Planning directives would limit sonar use

By BRIAN PERRY Assistant City Editor
Sonar use would be limited to protect whales and other marine mammals during the upcoming Rim of the Pacific naval exercises if the Navy complies with state coastal zone management directives from the state Office of Planning.

In a May 22 letter from state Planning Director Abbey Seth Mayer to Larry Foster, division director of the Pacific Fleet Environmental Office at Pearl Harbor, the Navy is told that mid-frequency active sonar reaching three nautical miles from Hawaii’s shores “shall be no higher than 145 decibels,” which is a level expected to ensure the least likelihood of harming marine mammals.

To achieve that, it is expected that vessels engaging in active sonar exercises would need to stay nearly 25 miles away from the Hawaiian Islands, according to Marsha Green, founder and president of the Ocean Mammal Institute. The reduction in sonar noise is important not only for humpback whales, which are in Hawaiian waters during winter months, but also for other marine mammals, such as dolphins and other species of whales that use their keen sense of hearing to forage for food, find mates, bond with offspring, communicate, navigate and avoid predators.

Also in his letter, Mayer extended all of the mitigation measures and conditions prescribed by U.S. District Judge David Ezra on Feb. 29 in the case of the Ocean Mammal Institute v. Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Ezra’s ruling was limited to the Navy’s proposed 12 undersea warfare exercises in Hawaiian waters through January 2009, but Mayer’s action also applied the judge’s orders to RIMPAC exercises this year as well all future exercises involving mid-frequency sonar.

This year, the RIMPAC exercises are scheduled for June 29 to July 31. The biennial exercise is expected to draw more than 20,000 military personnel to Hawaii and bring more than $26 million to the state’s economy. Aside from the United States, nine other countries are expected to participate — Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, the Netherlands, Peru, South Korea, the United Kingdom and Singapore.

The Navy has filed a notice that it intends to appeal Ezra’s ruling to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Navy contends that the court’s interpretation of laws aimed at protecting marine mammals impairs sonar training and may erode military readiness and national security.

Earthjustice attorney Koa-lani Kaulukukui, who represents the Ocean Mammal Institute, said she expects the Navy’s appeal to be heard in July or August.

Green said she appreciated the action taken by the Office of State Planning.

“They really want to protect Hawaii’s marine life,” she said.

She said she believed Ezra’s ruling did a good job of balancing the need to protect marine mammals while not stopping the Navy from its mission of training sailors to detect enemy submarines.

“I really think the Navy could do a better job of protecting the environment and still train effectively,” she said. “The question is, do they want to?”

Green said her group was happy with the balance of the judge’s decision, although it could have gone further. “I think the Navy’s more unhappy than we are,” she said.

Green said Ezra’s ruling was the fifth federal case in which a judge ordered the Navy to take mitigation action in use of sonar in training to lessen impacts on marine mammals. She said she doesn’t understand the Navy’s resistance to following court orders or its insistence on holding sonar exercises in areas abundant with marine life such as waters near the Hawaiian Islands.

In February, Ezra issued a preliminary injunction in the Ocean Mammal Institute case against the Navy, saying “there is little disagreement that mid-frequency active sonar can cause injury, death and behavioral alteration” to marine mammals.

While he noted the complexity and uncertainty about marine mammal strandings associated with the use of sonar, Ezra ordered the Navy to implement mitigating measures aimed at avoiding marine mammal exposure to sonar.

The judge told the Navy to reduce the power of sonar when a marine mammal is spotted and remains within 1,500 meters of any sonar-emitting vessel. If the animal is closer, the sonar power would be reduced until it would stop when a mammal is within 500 meters of the vessel.

He also required the Navy to monitor for the presence of whales before and during a naval exercise in which sonar would be used. The monitoring during the exercise would include three dedicated lookouts and aircraft to search for marine mammals while sonar is deployed, the judge said.

Also, Ezra said, “to the maximum extent possible, the Navy will employ passive acoustic monitoring to supplement the visual detection of the presence of marine mammals, specifically in areas where hard-to-locate beaked whales might be present.”

Helicopters preparing to deploy “active dipping sonar” would need to monitor for marine mammals for 10 minutes before releasing the sonar, he said.

The judge also ordered the Navy to “ramp up” sonar transmissions before initiating any exercise with mid-frequency active sonar, beginning with low levels and increasing them gradually “to allow marine mammals to depart the area before transmissions reach harmful levels.”

“The court is not persuaded by the Navy’s assertion that ramping up power will harm its training,” Ezra said. “The Navy avers that ramping up would destroy the realism of the (undersea warfare exercises) because submarines are able to detect the active sonar transmission of a surface vessel from a distance farther away than the surface ship can detect the echo of its sonar off the submarine. As such, the Navy claims, ramping up will eliminate the ‘cat-and-mouse’ aspect so critical to (antisubmarine warfare) training.

“This argument ignores a truth implicit in training exercises — training can never exactly simulate the conditions of warfare,” the judge said.

• Brian Perry can be reached at bperry@mauinews.com.