John A. Sautter

September 5, 2007

This week the U.S. Navy won a legal battle allowing the service to continue using experimental sonar off of the coast of Southern California that might harm whales. On August 6, a Los Angeles federal judge approved an injunction against the Navy preventing it from conducting eleven sonar tests off the coast of Southern California, which were scheduled to run through January of 2009.

National defense was a key factor for the three-member federal appeals court. Judge Keinfeld wrote that "[the public] has an interest in national defense… we are currently engaged in war in two countries." The 2-1 decision of the appeals court emphasized that the lower court in Los Angeles did not give enough consideration to the needs of national defense in its ruling as compared to the need to preserve whale populations.

However, the Natural Resources Defense Council ("NRDC") disagreed. The NRDC, which brought the suit against the Navy, claims that the continued use of the sonar will hurt migrating whales off of the coast of Southern California. Indeed, Judge Smith, who dissented in the appellate decision, noted that the U.S. Navy uses this type of sonar "all around the world, all of the time."

The injunction to stop the sonar by the NRDC is part of a larger fight to prevent further testing of high intensity sonar along American coasts. The organization claims that endangered whales exposed to military sonar become confused, receive a condition akin to brain damage and become beached on the shore as a result. The NRDC wants the Navy to stop using the sonar until it implements mitigation measures.

Sources:

Environmental News Service, National Defense Beats Whales in Sonar Case (Sep. 4, 2007), http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2007/2007-09-04-092.asp (last visited Sep. 5, 2007).

National Resources Defense Council, Protecting Whales from Dangerous Sonar, http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/marine/sonar.asp (last modified Nov. 9, 2005).

U.S. Navy, Defending the Nation Protecting the Environment, http://www.whalesandsonar.navy.mil/sonar_history_and_use.htm (last visited Sep. 5, 2007).