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It's Navy V. Whales In Court's Sonar Case

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The Associated Press

Published: October 9, 2008

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court appeared divided Wednesday over how to resolve a long-running dispute over whether environmental laws may be used to limit the Navy's use of sonar to protect whales.

The court heard arguments in the Bush administration's appeal of court rulings that restrict sonar in submarine-hunting naval training exercises off the Southern California coast. Sonar can interfere with whales' ability to navigate and communicate.

The training is "vitally important" for sailors who may be deployed around the world in search of enemy submarines, Solicitor General Gregory Garre told the justices.
Garre said there is scant evidence over 40 years of exercises off the Pacific Coast that the Navy's sonar harms whales and dolphins.

Richard Kendall, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the sonar's piercing sound was comparable to the noise of a jet engine magnified 2,000 times in the courtroom.

A species of whales called beaked whales are particularly susceptible to harm from sonar, which can cause them to strand themselves onshore, Kendall said.

The case left one justice, Stephen Breyer, wondering how a judge should balance national security concerns and environmental interests.

"You are asking us who know nothing about whales and less about the military to start reading all these documents to try to figure out who's right in the case where the other side says the other side is totally unreasonable," Breyer said.

The exercises have continued since the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled in February that the Navy must limit sonar use when ships get close to marine mammals.

Kendall told the justices that the Navy is managing under the restrictions, saying eight of 14 planned exercises have been completed since the restrictions took effect.

This round of training is scheduled to be completed by January.

SPEED LIMIT TO HELP RIGHT WHALE
To save a slow-moving species of whale that lives along the Atlantic coast, the government is telling ships to slow down.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Wednesday issued an 11.5-mile-per-hour speed limit for ships 65 feet or longer that travel within 23 miles of major mid-Atlantic ports, and in areas where the North Atlantic right whale breeds, feeds and migrates. The regulation will go into effect in December.

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