Sonarizing

By William Rossiter

CSI is in another sonar lawsuit: Shortly after the U.S. Navy rejected the California Coastal Commission's (CCC) safeguards for active sonar exercises off the state's coast, CCC and an environmental coalition led by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in late March filed separate federal lawsuits against the Navy over fourteen major training exercises scheduled off Southern California. Plaintiffs in the NRDC suit include CSI, International Fund for Animal Welfare, League for Coastal Protection, Ocean Futures Society, and Jean-Michel Cousteau.

The Navy wants to "sonarize" some of the richest marine habitat in the country, including the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. The CCC retorted that the Navy was challenging the jurisdiction of the Commission "and undermining the Coastal Act and federal coastal protection laws that apply to all coastal states. That has implications way beyond this case." The federal Coastal Zone Management Act gives the CCC authority to review military activities that affect California's coastal resources. NRDC cited violations of the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act.

The Navy in 2005 had led the Department of Defense in a successful effort to remove the military's need to comply with many hard-won environmental laws, and had just received another exemption to the Marine Mammal Protection Act. To accomplish the mission of operating sonars without outside constraint the Navy's strategy has evolved during a decade of challenges. Early on they tried to comply with laws. Now they challenge any that, in their view, challenge the mission. Some clear heads may seek ways to ameliorate the damage done by naval activities, but it seems the Navy's decisions are not being made by clear heads. Watch out whales!

A female dense-beaked whale stranded alive on the Outer Banks of North Carolina in early March. The lactating whale was not "emaciated". Her abraded skin suggested that she had struggled during the stranding, which may have caused the internal hemorrhaging around her ears.

Female dense-beaked whale.
Photo courtesy of Colin MacLeod.

Ten days earlier and 150 miles away a naval vessel had used active sonar. Ten years ago no one would have linked these events, but even the media hyped this as a renewal of the sonar debate. Why?

Because of the sonar issue all stranded beaked whales deserve specialized necropsies, but the tests always take many months and, in spite of best efforts, too often fail to find a clear cause. It is unlikely we will ever know if this whale's behavioral response to very distant sonar might have caused the hemorrhaging. She died a long way from her probable habitat; did she drift or swim ashore? Was she disoriented, or unable to dive or echolocate to find food? How long does it take a debilitated beaked whale to become "emaciated"? If there was an "event" how many others suffered as well, but died at sea? So many unknowns.

The unknowns drive the hype, which feeds the tendency of authorities to downplay the potential for sonars to be the cause. Both are wrong. The unknowns rightly create uncertainty. That uncertainty is why CSI and many others scoff at the Navy's demand to build sonar training ranges in several locations, including one 50 miles off the coast near Camp Lejeune. The learning curve on sonar impacts has been abysmal, but far worse has been the official tendency to assume that sonars are not having an enormous impact on marine life. The burden of proof remains on the dying whales that happen to come ashore to provide clear answers. It should be the Navy's burden to prove that their sonar operations are not causing significant harm. Instead we have all come to expect that a stranding will be followed by a knee-jerk denial by the Navy, and perhaps some Admiral's vacuous gibberish about the Navy as Steward of the Sea.

Please prove CSI wrong! In January we pleaded for someone to prove that the distant sounds of mid-frequency active sonars don't scare and panic cetaceans. In April, 2006 we wrote of a scenario where socially-tight groups of cetaceans might stampede ahead of the weak sound of a mid-frequency sonar signal carried long distances by discrete ocean conditions, such as acoustic ducts. These scary thoughts came from the 2005 mass stranding of some 37 pilot whales on the Outer Banks. They came ashore healthy and well fed, over 200 miles from the nearest known active mid frequency sonar. The scary part is that, if true, low levels of mid-frequency sonar may chase cetaceans away from essential habitats, disrupt migrations and essential social activities, and cause population-level effects over an enormous area.

While the Navy dismisses concerns for whales, they also don't fund enough research that might answer those concerns. The Navy's research focus on trauma related to acoustic sources has been on the physiology of the animals; what causes injuries and what effects do they have? It has been rumored that some want controlled experiments on live animals, instead of relying on stranded animals and opportunistic events. Rumors of Controlled Exposure Experiments (CEEs) that would subject animals to sonar noise, perhaps done in secret by Navy scientists, concern us because some of the acoustic research already conducted on Navy marine mammals has been so disgustingly inhumane that it could only be announced after the fact.

Fast moving pilot whales.
Photo by William Rossiter.

There's a better way: Use events that would occur anyway, and study what happens. Start with researchers locating cetaceans that may be in the sweep of the sonars that would be used during a planned exercise. "Target" whales and dolphins could be temporarily tagged before the event. The tags would be attached with suction cups, and record so many parameters that whatever the animals did below the surface would be documented, particularly their underwater reactions as the sonar sounds swept by. There would be no controversial CEE's, no modification of a Navy mission, and no security breach. The concept has many logistical problems, but it has already been tried during last years' RIMPAC exercise off Hawaii. The missing ingredient was the refusal of the Navy to tell anyone where and when active sonars would be used. This is like the early days of the Low Frequency Active Sonar (LFA), where scientists were excluded from at least 14 test missions that could have provided the data the Navy needed to understand cetacean reactions to the LFA.

Don't Bite The Hand That Feeds: The US Navy sponsors 70% of all marine mammal research in the U.S., and 50% of marine mammal research worldwide. Some funds come through the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, but most come from the Office of Naval Research (ONR). ONR provides the scientific basis for Navy sonar policy and mid-frequency active sonar operations protocols, and ONR-sponsored research forms the basis for underwater acoustic policy and practices by the UK Royal Navy, Netherlands Navy, NATO, U.S. Minerals Management Service and NOAA Fisheries Protected Resources Division.

Why should anyone expect the Navy to support research likely to prove that sonar harms marine animals? It's more likely that they consider ONR money as an investment to support the mission, which is to operate the sonars. CSI will be very clear here that we are not suggesting that scientists that receive Navy money will skew their research or conclusions in the Navy's favor. A scientist's reputation and professional future depend upon objective, professional research, and we suspect no one of being in the Navy's pocket. It is a common theme elsewhere, however, played out in headlines like "Review Finds Drug Makers Issue More Positive Studies."

But if the Navy puts bread on the table of so many scientists it is appropriate to ask why so few of them make any public comments about sonars. Put another way, do the vast majority of ONR-funded scientists researching acoustic impacts truly believe there is nothing to worry about? In glaring contrast, the scientists who have provided the most significant research on sonar impacts, and the ones that express concerns for the cetaceans and the unknowns, are not Navy-funded. Most are outside the U.S.

Because the hand squeezes: Thanks to an investigation by NRDC, a sample of why this professional silence exists may be shown by a 2001 email exchange between Joseph Johnson, LFA Action Manager, and Dr. Robert Gisiner, Director of the ONR marine mammal program. It helps to know that Gisiner is individually responsible for most of the decisions about how ONR's millions of dollars are spent on marine mammal research. Johnson had complained about a scientist's comments on the LFA EIS as "negative and ... out of the box." He added "If they are funded by the Navy, the proper way to bitch is via the sponsor (you), and not a letter to NMFS", and that the comments were "... pretty much an attempt to discredit the Navy and stop the deployment of the LFA."

Gisiner replied, "I pretty much told them as much in a scorching phone call. I think they had some inkling that they might be about to take our money and make themselves look good to the enviros too." "Scientists are like that; they'll review anything they're asked to review and give their honest, sometimes harsh critique, without knowing any of the politics or circumstances." "If we had asked them to review it earlier we probably could have ... defused any further criticism... I got a sheepish apology."

The last thing the Navy needs is clear proof that when sonars are turned on whales and dolphins die. But the last thing the sonar issue needs is sheepish scientists. We all need answers and, most of all, cetaceans need our collective solutions. CSI believes the solutions will be most likely from independent, creative research focused on what cetaceans do when they hear sonars. That research needs support. Can you help?