Navy's Plans for Sonar Facility Challenged

The NOAA letter was a formal comment on the Navy's draft environmental impact statement for the proposed sonar testing range, which the Navy wants to set up about 40 miles east of Camp Lejeune, N.C. The 500-square-nautical-mile range would be used for submarine warfare exercises, and would include a large array of sonar buoys and sound detection devices.

In an e-mail statement, Navy press officer Lt. William Marks said the Navy is reviewing all comments about its proposed sonar range, that NOAA "is a cooperating agency with the Navy" regarding the project, and that the Navy and NOAA will meet to discuss their differences. He said the Navy expects to have a final environmental impact statement ready by the fall.

As the NOAA letter made clear, however, the two sides have been meeting for years on the subject and have deep disagreements about both science and policy regarding sonar and whales.

Much of the letter was taken up with a technical discussion about how much noise a whale can stand before it changes its behavior and suffers harm. The Navy relied on tests involving whales in captivity and concluded they would generally not be harmed by sound below 190 decibels. But NOAA argued that whales and other marine mammals in the wild are likely to react differently to noise than captive, trained animals and said that studies of animals in the oceans supported their view. It recommended a maximum allowable noise level of 173 decibels, which is more than 100 times quieter than the 190 decibel standard.

In the letter, the NOAA officials said they had communicated their views to the Navy numerous times.

The letter is not currently on the NOAA Web site but is available from the agency. It was made more broadly public by NRDC.

Researchers began focusing on the potential effects of active sonar on marine mammals after 17 beaked whales stranded in the Bahamas immediately following a Navy exercise in 2000. The Navy later concluded that its mid-frequency, active sonar was the likely cause of the stranding.

Since then, strandings have been reported after American and international naval maneuvers with sonar off the Canary Islands, Hawaii, Washington state and North Carolina. The 2005 stranding and deaths of 37 whales, including three different species, along the North Carolina shore remain under investigation by NOAA. The animals died near where the Navy wants to build the sonar training range.