E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
David Mcnew / Getty Images file
A rare and endangered blue whale, one of at least four feeding 11 miles off Long Beach Harbor in the Catalina Channel, spouts near offshore oil rigs after a long dive in 2008.
SAN DIEGO -- The California Coastal Commission on Friday rejected a Navy explosives and sonar training program off the Southern California coast that critics said could harm endangered blue whales and other sea life.
Commissioners meeting in San Diego ruled unanimously that the Navy lacked enough information to back up its argument that the threat to marine mammals would be negligible.
The program had been scheduled to begin in January. Commission staffers had recommended that the panel require additional wildlife protections before endorsing it.
The panel and the Navy could now seek mediation to iron out their differences — or the Navy could simply choose to proceed with the training, as it did in 2007 and 2009. That probably would prompt the commission to sue in an effort to block the program, as it has in the past.
Before the vote Alex Stone, who directs the training program, told commissioners that the Navy opposed additional conditions that could make the training less realistic and reduce its scope.
Stone also said he believed the program has sufficient protections for sea life — an argument disputed by environmentalists who packed the meeting.
The Navy has estimated that the proposed training program would kill 130 marine mammals and cause hearing loss in 1,600 over five years.
"We think these are underestimates," Michael Jasny with the Natural Resources Defense Council told the commissioners.
The Navy's testing area encompasses 120,000 nautical square miles of the Pacific off the Southern California coast and includes a corridor between the state and Hawaii, among other areas.
The commission's staff had recommended that approval be contingent on a list of conditions. They included requiring that the Navy create safety zones that would guarantee no high-intensity sonar activity near marine sanctuaries and protected areas and in spots that experience a high concentration of blue, fin and gray whales seasonally.
The staff also said a kilometer from shore should also be off-limits to protect bottlenose dolphins.
The commission set out similar conditions to the Navy in 2007 and 2009, but the Navy refused to accept them both times.
The commission sued the Navy over the matter, leading to a preliminary injunction in 2008, though then-President George W. Bush gave an exemption for the training. The U.S. Supreme Court later overturned the lower court's decision.
Jasny's organization and three dozen others say they want the Navy to avoid important habitat for vulnerable species, including endangered blue and fin whales, beaked whales, and migrating gray whales. They also want the Navy to not use sonar training and underwater detonations at night, when marine mammals are extremely hard to detect. And they want the Navy to be required to use its own acoustic monitoring network to help detect marine mammals.
They also say that from May through October ships should slow to 10 knots in areas with baleen whales, to avoid hitting them.
Scientists say there is still much to be learned about how much sonar activity affects marine animals. Studies have shown some species such as beaked whales may be adversely affected by some forms.
A rare look at a spectacular show of nature, as gray whales make a splash off the coast of Southern California. They've made an impressive comeback and are giving the economy of that region a real boost. NBC's Diana Alvear reports.
Leave a Comment:
Time for California legislatures to BAN anyone wading, swimming, or surfing from California beaches to not use the restroom in the water.
However, ships can still flush their bildge waste into the ocean.
Uh oh.....here comes the Japan Tsunami debris into Mission Beach.
Brilliant ! how much money did it take to come up with something everyone with half a brain knows. Why don't the world just kill ALL the whales and be done with it. Kill all animals. Kill the poor Kill the ugly Kill the retarded, Kill kill kill..
Try getting your information from somewhere other than sites registered to extreme enviro groups-and you might learn some facts.
The testing the Navy will conduct is so small it poses little to no risk to area marine life.
By the way-seems you have issues with wanting to kill everyone and everything-seek professional help-there are medications for mental health conditions like you describe.
Larry the last thing in the World that the US needs to worry about is some other nation attacking it. Who would want a bankrupt nation ? they are a dime a dozen.
I can't figure out for the life of me how a "bankrupt" nation attracts tens of thousands of immigrants every year. Could it possibly be that no matter how bad it is here right now, just about every other place is even worse...?
Jmama ...... It really isnt that hard to figure out and yes it really is that much worse in every other place. That is the inevitable historical end result of the "progressive" agenda ... universal poverty. Just to be clear though, the U.S. does not "attract" tens of thousands of "immigrants", it has virtual open borders that allow the influx of hundreds of thousands 3rd world excess population a year. Quite a difference between the two. An immigrant is a selected foreign national who brings something for the benefit of the Republic, the 3rd world invasion is a swarm of locusts stripping the land bare and leaving a wake of devastation that drags down a civilization ... proven historically for every civilization in recorded history.
Starvin Larry
You are wrong , wrong ,wrong it poses a significant threat to blue whales in particular. Of course there are people who feel the whales are not important and they probably feel the same way about elephants, rhinos, pandas, leopards and all the other animals that are in danger of extinction.
"probably feel the same way about elephants, rhinos, pandas, leopards and all the other animals that are in danger of extinction."
Unfortuately 7 billion+ world population takes up a lot of space, use a lot of resources and has to eat something. If your family is hungry or you need fuel or need more land you are going to do whatever it takes to feed them, shelter them or raise enough food for one more day. When your child is crying from hunger that elephant is just moving meat, the bamboo forest is potential field and the forest is wasted resource. You pick ..... sell a cat skin for money, kill an elephant for weeks of food, sell a horn for enough money to last a year, clear some land for a big enough field to eat all winter .. or have your children die from starvation. Your choice, what would you do, what would be more important to you?
Starvin Larry . . . . . I believe you're the one that requires professional help. Though warrens email may be a tad in left field, this individual at least has compassion and wits enough to know that the military does very little in the way of testing to ensure ALL OF GOD'S CREATURES are protected . . . . . and you're just fooling yourself if you truly believe the Navy conducts its testing in measured segments that are"so small" to cause significant damage . . . . . And yes, my informative assertion comes from a family member whom is a Col. in the military. I believe it is you that needs to "learn some facts."
FYI: the oceans of the world may be huge but all of the sea life is in the area near the shores.
FYI: You just proved you know nothing about marine ecology. The sea life goes where the food is - wherever that may be, littoral or mid-ocean.
California finally did something that has some good behind it. The military knows damn well that the explosives and especially the sonar disrupt the whales sonar, their migration and their mating patterns! They just do not care!
"Commissioners meeting in San Diego ruled unanimously that the Navy lacked enough information to back up its argument that the threat to marine mammals would be negligible."
Interestingly enough, the commissioners made their unanimous ruling while lacking ANY information to back up their assertion that the threat to marine mammals would NOT be negligible...! Heads, I win; tails, you lose.
jockmama: Maybe the commission accepted the Navy's own estimates ( which the NRDC thinks are too low ) of 130 marine mammals killed, along with 1,600 hearing-damaged ones, and concluded that those figures were unacceptable ( and not negligible ). Despite their high intelligence, the whales don't get a vote.
hmmmm ----- the one thing neither the article or anyone commenting has mentioned is this........ i thought obama was the CIC ----- isn't he in charge of military operations ??? ---- what's his opinion on this ???
If he has any sense, which is quite a stretch to think he does, like any good manager he will set a goal and let his managers do their job to get results. In this case set a goal of having the military be as prepared and trained as humanly possible so as to have the ability to defend the nation under all conditions.
Why does our military even bother running drills? We've been so weakened from within the Chinese and anyone else who wants to attack us will have no problem doing so when the time comes.
Sadly that is a good question and the time is not really all that far off. It could very well be the Chinese as well repossessing assets to collect on the trillions of dollars owed. The nanny-state still borrows billions of dollars every couple of days and no longer produces anything of value, the middle-class tax base is extinct and the "rich" just dont have anywhere close to the amount of wealth needed to make a dent in the deficit. If even an attempt was made (and it cant be in the nanny-state) it would be your great-grandkids who would still be trying to pay down the principle.
Installing the bases for off shore wind turbines generates a large amount of noise too. Hammering the pilings into the ocean bottom is said to be bad for marine mammels too.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/sensitive-hearing-noisy-offshore-wind-park-scares-off-porpoises-a-698468.html