- WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush
administration cleared the way for Navy use of a powerful low-frequency
sonar to identify enemy submarines, a move environmentalists say will lead
to increased strandings and deaths of whales.
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- The Commerce Department's National Marine Fisheries Service
on Monday granted the Navy, which has spent dlrs 300 million developing
the system, a five-year exemption from the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
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- The exemption allows "harassment'' of marine mammals
by the Navy with its intense low-frequency sonar, called the Surveillance
Towed Array Sensor System, or Surtass LFA.
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- The National Marine Fisheries Service said in a statement
that, with proper monitoring and safeguards, "Marine mammals are unlikely
to be injured by the sonar activities and ... the sonar will have no more
than a negligible impact on marine mammal species and stocks.''
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- The exemption is due to be reviewed on an annual basis.
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- The Navy plans to use the new sonar on two warships capable
of sweeping 80 percent of the world's oceans. The original plan had called
for four ships, but that was scaled back due to budget constraints.
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- The Navy says the sonar is important to national security
because other nations, such as Russia, Germany and China, are developing
super-quiet submarines to avoid traditional detection.
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- Whales are particularly susceptible to sonar interference
because they rely on sound for communication, feeding, mating and migration.
According to the Navy, each of the sonar's 18 speakers transmits signals
as loud as 215 decibels, equivalent underwater to standing next to a twin-engine
F-15 fighter jet at takeoff.
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- Environmentalists say, however, that with the convergence
of sound waves from each of the speakers, the intense effects of the system
would reach farther, as if the signals were 235 decibels.
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- "The Bush administration has issued a blank check
for the global use of this system,'' said Michael Jasny, a senior policy
analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Today's decision
is far too broad to provide any meaningful protection for whales, dolphins
and other marine life.''
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- Fisheries officials outlined protective measures calling
for Navy personnel to visually scan for marine mammals and sea turtles
and to shut down the sonar whenever they are detected. Detection is expected
to be almost 100 percent effective from a distance of 1.1 nautical miles
(2 kilometers) away.
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- The Navy says it will restrict the sonar's routine use
to at least 12 nautical miles (22 kilometers) away from coastline and outside
biologically important areas.
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- The intense low-frequency sonar can travel several hundred
miles (kilometers) and the transmissions are on the same frequency used
for communication by many large whales, including humpbacks.
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- Some biologists believe whales are irritated by sounds
louder than 110 decibels and that a whale's eardrums could explode at 180
decibels.
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- Environmentalists' fears are partly based on the Navy's
deployment of a powerful mid-range sonar in March 2000 during a submarine
detection exercise in the deep water canyons of the Bahamas. At least 16
whales and two dolphins beached themselves on the islands of Abaco, Grand
Bahama and North Eleuthera within hours. Eight whales died. Scientists
found hemorrhaging around the brain and ear bones, injuries consistent
with exposure to loud sounds.
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- Twelve Cuvier beaked whales beached themselves in Greece
during NATO exercises in 1996 using the low-frequency sonar, but the whales
decomposed before scientists could investigate. - AP
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- http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2002/7/16/latest/6149Bushadmin&sec=l
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