Court restricts killer sonar. (International Marine Mammal Project).

A US federal court in San Francisco has sharply restricted the use of Low Frequency Active (LFA) Sonar, a system that emits one of the loudest sounds ever produced by humans under water. Designed to detect silent submarines at long distances, LFA Sonar and other active sonars now in use have been implicated in the deaths of whales around the world, and have been identified as being potentially harmful to fisheries and to other marine life. There are effective passive sonars available, based on enhanced new microphones and computers, that do not harm whales or other marine life.

IMMP applauded the court outcome, but noted that the judge did not stop LFA Sonar altogether. "The judge is still allowing the US Navy to test and tram with LFA Sonar in a very large area of the Pacific Ocean," says IMMP director David Phillips. "We need to put a stop to LFA Sonar altogether, and that means more work in Congress, in the courts, and with the public."

"What the Navy sought (for testing and training with LFA Sonar) was 14 million square miles of Pacific Ocean," adds Joel Reynolds, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) which challenged LFA Sonar in court. "What we ultimately agreed upon, after winning the preliminary injunction, was somewhere between 10 and 15 percent of that--in an area of the Pacific Ocean that our experts unanimously told us was among the least productive sections of the much larger permitted area." Reynolds states that NRDC is still seeking to have the Navy's permit for LFA Sonar "invalidated on a permanent basis as soon as possible." A full trial on LFA Sonar is scheduled for June 2003.

In related news, two additional new strandings of rare beaked whales related to loud noiseblasting of the oceans occurred in September. In the Canary Islands, at least 17 beaked whales of different species beached themselves following nearby NATO naval maneuvers. So far, NATO and the US Navy have refused to say what kind of active sonars were in use for the exercises. In the Sea of Cortez, a loud airgun used by the National Research Council for seismic testing was discovered operating without proper environmental permits near a coast where two beaked whales stranded and died. Airguns aim very intense bursts of low frequency sounds toward the seafloor to determine its geological structure. A lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity resulted in a legal ruling that shut down the project until proper environmental review could be undertaken by federal agencies.

"Clearly, noise pollution of our oceans is becoming more and more of a global problem," says Phillips. "EII is determined to put an end to the noise-blasting of our precious oceans."

A new, more conservative Congress will reconvene in January 2003, and the Navy and other, military branches are expected, with the blessings of the Bush White House, to attempt again to overturn key environmental laws that protect whales, endangered species, and the ecosystem.