News

With the official all-clear from President Bush, the U.S. Navy began underwater sonar training off the San Diego coast this week, despite its own estimates showing that hundreds or thousands of whales will be harmed by the high-frequency pings being pumped into the Pacific.

Lt. Mark Walton, of the Third Fleet, confirmed that a battle group of approximately 5,000 people and an aircraft carrier are training on submarine detection, using midfrequency sonar somewhere off the San Diego coast. He stressed that the Navy is taking precautions to minimize and prevent injury to marine mammals during the two-week training.

The training comes even though a federal lawsuit filed by the California Coastal Commission and environmental groups last month won severe restrictions on the Navy's use of sonar off the California coast under the Coastal Zone Management Act. Last week, Bush issued a memorandum exempting the Navy from the environmental law used to win the ruling. The legality of Bush's action remains to be tested.

"This is unacceptable and we have filed a new brief to challenge the waiver," says David Hinerfeld, spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Los Angeles. "It is beyond dispute that sonar kills whales -- the court quoted the Navy's own estimates of damage that this testing will affect the hearing of 8,000 whales and permanently injure 450."...