U.S. Supreme Court OKs Navy use of sonar

Times staff writer David Savage reports that the U.S. Supreme Court has had its say about sonar and whales:

The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a defeat to environmentalists today and cleared the way for the Navy to use high-powered sonar 12 miles off the Southern California coast even if it poses a threat to whales and other marine mammals.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts said the Navy needs to train its crews to detect enemy submarines, and it cannot be forced to turn off its sonar when whales are spotted nearby. "The public interest in conducting training exercises with active sonar under realistic conditions plainly outweighs" the concerns voiced by environmentalists, he said for a 5-4 majority.

Roberts faulted judges in California for "second-guessing" the views of Navy leaders. "Where the public interest lies does not strike us as a close question," he said.

Roberts also questioned whether whales have indeed been harmed by sonar. He said the Navy had been operating off the California coast for 40 years "without a single documented sonar-related injury to any marine mammal."

The Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups strongly disagreed. They say studies conducted around the world have shown that the piercing underwater sounds cause whales to flee in panic. These studies said some whales have beached themselves and have shown signs of bleeding in their ears as a result of high-powered sonar.

Today's ruling lifts a Los Angeles judge's order that required the Navy to turn off its sonar when whales or marine mammals were seen within 1.2 miles of a ship. The ruling left in a place several measures to protect the whales, including a 12-mile zone along the coast where the Navy may not use its sonar. These were not challenged in the Supreme Court.

The Bush administration had urged the court to take up this case and rule quickly so the Navy could conduct training exercises scheduled in the next few months.

Photo: Dennis Fujimoto/Associated Press

Comments

[Mike Hawk]

Wow. Humans are like those bacteria that eats and poops itself into extinction...Please someone, find the sonar frequency that fries human brains, and please have the decency to fry the supreme court and navy first.

[Raymond]

It's easier to imagine, so let's make this simple. Imagine the low frequency sounds and vibrations we have all heard when a car drives by with a loud pounding base-beat. We all know this sound, many of us find it disturbing especially when the beat just doesn't feel right. Even if you enjoy the music, you can't deny the power of that vibration to move long distances, be heard and even felt deep in your chest and gut. For some of us who really like the music and spend enough time with it, we kinda know we're making a small sacrifice with our precious ears that will be damaged by those sounds that easily surpass our natural thresholds. We've seen rear windshields pumping up and down and if the unit is large enough we've even seen the metal of the car's trunk pulsing up and down. This is sound, sound is so powerful. We can't imagine what it's like without it unless your deaf.

Now, imagine you are a marine mammal like a whale or a dolphin. You've lived in the ocean all your life and thousands of years of evolution have atuned your senses into even the slightest vibrations. If you're a doplphin, you actually use sonar yourself to navigate, to get sound pictures of your environment, to hunt and eat. Now imagine a foreign, strange and powerful vibration coming through the water from nearby or even far away. Your highly specialized senses pick it up in it's smallest and weakest amounts and alert you that it's getting stronger until suddenly without notice it passes right through your highest thresholds, it's so loud, it damages your sensors, it disorients you like someone just knocked two metal garbage can lids upside your head. Your ears are ringing so bad you think they're going to vibrate right off your body. Your skin is turning, nearly rippling with the sounds, the sonar frequencies that have now overpowered your entire body and those all around you are in the same nightmare. Then, the sounds stop. The ringing continues, your senses are so jammed you think the sounds are still coming. After a while perhaps things calm down but what you could hear or sense 200 yards away now gets within several yards before you even notice it. You're senses are permanently damaged.

And then without any alert, the sounds start again, and this time stronger or maybe weaker but they're there and you're still recovering from the first wave. Have mercy on us you utter in your deep quiet voice.

It's not an attack, it's not even intentional. It is the convergence of our primitive technology and their advanced technology. They've evolved for thousands upon thousands of years in that deep blue ocean. They've survived things we've never even seen before perhaps even brushed up against great sea monsters now extinct or too rare to notice. They've maybe even witnessed global warming before, a natural kind, and lived through that too. But now, there's a new voice in the ocean, a monster or a something never before heard. Except this monster isn't there to eat you or take your territory. They're just there, innocent, evolving like you, trying to understand, to learn. If only they could understand what it felt like. If just for a moment they switched places, I wonder if they would do things differently. I hope they would.

[Waymond]

I think it really sad that the navy is allowed to kill endangered species with no repercussions. And we get mad at Japan for hunting whales!? What kind of country is this?