Bushco's Sonar Sub-terfuge

For years, the Navy and groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council have fought a legal battle over the use of sonar in the world’s oceans to detect potentially hostile submarines. This is because of the effects of sonar on marine life, with so many undersea animals relying on sound for feeding, mating, and other functions necessary for their existence.

And since it appeared that environmentalists were starting to turn the tide in favor of protecting marine life off the California coast, you can be sure that our ruling Repug cabal was going to involve itself at some point with the subtlety of an army boot to the groin.

And sure enough, as noted here (the party of “states rights” strikes again)…

The Bush administration jumped into a long-running legal fray in California on Tuesday, exempting the Navy from a law that environmental groups have used to prevent the use of a type of powerful sonar that is believed to harm whales.

The waiver exempts the Navy from the Coastal Zone Management Act, which allows states a voice in federal activities along their shores. The law had been cited in early January by a federal district judge who issued an injunction against the Navy, stopping it from using the midfrequency sonar in exercises off the Southern Californian coast because of concerns about its effect on certain species of whales.

But on Tuesday, the White House announced that such sonar exercises, used to track enemy submarines, were “essential to national security.”

Utterly predicatable...

By the way, the Times story contains a link to the blog “Dot Earth” by Andrew C. Revkin that discusses this story in more detail. And there is also a link in Revkin’s blog to the Navy’s web site, which in part states the following…

Man-made sounds include commercial shipping and other ship sounds, oil dredges, air guns used in seismic mapping, and sonar. Many sources have higher intensities than sonar, and have a far greater prevalence. Sonar comprises a very small percentage of the sound found in the seas…

Also…

Sonars designed for use in anti-submarine warfare need greater ranges than the others, and therefore have higher source levels.

Kind of a euphemism for “louder” there, don’t you think? And the “percentage of sound” isn’t really the issue here, is it, since sound can reverberate across the ocean.

And the effect? As noted here…

Environmentalists argue that sonar noise disorients whales, causing them to become stranded on beaches and die.

They have accused the Navy of refusing to take simple measures, such as avoiding whale migration routes, to reduce the environmental harm from 14 exercises planned through January 2009 that would use high-intensity, mid-frequency sonar.

And as noted here…

In 2000, naval sonar contributed to 16 whales and two dolphins being beached in the Bahamas, according to a federal study.

But in the demented world of Bushco, porpoises can't vote and lampreys can't make campaign contributions, so...

And Sen. Barbara Boxer is right when she states that “this Bush administration action will send this case right back into court, where more taxpayer dollars will be wasted defending a misguided decision” (by the way, anything up with that Senate Ethics Committee, Babs?)…

And in the Times story, Joel Reynolds, a senior lawyer and head of marine mammal protection for the Natural Resources Defense Council, is quoted; as I read about this issue, I’ve discovered that Reynolds has been fighting this battle on behalf of the whales and other marine life for some time.

With respect, though, I have to criticize what he has said elsewhere on this, declaring that defense of the environment is “not a national security issue” (can’t find the link at the moment). I, however, believe there is no greater national security issue than doing all we can to protect our environment.

Also, Bushco claims that the sonar with “higher source levels” is needed to defend against “a new breed of more silent-running submarines,” which, as it turns out, are manufactured by our “friends” in China.

Any word on discussions about curtailing submarine surveillance between every country on earth so there isn’t as great a need for the sonar to begin with?

Oh, sorry…I forgot; that’s what adult leaders do. And we won’t see one of those in this country until at least 1/21/09 (and we can’t really take that for granted either, can we?).

Update 2/5/08: Bushco loses again.