8.17.02
In the past year, the threat of the Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System Low Frequency Active sonar (or “SURTASS LFA”) has only grown worse. On August 7, a coalition of environmental groups sued the US Navy and the National Marine Fisheries Service to block deployment of the dangerous radar system.
“From a scientific point of view, there is very little question that, given the right set of circumstances, active sonar can kill marine life,” said Naomi Rose, a marine mammal scientist with the Humane Society of the United States, one of the coplaintiffs. “The frightening thing about LFA is that we’re flying blind, because the Navy has never seriously applied the lessons from previous strandings to its LFA system.”
The lawsuit was in response to the decision made last month by the National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal service which is supposed to be protecting ocean resources, to issue the Navy a permit allowing the global deployment of LFA.
Citing the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, the plaintiffs in the case — NRDC, the Humane Society, the League for Coastal Protection, the Cetacean Society International, and the Ocean Futures Society and its president, Jean-Michel Cousteau — will seek a court sion before the Navy deploys the LFA system.
We at World Wide Whale cannot stress enough the importance of your voice in this policy and the court’s decision on this threat. We urge you to write letters, emails, send faxes and make phone calls to voice your opposition to allowing the Navy to threaten our marine mammals.
More information can be found at the follwing Web sites:
- National Resource Defense Council
- Robert L. Jamieson Jr, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
- The Public Cause Network
- Incredible Resources Page on the Public Cause Network Web site
7.12.01
Other than whaling, the most serious threat to the world’s whales and dolphins is from our own United States Navy in the form of a “Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System Low Frequency Active Sonar” project. This new sensor system utilizes sounds in the detection of super-quiet enemy submarines that older sonars cannot find.
Although the Navy issued an Environmental Impact Statement (http://www.surtass-lfa-eis.com/) which makes it sound as if this sonar would not threaten marine mammals, scientists have voiced opposition and the Navy itself has noted that their own divers were made ill by sounds. At 160-decibels, a fraction of the intensity at which the LFA system is designed to operate, one 32 year old diver suffered dizziness, drowsiness, memory dysfunction and seizures. He is still being treated for medical problems two years later.
Undeniable evidence that high-power “active” sonar systems can and do kill marine animals emerged in March 2000, when beach stranding of four different species of whales and dolphins in the Bahamas coincided with a Navy battle group’s use of extremely loud active sonar there. Despite efforts to save the whales, seven of them died; A National Marine Fisheries Service and Navy investigation established with virtual certainty a connection between the strandings and the sonar — and that active-sonar system put out mid-frequency sound, which generally does not travel as far as LFA.
Necropsies on the dead animals showed six whales died from hemorrhaging around the brain and ear bones, presumably from intense internal vibrations caused by bursts of mid-frequency sound waves. And in February 2001, a marine scientist observed that at least one of the whale species that stranded in the Bahamas had virtually disappeared from the area, raising questions about impacts well beyond the initial strandings and deaths.
The National Marine Fisheries Service announced its proposal to permit LFA even as its own investigations into the Bahamas strandings continue. The fight has turned to Congress which has authority to either appropriate or withhold funding. Send a message to your senators and representative to urge them to withhold funds for this project and protect the world’s whales and dolphins.**
Excellent information is available at the NRDC Website: http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/marine/nlfa.asp
**There is also an easy way to voice your opposition of this project to your local representatives. The NRDC has a great “Earth Action Center.” To go directly to their online form to voice your concern to your local representatives, click here.
WHAT YOU SHOULD DO? WRITE!
Take the time to WRITE a letter to:
Hon. Richarrd Danzig, Secretary of the Navy, United States Pentagon
Rm. 4E-686, Washington, DC 20350
Fax: 703-614-3477
Ms. Donna Wieting, Office of Protected Resources, National Marine Fisheries Service
1315 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910-3326
Fax: 7301-713-0376
Mr. John W. Twiss, Executive Director, U.S. Marine Mammal Commission
4340 East-West Highway, Bethesda, MD 20814
Fax: 301-504-0099
AND your Senator and Representatives! There is an easy way to voice your opposition of Navy Noise Projects to your local representatives. Visit the NRDC Earth Action Center to find out more.
DON’T ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN TO ANOTHER WHALE!
