I Can't Believe This

[scuba Widow]

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- The Navy can use high-power sonar during exercises off the Southern California coast, despite the technology's threat to whales and other marine mammals, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
National security interests outweigh the possible harm to marine life, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined in overturning a judge's order banning the practice.
"The public does indeed have a very considerable interest in preserving our natural environment and especially relatively scarce whales," Judge Andrew Kleinfeld wrote for the majority. "But it also has an interest in national defense. We are currently engaged in war, in two countries."

[greyzen]

So as long as we don't kill humans in the practice... it doesn't effect us.
I love our politicans

[creggur]

I'm sure I'll be in the minority here on this, but I gotta agree with them on this. The military needs to train, and they need to train the way that they are going to fight. It would suck to be in a situation where you were up against an enemy submarine and the sonar guys weren't 100% on their gear or techniques.. Human life is more important than animals, especially when it's the guys who are living 24/7 to protect and defend this country. I tried to find any articles providing proof whatsoever than sonar actually hurts marine mammals, but couldn't. It sounds like a lot of conjecture to me.

I remember once when I was in the Navy we had to wait 2 extra days to pull in to home port after being gone on a 9 month deployment because it was Right Whale mating season off of Jacksonville. We all wanted to man the .50 cals and end the whale situation once and for all..

[greyzen]

So the sonar is using computers... how hard is it to configure a mock battle using artificially instructed computer input?

Have a computer operator sitting back feeding information into the data stream for it to report back and have the captn's or whoever respond based on the artificial data?

[creggur]

Works well in theory, and that is how the vast majority of Naval combat training is done. However, I can tell you from direct experience. The real thing and computer simulations are truly worlds apart.

The approval that the Navy got was for 11 planned exercises..11, that's it. So it's not like they're going to be out there 365 days a year with the sonar bangin' away. Heck most of the time the sonar is used in a passive "listening" mode anyway. The only time you use active sonar is for target verification before launching a weapon. And yes the guys do need practice doing this, in as real as a situation that can be provided. It's what will keep them and a lot of other people alive if the real thing ever happened to them..

[FishFood]

Thanks for "The Rest of the Story", Creggur.

[greyzen]

Yeah if it's a timed excersize and limited window of opportunity, but I do believe they might want to look at another area to practice.

Are there physical (non monetary) reasons to use that specific area?

[creggur]

Quite honestly I don't know. To do these combat exercises you need multiple ships/submarines/aircraft to do them. Part of it is the logistics of having that many vessels in one area to do the exercises. I'm sure $$ play a role in it, but it's also the sceduling of getting two complete multi unit forces (good guys, and bad guys) together to engage in the exercises.

[scubasamurai]

when i was in virginia ( norfolk) it made the news, because every time they tested this new sonar ( active) whales would turn up on the outer banks totally disorientated, most fo the time the did ok after getting them back into the water but some did die.

[georoc01]

Didn't they use to train in Puerto Rico, before being driven out of that training area?