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Friday, October 17, 2003
Navy has good news for marine life
The Navy's agreement to limit use of a new type of sonar is good news for marine mammals.
Environmental groups and the Navy have agreed to limit the peacetime use of the new low-frequency sonar to an ocean area that includes waters off Japan, China and the Philippines. The agreement had been ordered by a federal judge in a lawsuit over the extent of sonar use, which the Navy says is needed to track ultra-quiet subs from China, Iran and North Korea.
Unfortunately, the U.S. House of Representatives is trying to exempt the Pentagon from the Marine Mammal Protection Act's safeguards. The push is premature if not completely wrongheaded.
Scientists and the Navy have barely begun to understand the effects of sonar on sea-dwelling mammals. The Navy has acknowledged that sonar use likely led to a Bahamas stranding incident in 2000 that killed beaked whales. Last week, scientists suggested that sonar also caused the deaths of whales in the Canary Islands last year. And scientists are investigating whether sonar use May 5 may have led to the deaths of harbor porpoises that washed up in the San Juan Islands.
Those incidents provide clear warnings about the House effort. The agreement on low-frequency sonar allows its use during times of heightened threat or war. Emerging knowledge argues for much greater concern about sonar, not a panicky override of longstanding law.
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