President Bush delivered a blow to California’s whale and dolphin huggers today on behalf of the Navy. Here’s the press release from DoD:
The Navy announced today that two important steps have been taken under existing law and regulations to allow it to conduct effective, integrated training with sonar off the coast of southern California after a federal court earlier this month imposed untenable restrictions on such training.
In accordance with the provisions of the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA), and at the recommendation of the Secretary of Commerce, the President concluded that continuing these vital exercises without the restrictions imposed by the district court is in the paramount interests of the United States. He signed an exemption from the requirements of the CZMA for the Navy’s continued use of mid-frequency active (MFA) sonar in a series of exercises scheduled to take place off the coast of California through January 2009. The Navy already applies twenty-nine mitigation measures approved by federal environmental regulators when using active sonar, and these will remain in place.
An exemption from the act was sought after an order was issued on Jan. 3 by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, which created a significant and unreasonable risk that the Navy will not be able to conduct effective sonar training necessary to certify strike groups for deployment in support of world-wide operational and combat activities. Use of sonar is part of critical, integrated training that must be done in the Navy’s operating area off the coast of San Diego to take advantage of Southern California’s bathymetric features and its extensive ranges, airfields, and other infrastructure necessary for effective training. Approximately half the Navy’s fleet will receive its most critical, “graduate level” training here before it deploys its forces around the world.
In a separate but related action, the Council on Environmental Quality approved the Navy’s request for alternative arrangements for compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, for these exercises until completion of the Southern California Range Complex environmental impact statement.
Following up on these actions, Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter signed a decision memorandum yesterday agreeing to those arrangements, which include adaptive management measures, more thorough reporting procedures, and increased public participation.
“We can protect our national security while simultaneously being good stewards of the environment,” said Winter. “These alternative measures, in addition to the 29 protective measures already in place, will ensure our operating forces can train realistically without harming the environment.”
“We are already taking extensive measures to protect marine mammals, and we have had positive results from those measures,” said Winter. “We are furthermore committed to an extensive data collection effort to help inform our future efforts in this regard.”
Even before the court’s order, the Navy employed 29 protective measures, developed in cooperation with the National Marine Fisheries Service, any time sonar is used on Navy ranges, or in major exercises. The existing measures include, among other things, stationing specially trained lookouts to look for marine mammals, passive acoustic monitoring for marine mammals, establishing safety zones around ships where sonar power is reduced or shut down if marine mammals are sighted, and employing extra precautions during chokepoint exercises.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead said that the actions were necessary in order to ensure the Navy’s ability to train Sailors to detect quiet submarines that might threaten its ships.
“We cannot in good conscience send American men and women into potential trouble spots without adequate training to defend themselves,” said Roughead.
“The southern California operating area provides unique training opportunities that are vital to preparing our forces, and the planned exercises cannot be postponed without impacting national security,” said Roughead. “The steps that have been taken will allow our men and women to train realistically, while continuing the effective employment of proven mitigation measures that have been endorsed by the Council on Environmental Quality and our regulator, the National Marine Fisheries Service.”
So has sanity prevaled here? Or is this another win for the evil empire running roughshod on the environment?
– Ward
To me, it looks like the Navy is doing what it can to protect marine life while still training the sailors. And you gotta train ‘em. If they’re not well trained to avoid subs, they die. And hell, 29 different methods to protect the animals is quite a bit.
Well isn’t this par for the course? In the Bush administration if you don’t like the law, you just go ahead and act illegally anyway. Problem solved!
How can the President act illegally if he has the authority to make this exemption under the CZMA?
*Standard disclaimer start* I’m not a blind supporter of the Bush administration, in fact I’m quite pissed at a lot of what they have done, *Standard Disclaimer End* but comments like that of Mr. Wolf above are ridiculous.
“Act illegally” you say? Seems to me that he was acting well within the legal bounds of the POTUS. More to the point, bench made law is further from the framers original intentions then executive orders are. There is nothing illegal in the way the White House acted in this article.
Petty jabs in complex discussions do nothing to further understanding or advance debate.
Otter
on it’s own, i would have read that release and thought to myself, “well they are making a compromise, i have some faith that they are doing what they can to not wantonly kill off life”. but, after reading the bookends Ward put on the release, i now have the inclination to side with those attempting to file injunctions against the sonar training.
Let it be known that I’m a green-eyed left-wing whale-hugger. (As well as lover of stuff that goes –boom-.)
Also let it be known I do not like the Bush tribe.
Humph.
If your president was *really* into saving sealife he’d use his subs to scare off whaling ships.
Balaenae nobis conservandae sunt
Pharsalus
By the way, could any one of you Americans please tell me what the reason is the US will only follow international treaties if it *wants* to? I mean, take Kyoto as an example; cutting back on emissions or saving fish (excusez-moi, marine mammals)(among others) would hurt your economy, so you don’t sign up. If you come to the meeting, you should want to play.
We as human beings owe indefintely more to the planet we live on than to the country we’re born in. Save the whales.
Pharsalus
Must be slow on the boards with Christian in the field
Hmmmm. 1. Can’t link the deaths to the Navy.
2. Navy making an effort to proceed with care.
Yep. I’m good with it. Especially since I’ve seen some of these biologists in action at Point Mugu and SNI. Classic WIDIMITWEED (‘What I Do Is More Important Than What Everyone else does’) syndrome.
Oh, and Pharselus? If you are not spanked soundly by the whenever I get back here I will be amazed.
I’ll prepare you a bit for what may come:
a. Look up ‘treaty’, and somewhere you will read what it takes to put one into effect.
b. Google ‘Kyoto’ and somewhere you will see that the US is doing better controlling emissions than the actual signatories.
By the way, could any one of you Americans please tell me what the reason is the US will only follow international treaties if it *wants* to? I mean, take Kyoto as an example; cutting back on emissions or saving fish (excusez-moi, marine mammals)(among others) would hurt your economy, so you don’t sign up. If you come to the meeting, you should want to play.
We never signed that piece of crap called Kyoto. Also even if the President signs a treaty it must then be ratified by the Senate.
Whale-tastes just like chicken
Pharsalus, this: “We as human beings owe indefintely more to the planet we live on than to the country we’re born in. Save the whales.“
Is idiotic. The planet will not feed you, will not defend you, will not pay you, talk or listen to you, just as I will no longer listen to you. It is a utopian fantasy to consider yourself a citizen of the world and therefore asinine.
If we have a navy, we have to train it. If you don’t want to train the navy, man up and come out and say, “Let’s disband the navy, guys. Nuke subs are killing Gaia.“
Then us vets can throw things at you and call you dirty names, because, you are an idiot.
In response to James above, I believe a country’s first duty is to it’s people not itself.
If the people want happy whales, then it is the nation’s duty to at least not go out of it’s way to piss off the whales.
Myself, I like whales. They are wonders of the natural world. I also like Sonars. Nifty gadgets that save the good guys lives.
I also think we should investigate giving the whales earmuffs. Just might solve everyones problem.
Demophilius, sonar remains for the indefinite future the best way to spot a sub. We’ve had all sorts of sonar arrays and even MAD sensors (Magnetic Anamoly Detectors) since the fifties, sixties, but there is no substitute for integrating the sensor with the platform. And the best sensor remains sonar.
Some of the diesels are so quiet that even passive towed arrays will not get them, so you need the contingency to go hot with the bullhorn.
In response to James above, I believe a country’s first duty is to it’s people not itself.
true but a nation is its people and well no offense if it ment losing a 10k mink whales or losing one us sub of mariners.…i say take the mariners but thats just me
though if we could find out a way to detect subs as well without the sonar id be all for it maybe they would have a harder time finding us
last
I also think we should investigate giving the whales earmuffs. Just might solve everyones problem.
an excellent idea maybe just need ear plugs like ya use when weed eattin
but i think its easier to do it this way hippie.i here by give you the power to demand all other nations to disable and give us there subs this way we wouldnt need the radar and they wouldnt need to fund the subs.plus peaceful flower loving countries like china and iran could then put more men in the army
see problem solved right hippie its for gia im sure thell jump right to it right?
C(hippie basterd)
excellent point but think about it this way islamic terrorist and communist dont care about the enviroment they dont worry about whales
communist china once murdered anywhere from 44mil to 77 mil of its ppls(you know its bad when a country can obsorb that loss and just keep going.condums..anyways)
i believe in cleaning up the enviroment almost every american does but if we loss our enemies wont
so simple end all the wars get us in space and spread out our huge population(though world wars tend to help with the over population prob)
or figure out a way to detect subs quietly and safely
peace dude
so by that logic we have to stoop to their level? what makes our nation great is that we are better than everyone else. if we take the attitude that “they are doing it so we will do it too”, we are severely deteriorating that status.
Anybody know anything about any of that? Without getting into classified stuff, is this mid-range active MFAS all we got?
How does it relate to the low freak, high volume stuff that allegedly cause spontaneous beachings?
Well, without getting too technical, water has layers called thermoclines. It is possible for a sub to hide below a thermocline and be invisible to active sonar operating above it. Hi freq (not freak) gets absorbed rather quickly. The medium to low freq sometimes cuts through the thermoclines to detect hidden subs/objects. Different tools for different jobs. A chain saw cuts wood. A coping saw cuts wood. You wouldn’t attempt to fell a large tree with a coping saw. We have sonar that covers the spectrum.
As far as whale beaching goes, why did it happen before we began testing our sonar?
I can think of a classified number of ways to track / detect submarines. Having realistic training in each area is REQUIRED. Speaking of law, the Constitution requires we provide for a strong defense, I
The Navy should train with this technology. Like much of the other tried / applied underwater technology, if doesn’t fit with the way the Navy fights or there are more effective ASW practices, ditch it!
Even without evidence, at best I’ll agree that the use of this sonar hurts the whales feeling, and I care about that. Sort of thinking aloud here or I read this already
I just wanted to say a thing here in regards to this debate…
If the US Navy had been real kick-ass, and I mean REAL kick-ass we would have destroyed the Russian whaling fleet in the 60’s before they had a chance to destroy the last of the Atlantic Right Whale. ( yes there are some remaining buts it jsut a matter of time before they go). The problem is that the extremes in this country just do not know how to talk together. Imagine the right and left uniting in this country and sinking the Russian whaling fleet. We could have saved an entire freakin species and left the soviet fleet on the bottom of the Atlantic like Tojo did in the Pacific.