Environmental Group To Challenge Navy’s Sonar Use

By Kelly Garrison
Features Editor

A national organization has challenged a United States Navy plan that proposes to increase its operations off of the Southern California coast.

Known as the Southern California Range Complex Environmental Impact Statement/Oversees Environmental Impact Statement, the report details its proposal to revamp military training operations and facilities at the site. Representatives from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) say the Navy would use sonar equipment that can put marine creatures at risk for injury or death.

“They have not in the EIS set aside one square mile of this range in which they will not use mid-frequency sonar,” said Zak Smith, a litigation fellow for the NRDC.

According to the organization’s research, mid-frequency sonar sounds can be powerful enough to cause permanent or fatal injury to different types of sea life. Smith said that medical examinations showed that the effects of such testing are comparable to decompression sickness in humans caused by breathing nitrogen under water pressure.

“Depending on how close and how strong it is, it can kill or otherwise injure marine mammals,” Smith said. “It’s so loud that it causes rupturing in the brain. Immediate injury can occur, and then the other kind of injury is that of behavioral changes.”

The Navy’s project proposes to increase training operations and enhance its onsite facilities. The affected area, known as the Southern California Range Complex, includes the Southern California coast between Dana Point and San Diego and about 120,000 square nautical miles of sea space.

“The EIS addresses potential impacts and is the most comprehensive study we’ve done,” said Project Manager Alex Stone. “It has a number of protective measures to minimize the impacts from Navy training on marine life.”

Staff from the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Marine Mammal Protection Project will be at a meeting Thursday to reiterate the environmental organization’s claims that the Navy has failed to address its concerns.

“The Navy has been repeatedly found by different courts to be in violation of the law with regard to their approach for using mid frequency sonar,” Smith said. “In the current case, the court’s finding was that the Navy’s tools they chose to minimize were woefully inadequate.”

Stone said the Navy is working to comply with requests. Federal law requires the Navy to be prepared for combat at sea — a responsibility that military officials say requires active sonar and the real-life training.

“There are a number of court cases having to do with this, but this really moves us beyond the current litigation,” he said. “Judges have talked about the need of having an EIS, and this is that document.”

The term, “sonar” is an acronym for “Sound Navigation and Ranging” and uses underwater acoustics to determine water depth, the locations of mines and the presence of submarines.

Mid-frequency sonar has been in use since World War II for identifying submarines and has typical ranges of 1-10 nautical miles.

Long Beach residents who organized a protest in June 2001 said that a U.S. Navy sonar submarine detection system test in the Bahamas earlier that year caused at least 14 whales to ground themselves. Eight of them died from ruptured membranes as a result of the testing, the protesters said.

The public hearing will take place from 5 to 9:30 p.m. today at the Long Beach Public Library, 101 Pacific Ave.; Navy representatives will host a public hearing about the project starting at 7 p.m.

For more information about the report, visit www.socalrangecomplexeis.com.