Article National Security Whales SC t Whale Case NYT7 2 08

							                       New York Times (July 2, 2008)



July 2, 2008
EDITORIAL ……….



           Of Whales and National Security
Environmentalists have long claimed that the Navy’s use of sonar for
training exercises unduly threatens whales, dolphins and other acoustically
sensitive marine creatures. The Navy has adopted some procedures to
mitigate the risk but has resisted stronger protections ordered by two
federal courts. The Supreme Court has now agreed to address the issue.

The justices will not try to determine the extent of harm but rather the
balance of power between the executive branch and the courts in resolving
such issues. In an effort to sidestep the courts, the Bush administration
invoked national security to exempt the Navy from strict adherence to the
two federal environmental laws that underlay the court decisions. The top
court will now have to decide whether the military and the White House
should be granted great deference when they declare that national security
trumps environmental protection or whether the courts have a role in
second-guessing military judgments and claims of fact.

The case at hand was filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council and
other conservation groups to rein in Navy training exercises that use sonar
to search for submarines off the coast of Southern California. The Navy says
that its exercises pose little threat to marine life and that the training is vital
to national security.

A federal district judge and a federal appeals court in California, after
careful reviews of the facts, have found that the Navy’s arguments are
largely hollow. Although the Navy likes to boast that there has never been a
documented case of a whale death in 40 years of training, that may be
mostly because no one has looked very hard. The Navy itself estimates that
the current series of drills, conducted over two years, might permanently


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injure hundreds of whales and significantly disrupt the behavior of some
170,000 marine mammals.

No one has questioned that sonar training is vital to national security, and
the federal courts have not tried to ban the training. They have simply tried
to impose tough measures to minimize damage. The Navy objected to two
proposed restrictions in particular — that it shut off its sonar when marine
mammals are detected within 2,200 yards and power down its sonar under
sea conditions that carry sound farther than normal.

High-ranking officers said these restrictions would cripple the Navy’s
ability to train and certify strike groups as ready for combat. The appeals
court, mining the Navy’s own reports of previous exercises, disagreed. It
said the Navy, following earlier procedures, had already been shutting
down sonars with little impact on training or certification.

It seems telling that the Navy has accepted the 2,200-yard safety zone for
other sonar exercises. NATO requires the same zone, and the Australian
Navy mandates a shutdown if a marine mammal is detected within 4,000
yards.

The federal courts have played a valuable role in deflating exaggerated
claims of national security. Let us hope that the Supreme Court backs them
up.




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