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New court ruling on Navy sonar has big implications
July 20, 2016A new court ruling could fundamentally change the standards that the Navy and National Marine Fisheries Service have been using to regulate Navy sonar, by requiring more areas to be set aside as off-limits to the Navy’s routine peacetime operations. A federal appeals court has ruled that simply determining that Navy activities will have “negligible impact” […]
Navy agrees to exclusion zones for sonar, explosives training
September 17, 2015After being slammed by a federal judge in March, the US Navy has agreed to keep sonar training and explosives testing and training out of several biologically important areas off the California and Hawaii coasts. This week, settlement talks with NRDC, Earthjustice, and other plaintiffs resulted in a final order, which will remain in effect […]
2011 stranding blamed on Royal Navy bomb explosions
June 29, 2015In July 2011, 70 pilot whales were spotted in the shallow Kyle of Durness on the north coast of Scotland; as the tide went out, at least 39 were stranded. Quick efforts by locals and live-stranding groups managed to refloat 20 animals, but 19 perished. This month, a report commissioned by the UK’s governing agency, […]
Navy, NMFS slammed by judge over training permits
April 9, 2015The Navy and NMFS suffered a stunning legal defeat over the latest 5-year EIS and permits governing training exercises in Hawaii, California, and waters in between. In marked contrast to other recent court rulings, which found fault with some procedural issues but largely backed the Navy and NMFS’s collaborative planning results (see detailed AEI summaries […]
Navy (mostly) prevails in LFA lawsuit
June 9, 2014Eighteen months after a lawsuit challenged the latest 5-year authorization for the US Navy’s SURTASS-LFA low-frequency active sonar system, Federal Judge Elizabeth Laporte ruled in the Navy’s favor on nearly all counts. And last week, the Navy agreed to do a Supplemental Environmental Impact statement that will address the key point on which she found […]
Legal challenges mount to new round of Navy training permits
January 31, 2014In December, the Navy’s current five-year plan for training and testing activities around Hawaii and off the southern California coast were approved by NOAA regulators, covering the years 2014-2018. The approval authorized incidental takes of marine mammals, including both widespread behavioral changes and close-range injuries and some deaths, as a result of sound exposure from sonar […]
2008 UK stranding linked to Navy exercises
May 6, 2013On June 9, 2008, 26 common dolphins, 21 of them infants, stranded and died in river estuaries around Falmouth Bay, as several days of Naval exercises involving over 30 ships wound down (see AIEnews coverage at the time). A four-year study (read it online) has concluded that unspecified Naval activities are “the most probable (but […]
California regulators reject Navy training plans despite federal approvals
March 12, 2013The California Coastal Commission has rejected the Navy’s 5-year plan for training and testing activities that recently received provisional approvals from the National Marine Fisheries Service. In a unanimous vote, CCC members said the Navy’s environmental studies failed to back up its claim that impacts on marine life would be negligible during the years 2014-2019. […]
New NMFS Navy “take” permits: outrageous or reasonable?
February 11, 2013The release of Proposed Rules to govern US Navy training and testing operations in the waters of the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, Southern California, and Hawaii from 2014-2019 has put the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) in the crosshairs of an outraged response from environmental groups. NRDC, the Center for Biological Diversity, and others point […]
NRDC, allies mount new legal challenge to Navy sonar
October 20, 20122012 is shaping up as the year when the legal battle over the US Navy’s active sonar systems ramped back up to full-scale confrontation. A 2009 agreement between NRDC and the Navy put legal challenges on the back burner – actually, entirely off the stovetop – in favor of dialogue. But recent permits issued by NOAA’s National […]
Navy receives NMFS OK for LFAS operations 2012-2017
September 10, 2012In August, the National Marine Fisheries Service issued its Record of Decision that will allow the Navy to operate its Low Frequency Active Sonar systems for the next five years. NMFS will issue a new Letter of Authorization each year, in order to accommodate new information as needed, but the overall parameters of the permits will […]
Tension builds over expanded whale “takes” in new Navy sonar EIS
May 18, 2012The US Navy has released its initial Draft Environmental Impact Statements for the next 5-year round of permits it will seek from the National Marine Fisheries Service for its at-sea training activities, and the numbers of animals expected to be affected have skyrocketed. This is in part thanks to the new EISs combining areas that were […]
NRDC re-opens legal battle with Navy, NOAA over sonar
January 27, 2012Three years after the NRDC and U.S. Navy reached an agreement that was meant to create avenues for dialogue and collaboration, a new lawsuit filed this week suggests that the hopes both sides held have not been realized. The main sticking point remains the same now as it was then: environmental advocates insist that some […]
Ocean listening stations go online; US Navy aims to filter out its activities
January 22, 2012A growing network of ocean observatories are adding hydrophones to their arrays of instruments, opening ears into the undersea world. The data has been shared widely among scientists for the past few years, and a website, Listening to the Deep Ocean Environment, is now compiling the real-time acoustic streams from 15 of the observatories, allowing […]
Mass whale stranding during Italian Navy exercises: sonar heard?
December 7, 2011Over the past week, a mass stranding of Cuvier’s beaked whales has taken place along the shoreline of Corfu (a Greek island) and southern Italy. The first whales came ashore on November 30, halfway through an Italian Navy exercise taking place in waters on both sides of Italy, including the 130-mile wide Ionian Sea, which […]
Navy looks to “Continuous Active Sonar” for anti-sub protection, less impact on whales
July 29, 2010While it looks like it’s been on the drawing board since at least 2004, today I ran across a news report on what appears to be an increasingly well-defined plan to outfit surface ships with a new Continuous Active Sonar (CAS) system. In the face of what is perceived as an increasing threat from quiet […]
Navy jumps on sonar EIS merry-go-round, aiming at 2014 renewals
July 20, 2010As many of you know, over the past two years, the Navy has completed its first-ever Environmental Impact Statements for mid-frequency active sonar, in concert with applying for permits to allow them to do sonar training missions in Naval training ranges off most of the coastlines of the US. This training activity has been ongoing for […]
Navy enviro mag features beaked whale research, with a slant
May 22, 2010The Spring 2010 issue of Currents, the quarterly magazine published by N45, the Navy’s environmental readiness division, features a long article on recent research by Ted Cranford of San Diego State University, which is revealing new details about the anatomy of beaked whales. Cranford has developed an innovative technique to use x-ray CAT scanners designed […]
Navy plans to add sonar training in Gulf of Alaska spurs local concerns, as NMFS prepares to issue permits
February 15, 2010The final EIS in the Navy’s multi-year effort to get its training activities into legal compliance with NEPA requirements is heading for the finish line. Adding to the drama, however, is the fact that the Navy is pushing to introduce active sonar training into the Gulf of Alaska—while previous EISs at other training ranges proposed continuing […]
NRDC, allies take Navy to court over training range near right whale habitat
January 29, 2010The new Navy Undersea Warfare Training Range (USWTR), being planned for off the coast of northern Florida, has hit a roadblock that’s been fairly visible since the location was announced last July: environmental groups are challenging the permitting process that allows construction to commence before the Navy completes its environmental assessment of future operations there. […]
Navy Outlines Recent, Ongoing Behavioral Response Studies
August 12, 2009A detailed article-cum-press release from Navy News provides the most information currently available on three studies that will be central to addressing ongoing questions about the Navy’s assessment of the behavioral responses of whales and dolphins to Navy mid-frequency active sonar. Two of the studies took place on US Navy instrumented ranges during normal Naval […]
Navy to Avoid Puget Sound in Sonar Training, But…
August 5, 2009After suspending the use of mid-frequency active sonar training activities in Puget Sound in the wake of an incident in 2003 in which sonar sounds appeared to agitate a group of orcas, the Navy confirmed this week that a new sonar training plan, with permits to be issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service, will […]
Georgia Questions “Considerable Speculation” in Navy sonar range assessment
July 29, 2009The Navy is facing some push-back from the states of Georgia and Florida in the initial stages of gaining the necessary approvals for proceeding with their plans for a 500 square mile training range offshore from Jacksonville. The Navy had hoped to have the states’ comments in hand by this week, but Florida expects to […]
AEI Summary of Navy EIS for Undersea Warfare Training Range
July 24, 2009In October, 2005, the Navy released the first of their sonar-inclusive EIS’s, a Draft Environmental Impact Statement covering plans for a 500 square mile Undersea Warfare Training Range (USWTR), primarily for up to 480 anti-submarine mid-frequency active sonar exercises per year, including 100 ship-based events (2/week on average, lasting 3-4 hours each). This may serve to […]
Navy Says Right Whales Not at Risk Near New Training Range
July 22, 2009The US Navy has released a Final EIS for its long-planned Undersea Warfare Training Range (USWTR), and has settled on an area off Jacksonville as its preferred location. This was one of three areas under consideration, and marks a shift from earlier plans to locate the range off North Carolina, which met widespread resistance from […]