NOAA Fisheries: ‘Stringent’ measures enacted for Navy sonar training

The National Marine Fisheries Service gave authorization Thursday for the Navy to potentially disrupt thousands of whales, dolphins and monk seals during annual sonar and explosives use training and testing between Hawaii and Southern California.

Over a five-year period, three large whales are expected to be seriously injured or killed from ship strikes during the activities, according to the federal agency.

The approval is the third in a series given for five-year training periods, with the Fisheries Service saying the final regulations put in place this time are more protective and cover a larger area than those previously proposed.

“The Navy has balanced our conservation requirements for marine mammals with their critical national security requirements for training and military readiness,” retired Navy Rear Adm. Timothy Gallaudet, acting administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in a news release.

The Fisheries Service service falls under NOAA.

Environmental law firm Earthjustice, which successfully sued the Fisheries Serv­ice over Navy sonar training, leading to greater protections for marine mammals in 2015, said Thursday it was still reviewing the new 541-page authorization.

“Rest assured that we will be looking into this carefully to assess whether the agency has complied with the law,” said Honolulu-based Earthjustice attorney David Henkin. “There is no dispute that the Navy’s sonar and explosives activities kill and injure whales, dolphins and other marine mammals around the Hawaiian Islands and off Southern California, many of which are endangered.”

Both NOAA Fisheries and the Navy “have clear legal duties to do everything they reasonably can to minimize the toll the Navy’s activities inflict, and we will be vigilant to ensure they have done so,” he said.

As the result of a 2015 settlement, the Navy, among other requirements, was prohibited from using midfrequency active sonar and explosives for training on the eastern side of Hawaii island and north of Molokai and Maui — further protecting Hawaiian monk seals and small resident populations of toothed whales, Earthjustice said.

NOAA Fisheries said it is imposing “stringent” mitigation measures in the new authorization that it expects will reduce adverse impacts to marine mammal stocks and their habitats as well as listed species, including:

>> Shutting down sonar when marine mammals are in the area.

>> Waiting for animals to leave the training range prior to use of in-water explosives, and monitoring of the area post-activity to detect potentially affected protected species.

>> Following protocols to reduce the likelihood of ships striking marine mammals.

>> Imposing operational limitations in certain areas and times that are biologically important, for example, during reproduction, migration or foraging.

The Navy previously said it was increasingly focused on live training to meet evolving surface-warfare challenges, meaning more air-to-surface warfare activities and increased reliance on use of rockets, missiles and bombs in training.

NOAA Fisheries is allowing the Navy to potentially disturb 3,522 humpback whales annually in the Central North Pacific as part of training, along with 6,459 dwarf sperm whales, 1,157 melon-headed whales, 1,242 bottlenose dolphins and 66 monk seals in the Hawaii region, among other impacts.