If the navy proceeds with its Low  Frequency Active Sonar (LFAS) submarine detection program, the end result will be devastating noise (possibly as high as 232 db) whenever the system is operating.  It could conceivably afflict life in 80% of the world's oceans.  Data for the effect on marine life are sketchy and, in view of evidence from 1996 to the present, not worth expanding because the existing data indicate that the technology is inherently harmful to life in general. 

The unprecedented stranding of Cuvier's beaked whales during the NATO trials off Greece in 1996 should have served as a warning that LFAS is harmful to marine life.
Instead of learning from this experience, the navy attempted to discredit a statistical assessment that the probability of the strandings being due to anything other than the testing was less than 1%.

When testing off Hawaii changed humpbacks' behavior resulting in abandoned calves and  at least one sound-battered human swimmer, the navy should have realized that LFAS produces intolerable conditions for living beings and turned its attention to other methodologies.  Instead, it effectually ignored medical reports on the swimmer, dismissed observational reports of whale-watching captains as anecdotal, and tried to distort observations from an aerial survey to suit its agenda.

In  March 2000, the navy conducted further tests in the Caribbean that resulted in 14 stranded whales with damaged hearing.  There is no documentation for how many other whales may have received similar injuries.  Given the wide expanse of sea that was involved, there was little chance of obtaining it.  Many more could have died, been scavenged and sunk to the sea bottom or survived with impaired hearing and died later..

Reports of a dead whale from a British naval station on the Isle of Skye during NATO exercises in August 2000 were essentially ignored.  This death could have been a coincidence, of course, but given the navy's propensity to dismiss other reports, it deserves consideration.  It should be noted, however, that no LFAS testing was scheduled for these exercises.

The navy has never submitted thorough environmental impact statements for any of the LFAS exercises it has conducted, probably because of the immensity and complexity of the job of producing them.  Nevertheless, it has forged ahead, refusing to acknowledge the overwhelming available evidence that at the very least, loud noise disrupts natural behavior .  Animals seeking food would be operating in conditions equivalent to a human trying to eat lunch behind two revved-up jet engines.  At worst, LFAS is known to cause fatalities.  Determining the extent of the damage would be a colossal job which would greatly add to the cost of the project.  It is time for the navy to acknowledge that the high decibel noise created by LFAS is unacceptable

As Chief of the Office of Protected Resources for marine mammals of NMFS, it is clearly your duty to protect cetaceans from the assault the navy is proposing.  When a defense system causes so much harm to civilian and environmental cohorts, it is time to jetison that technology.  We urge you not assign the navy any quota of whales to be killed in further testing of this system.

                before the National Marine Fisheries Service
                                         April 26, 2001
This country, and California in particular, has been blessed with a tremendously rich and diverse array of whales, dolphins, and other marine mammals that inhabit our oceans. I am disturbed by the growing scientific evidence that low frequency active sonar has a devastating impact on these species. This evidence suggests strongly that low frequency active sonar is linked to internal bleeding, disorientation, hearing loss, and other negative consequences for whales and other marine species. Recent mass strandings have demonstrated that active sonar can even have lethal effects on these animals.

While these impacts would be troubling in and of themselves, they are truly alarming because of the already precarious position of many marine mammal populations. Pollution, overfishing, and other human disturbances have caused the decline of many of our most beloved marine mammals. Appropriately, we have enacted the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act to ensure that future threats to these species are minimized. There is reason to believe that low frequency active sonar presents just such a threat.

As a result of the National Marine Fisheries Service's (NMFS) recent
proposed rule, which would allow the Navy to proceed with deployment of this sonar system, I have heard an outcry from constituents who are concerned about the rule's impact. I urge NMFS to consider the Navy's proposal with a great deal of caution. Until the scientific  community can prove that this technology will not have severe impacts on imperiled or endangered marine mammals, we should be wary of approving a proposal that would allow its use in nearly all of our oceans. I think it would also be appropriate for Congress to hold a series of hearings to explore the implications of this  technology. I expect the Oceans and Fisheries Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee- on which I serve- to hold a hearing on this matter later this year.

We have spent a great deal of effort trying to conserve and restore our most treasured marine species. For some species, such as humpback whales, these efforts have resulted in incredible rebounds.  The tremendous popularity of whale-watching cruises are an indication of just how much public support and interest there is in the well-being of these species. While I have previously supported funding for the Navy to explore this new technology, I think it  would be a mistake to prematurely approve a dramatic expansion in the use of low frequency active sonar systems until we know that it will not cause harm to these invaluable and irreplaceable species.

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