1/12/15
The U.S. Navy will be holding a public meeting in Eureka on Friday to address a supplement to its environmental review of a controversial five-year training and weapons testing program along the North Coast and parts of Alaska.
As occurred at a similar meeting last year, some are gearing up to challenge the training program because of its proposed effects on marine life.
“(The Navy) is agreeing that there is going to be some harm to marine life, but how do they know it’s going to be insignificant as they say time and time again?” former U.S. Department of Agriculture crop loss analyst and environmental activist Rosalind Peterson said. “Where is the proof? That’s where the public needs to question the Navy with regard to this.”
During the proposed training period — to last from 2015 to 2020 — Navy personnel will conduct exercises and test a variety of weapons and equipment such as sonar technology, electromagnetic devices and explosives off the coasts of Alaska, Oregon, Washington and Northern California reaching the northern tip of Humboldt County.
The supplement to the training’s environmental impact statement now under public review updates the Navy’s anti-submarine sonobuoy exercise — floating buoys that emit sonar signals — due to a model upgrade. The document will be open to public comment until Feb. 2.
The old models, known as SSQ-110s, that were proposed for use in the older proposed version of the environmental document produce their acoustic signal by “a quick burst explosive charge ... which has potential to cause injury or mortality to marine life due to its explosive charge,” according to Navy experts’ responses forwarded to the Times-Standard by the Navy’s Northwest Region Public Affairs Office.
The new models, SSQ- 125s, will instead produce the sound electronically, which “will result in a decrease in potentially significant impacts to marine life,” according to the Navy responses.
The upgraded models will still come with impacts to marine life, including increasing the distance the acoustic signals will travel.
“The most likely behavioral effects will be a marine mammal hearing and moving away from the sonobuoy; no long term consequences are expected to result from that type of behavioral reaction,” the Navy response states.
Peterson said that the updated activities have added impacts to leatherback sea turtles listed under the Endangered Species Act, with the supplement stating that “entanglement from the use of fiber optic cables, guidance wires, and decelerator/ parachutes during training and testing activities may affect, but is not likely to adversely affect, ESA-listed leatherback turtles. Entanglement stressors would have no effect on leatherback turtle critical habitat.”
Peterson said that these sea turtles may make the fatal mistake of mistaking equipment for food.
“The leatherback turtle is known to forage on jellyfish,” she said in response to this section of the supplemental draft. “Decelerator parachutes may resemble jellyfish and they would mistake them for food.”
Peterson also stated that while the new sonobuoys may not explode, they still produce high enough frequencies that may greatly confuse them.
“When the sonar blasts out, well, they say the marine mammals will move out of the area,” she said. “The sonar is so powerful that it’s hard for them to tell where it’s coming from because it’s so powerful.”
Both Peterson and Environmental Protection Information Center conservation advocate Amber Shelton state that the Navy will use “visual sightings” from the top of their ships to determine whether any marine life is in the testing area before starting any training. With a proposed vessel escort training also proposed in the supplement, both Peterson and Shelton state that this along with the shipboard visual sighting practice will increase the likelihood of ship strikes on marine mammals such as whales as well as other organisms.
In a 2009 letter sent to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, then-1st District Congressman Mike Thompson stated that “the Navy has estimated shipboard visual monitoring for marine mammals — the most commonly employed sonar mitigation measure — to be effective only 9 percent of the time.”
Shelton said that the Navy does not need to do as much live sonar training.
“I feel they don’t need to use live sonar and live bombing and testing chemicals,” she said. “They could probably practice all of those thing with simulators. ... It seems like they should at least restrict it to one small area instead of all over our oceans and restrict it to an area that doesn’t have any known migration of marine mammals like grey whales.”
In order for the testing and training program environmental review to be approved, it must get authorization from a number of federal agencies including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for the possible “take” of marine life.
“All estimated impacts to ESA-listed species are non-injury exposures,” the Navy response states. “The vast majority (over 99 percent) of all modeled exposures to marine mammals for the Navy’s training and testing in the northwest are estimated to be behavioral responses. ... The Navy is still seeking to renew existing authorizations that allow training and testing exercises which may potentially disturb or harass, or in very limited cases injure marine mammals. The Navy is not requesting authorization for any mortality of marine mammals ... .”
Peterson said that the authorization gives the Navy a pass when marine life is fatally injured.
“When they say ‘take,’ it sounds very benign,” she said.
Navy Northwest Region Public Affairs Specialist Liane Nakahara said that while the training program’s environmental impact statement draft was completed in 2010, “it’s going to be a little while” before the draft will be completed and reviewed.
IF YOU GO:
What: U.S. Navy Northwest Training and Testing Draft Environmental Impact Statement/Overseas Environmental Impact Statement Supplement public meeting
When: Friday, Jan. 16from 5-8p.m. Where: Eureka Public Marina, Wharfinger Building, Great Room, 1 Marina Way
Comments on the supplement can be submitted to the Navy online at http://nwtteis.com/
