[CPEO-MEF] "Navy must cut sonar use off California"

[Lenny Siegel <lennysiegel@gmail.com>]

Navy must cut sonar use off California
Judge orders tough restrictions to protect whales and dolphins. 
Officials fear training will be hampered.

By Kenneth R. Weiss
Los Angeles Times
January 4, 2008

A federal judge in Los Angeles on Thursday ordered the toughest set of 
restrictions ever imposed on the U.S. Navy's use of mid-frequency sonar 
off the Southern California coast as part of a protracted court battle 
to protect whales and other marine mammals from underwater sonic blasts.

The order was the first time the judge has spelled out specific rules 
the Navy must follow to avoid a court-imposed ban on training missions 
with a type of sonar that has been linked to the death and panicked 
behavior of whales and dolphins.

U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper ordered the Navy to refrain 
from using the powerful submarine-hunting sonar within 12 miles of the 
coast, a corridor heavily used by migrating gray whales, dolphins and 
other marine mammals.

She also ordered that the Navy spend an hour before it starts any 
training mission searching for marine mammals in the area and that it 
continue using shipboard observers and aircraft to monitor for whales 
and dolphins while the sonar is in use.


...

For the entire article, see
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-sonar4jan04,1,5472074.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



_______________________________________________
Military mailing list
Military@lists.cpeo.org
http://lists.cpeo.org/listinfo.cgi/military-cpeo.org