----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 10:49
AM
Subject: [Sndbox] I told you so...
Navy Lets
Environmentalists Restrict Its Use of Sonar
NewsMax.com
Wires
Tuesday,
Oct. 14, 2003
Also see: Decision
to Abandon Vieques Stuns Military.
SAN FRANCISCO � The Navy has agreed to limit its peacetime use of a new
sonar system that is designed to detect enemy submarines but that might
also harm marine mammals and fish, an environmentalist group says.
Natural Resources Defense Council, which sued the military, and the Navy
reached a settlement last week in which the Navy agreed to use the new system
only in specific areas along the eastern seaboard of Asia, according to
documents provided by the environmental group.
The agreement must be approved by a federal magistrate to become permanent,
but if implemented the deal would greatly restrict the Navy's original plan
for the sonar system, which once was slated to be tested in most of the
world's oceans.
Navy officials familiar with the case could not be reached for comment.
Environmentalists say sonar systems endanger marine mammals and fish,
especially whales. They point to a different system the Navy used in 2000,
when at least 16 whales and two dolphins beached themselves on islands in the
Bahamas. Eight whales died, and scientists found hemorrhaging around their
brains and ear bones, which might have been caused by exposure to loud noise.
"Oceans are an acoustic environment, and the species that live there have
an acute acoustic sense," Frederick O'Regan, president of International Fund
for Animal Welfare, said in a conference call Monday. "If we interfere with
these critical behaviors, we may be affecting not just individual animals, but
entire populations."
Last year Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups
sued the Navy to restrict the system's use.
U.S. Magistrate Elizabeth Laporte later issued a preliminary injunction
restricting use of the system, and in a separate ruling ordered the
environmentalists and the Navy to negotiate a final settlement.
The new deal, which is the result of those negotiations, largely mirrors
the restrictions imposed by Laporte's earlier injunction.
Joel Reynolds, director of Marine Mammal Protection Project at Natural
Resources Defense Council, welcomed the settlement. "This agreement safeguards
both marine life and national security," Reynolds said in a statement. "It
will prevent the needless injury, harassment, and death of countless whales,
porpoises and fish, and yet allow the Navy to do what is necessary to defend
our country."
In addition to restricting the system to the eastern seaboard of Asia, the
Navy agreed to seasonal restrictions designed to protect whale migrations, and
to avoid using the system near the coast.
None of the restrictions applies during war.
� 2003 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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