The National Marine Fisheries Service has given approval to a five-year Air Force plan for bombing practice at sea off Kauai that reduces munitions used and increases monitoring for impacts to whales and dolphins.
Earthjustice attorney David Henkin, who previously criticized the plan as not doing enough to protect marine mammals, said Tuesday the Air Force “did beef up the monitoring, which is a positive development.”
The Long Range Strike Weapons System Evaluation Program may use aircraft, including B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers, and F-15, F-16,
F-22 and F-35 fighters to
release over water weapons including joint air-to-surface standoff missiles with a 1,000-pound warhead; 200 to 250-pound small-diameter glide bombs; high-speed anti-radiation, or HARM, missiles; and joint direct attack munitions, the Air Force said in a previous environmental assessment.
The Air Force said it needs the annual at-sea training at Kauai’s Pacific Missile Range Facility up to Aug. 20, 2022, due to unspecified national security threats that likely revolve around China, with increased air-to-surface exercises directed by the Pentagon.
The fisheries service said since the development of the environmental assessment, which was completed in October, the Air Force identified a reduction in the number of munitions to be used during each exercise. No reason was given for the decrease.
The Air Force also previously said each long-range strike mission would occur over a maximum of five consecutive days a year with about 110 bombs released each time. The impact area is approximately 50 miles off Kauai in waters 15,000 feet deep.
A “finding of no significant impact” signed by the Fisheries Service on Aug. 11 said that in 2017 training would only occur on one day and include eight small-diameter bombs.
“In future years, the number (and) type of munitions are reduced by 40 percent with a maximum of four days of training occurring over a five-day time period,” the finding said. Between 38 and 64 weapons would be released annually between 2018 and 2021.
The training for 2018 through 2022 would be conducted on weekdays between June and August, or September through November.
Earthjustice, an environmental group, put the fisheries service on notice in June that it believed the federal regulations proposed at the time for the bombing practice violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
The fisheries service said it was issuing the “letter of authorization” for the Air Force to go forward with the training after the Air Force decreased the number of munitions it plans to deploy annually, reducing the level of harassment for marine life.
The agency said it worked with the Air Force “to develop a comprehensive marine mammal mitigation and monitoring plan designed to decrease potential impacts to marine mammals.”
Monitoring measures will include:
>> Aerial surveys using long-range sensor pods on aircraft and range cameras at PMRF to monitor before, during and after training.
>> Delaying exercises if a marine animal is observed within an exclusion zone to avoid exposure to levels of explosives likely to result in injury or death.
>> Shifting the target site as far as possible from an observed marine mammal’s location.
>> Data from acoustic monitoring using PMRF’s hydrophones will be collected and analyzed to better understand the effects of the Air Force bombing.
Henkin said it’s preferable to use the hydrophones in real time to monitor for marine animals, and environmental experts are reviewing the Air Force’s assertion that the hydrophones wouldn’t be suited for that.
“What I can say today, having looked at (the approval for the first time Monday), there have been many improvements made,” Henkin said.
The Marine Mammal Protection Act allows, with review and approval, the incidental but not intentional “taking” or harassment of small numbers of marine mammals during activities such as military training, the fisheries service said. Deaths or serious injury to whales and dolphins are not anticipated or authorized for the training, the agency said.
Level A harassment has the potential to injure a marine mammal, while Level B harassment has the potential to disturb an animal by causing a disruption of behavioral patterns.
Thirty instances of Level A harassment from the training are projected annually by the fisheries service for whales and dolphins, with 18 for dwarf sperm whales, while nearly 1,200 instances are anticipated for Level B harassment.
The service issued a marine mammal incidental harassment authorization for very limited Air Force at-sea bombing off Kauai in 2016.
