the pressures to allow more noise are unrelenting and powerful, and NMFS is under enormous pressures these days. The Noise Exposure Criteria Draft EIS is expected this fall, and it will be your last chance to keep noise limits lower. Be ready for it.

The R/V Maurice Ewing stranded on a coral reef named "Madagascar" off the coast of Yucatan in mid-February, causing disgusted Mexican authorities to confiscate the vessel as a precaution, and ending the seismic survey of the Chicxulub crater, site of the asteroid impact that may have wiped out the dinosaurs. The best equipment the National Science Foundation could buy, and an expert staff representing several countries, failed to detect the reef that was clearly marked on charts. In a press statement Ewing representatives said: "There was no damage to the vessel."

It is illegal to harm a Mexican coral reef, and several legal actions and administrative denunciations are underway. Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) already has paid a $200,000 fine for damaging the reef, and to get their ship back.

The embarrassment was emblematic of the Ewing's performance so far. Last year's cruise was cancelled after the ship arrived on site, when Mexican authorities finally saw a full description of the permit issued by NMFS. They realized LDEO had given them only a bare outline of the situation, expecting a simple rubber stamp by a developing nation for whatever was wanted. As it was, the Ewing was operating under an "Incidental Harassment Authorization", which is only supposed to be used when there is no possibility of the research project causing severe injury or death. Given the reality of the intended seismic survey it is beyond rational belief that anyone could think there would be no harm at all. Spokespeople for the ship remain adamant that the surveys would not harm marine mammals, often expressed in that offhand style that some scientists just cannot help when dealing with an ignorant public. They are less willing to discuss the extra costs of failed surveys and fines, but they are persistent.

In June 2004 hearings were held in Mexico for the Ewing's next try, as well as seismic testing by the Mexican national oil company Pemex. Once again administrators denied the permits after seeing more proof that seismic air guns damage fish and fisheries.

Who was providing authorities with the correct information? Ben White, one of the most effective and respected activists in the world, a man who has proven over and over that he will place himself in harm's way to protect principle, or the life of another. Ben works for the Animal Welfare Institute, and to many of us he is a hero. To list his accomplishments would take a book, but he can't stop to write it.

Reluctantly aware that this single activist had outwitted them twice, the Ewing project in December adapted to the challenge, by inviting scientists from Mexico's National Autonomous University and pulling all the strings they could reach. Finally succeeding in convincing high authorities, and with Mexican scientists given something harmless to do on board, the Ewing showed up off Yucatan in January to survey the crater, which had patiently waited until they got their act together.

Ben was there weeks earlier, providing pamphlets and information to fishermen, media and officials. He created an enthusiastic network and generated constantly growing media coverage as the Ewing warmed up. He announced he would hire a boat to get him near enough to the Ewing so they would have to shut down the array, a tactic he had used successfully against the LFA Scientific Research Program's sound experiments off Hawaii. Ben could have prepared in secret, simply showing up next to the Ewing. He chose to be as public as possible to attract attention, and the resulting political and public attention to protecting Mexico's marine resources shows that he made the right choice.

But the Ewing's strings had reached so high up that the entire coast was locked down. No vessel was allowed to take Ben out and an exclusion zone was declared around the Ewing. With Ben out of the way the Ewing hit the coral reef.

The Ewing will be decommissioned soon. A replacement vessel, the R/V Langseth, will be prepared for projects beginning in 2006, the first of which may be even more controversial than Mexico's. That cruise will target an area where two tectonic plates meet along Canada's West Coast, coincidentally protected by far less regulatory oversight. Sounds good to them, but it will sound disastrous to anything living in the ensonified waters. The site appears to be a bay or fiord bounded by steep rocky walls, teeming with marine life, but unprotected by sufficient regulations to give the scientists aboard the R/V Langseth pause. It's all about the well-funded science.