Reaction to the sonar ruling by the Navy and NRDC
November 12th, 2008 by cdunaganNavy officials and attorneys with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which brought the sonar lawsuit, offered these responses to today’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
For further details about the ruling, see the entry below in Watching Our Water Ways.
Navy Secretary Donald C. Winter:
“This case was vital to our Navy and Nation’s security, and we are
pleased with the Supreme Court’s decision in this matter. We can
now continue to train our Sailors effectively, under realistic
combat conditions, and certify our crews “combat ready” while
continuing to be good stewards of the marine environment.”
Admiral Gary Roughead, chief of Naval Operations:
“We are pleased with the Supreme Court’s decision on this case of
vital importance to our National Security. We will continue to
train realistically and certify the Sailors and Marines of our Navy
strike groups in a manner that protects our nation’s security and
the precious maritime environment.”
Lt. Sean Robertson, media relations action officer,
CHINFO
“Without the crippling restrictions contained in the preliminary
injunction, our Sailors can train realistically and the Navy is
able to certify our forces are ready for Anti-Submarine Warfare,
reducing risk to our Sailors and national security, while
simultaneously protecting the environment. The Navy appreciates the
careful consideration and prompt review the Court gave this
important case involving national security.”
Rear Adm. James A. Symonds, commander of Navy Region
Northwest
“Although this decision does not directly affect the Puget Sound,
some SONAR training does occur on a smaller scale in the Northwest
training ranges. It is important that our Sailors are able to train
as they would be called to fight, in a realistic environment.
“When Sailors train, they adhere to the 29 protective mitigation measures whenever mid-frequency active SONAR is needed to minimize potential harm to marine mammals. This includes posting lookouts, power-down and shut-down requirements. The Navy is preparing an environmental impact statement to comprehensively analyze the effects of all Navy activities in the Northwest training ranges.”
Joel Reynolds, senior attorney and director of NRDC’s marine mammal
program:
“The Supreme Court held that the lower courts did not properly
balance the competing interests at stake, and struck down two
significant safeguards that reduce harm to whales from
high-intensity sonar training.
“The decision places marine mammals at greater risk of serious and needless harm. However, it is a narrow ruling that leaves in place four of the injunction’s six safeguards. It is significant that the court did not overturn the underlying determination that the Navy likely violated the law by failing to prepare an environmental impact statement.”
Richard Kendall, NRDC co-counsel:
“It is gratifying that the court did not accept the Navy’s
expansive claims of executive power, and that two thirds of the
injunction remains intact.”
See the full press release from NRDC
Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group
November 12th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
“Joel Reynolds, senior attorney and director of NRDC’s marine mammal program:
“The Supreme Court held that the lower courts did not properly balance the competing interests at stake, and struck down two significant safeguards that reduce harm to whales from high-intensity sonar training….”
Not one word about the pollution killing and harming our water creatures…they care only to stop the Navy training and spending a lot of money to do so.
If their agenda were a serious one, these people would be working to CLEAN UP OUR WATERWAYS….not shut down our defense and keep the critters living in toxins.
Or so it seems to me…
Sharon O’Hara
November 12th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
This ruling is once again a showing that this Supreme Court only pays lip service to environmental issues. They are stacked with justices that seem to hold the State over the Individual, and now the State over the Environment. Let us remember that by and large the military has always been exempt from environmental impacts. While we fight hard for laws protecting our shrinking natural environment, the military is routinely granted waver from even the most rudimentary environmental protection. All in the name of our national security.
The supposed “need” to use this sonar is cloaked in secrecy, and we, along with the Supreme Court, is supposed to go along with the top secret claims of this government. We have only their word, which has not been shown to be worth much as it relates to environmental degradation, over the last 50 years, that the possible death and injury of whales and other marine animals is necessary for our protection. While we watch, another attempt to protect the dwindling supply of whales is allowed to go on.
To those who applaud this decision, I ask, “How much of our national environmental heritage are you willing to sacrifice for an unknown and secret amount of theoretical security? At what point are you willing to say, enough?”
November 12th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Let me ask you, how much pollution are you willing to put up with?
Quite a lot it seems.
You don’t mind the ‘environment’ swimming in toxins…in fact ignore it and focus on lawsuits.
Whose money are you spending? Not yours, I’ll venture to say.
You don’t mind the environment you claim to care about polluted and toxic…not a problem for you apparently.
“At what point are you willing to say, enough?”’
Yes, at what point? At any point?
Or will you continue your focus on lawsuits to cripple our national defense using money donated for what the people think is a ‘good’ cause?
A GOOD CAUSE for starters – is to clean up our waterways – you know, the ‘environment’ you claim to love and care about as you collect money for lawsuits.
For the first time in my life, I’m seeing some of you ‘environmentalist groups’ for what you are. For what you are is what you do, not what you say, but what you do.
And you are doing NOTHING about the environment you claim to care about.
Sharon O’Hara
November 13th, 2008 at 6:36 am
Sharon, you assume a great deal about me, and you know what they say about assumptions, that they make an a** of u and me.
You ask, “How much pollution am I willing to put up with?”
I am not willing to put up with the level of pollution we currently have in Puget Sound. Our Orcas are so toxic that they cannot be buried in a landfill if they wash ashore.
And yes, I am putting up “my money”, both directly into attempting to clean up the Sound with donations, and my tax money, by supporting the State efforts of the Puget Sound Partnership. Are you?
I am the only board member for People For Puget Sound who lives on the Peninsula, and we are the leading environmental organization that has actively worked to clean up the entire Sound since 1991. So I daily put my “money where my mouth is”, and I run a blog that discusses environmental issues on the Peninsula.
We would welcome you to join us and take action on the passion you have and want others to have for cleaning up our waterways.
Our website is http://www.pugetsound.org if you’d like to join us.
November 13th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Of course nobody wants the Navy blasting ear-shattering sonars anywhere. Whales, dolphins and porpoises, not to mention birds, fish and turtles, are harmed or killed when their air sacs are bruised and ripped by intense underwater sound pulses. Deep diving beaked whales panic to the surface in their pain, causing further ruptures. It’s important to keep in mind the real consequences of using those powerful sonars, if only so Navy personnel will always know why mitigations are needed.
The Navy’s mission is to protect the homeland and themselves. It’s the mission of our government, that we vote for, to reduce global tensions and learn how to work and play with others.
Any time these sonars are used there will be damage to marine life, justified by potential threats posed by America’s enemies. We either we blow up marine life or we get blown up by enemies. But if Iran or North Korea are really threatening us, do we know why? Have we asked?
Practically speaking, rather than frame the question as either marine life or national security, we need to look at how to dial down hostilities with our neighbors on this finite planet. Neither the US nor any other country can afford to continue this senseless escalation of mass destruction, either by the weapons themselves or by the extraction of raw materials, polluting production or training to prepare to break things and kill people. Even without actual war the drain on human energies and disruption of families are further collateral damage, and for what? Are we really that stupid? Can’t we use our resources and energies for more productive tasks?
It’s time for some new, more intelligent values and attitudes about other nations, and new diplomatic policies to lighten up the hostilities and learn to live together. Or it’s curtains for all of us, whales and humans alike.
November 13th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
8string… I do not ‘assume’ anything about you personally, nor were my remarks meant personally. I am responding to your own comments.
Now you’ve commented on something you’ve avoided mentioning so far and what makes sense to me for a group calling themselves ‘environmentalists’ – the need to clean up our waterways.
“Our Orcas are so toxic that they cannot be buried in a landfill if they wash ashore”
Now THAT is a cause worth fighting for…not lawsuits to shut down our national defense and defuse the REAL ISSUE – clean up our waterways!
Until now I have joined every environmentalist group known to me to support with my membership what – until now – I presumed meant working to clean up our waterways.
I know better now. I did touch on your website and began an email in response to Kathy’s post 11/12/08
“…To support the local governments, non-profit organizations and others who need to get the job done. And to stop adding to the Sound’s travails by continuing to allow the pollution and high-impact development that are already too much for the critters to bear….”
Support the local governments? You jest. Here in Kitsap County local government gives variances to allow building within 10 -15 feet of the high water mark instead of the 100 feet cushion.
Support non-profits? Only those who stick to the clean waterway agenda until the job is done! ts..I have for most of my adult life supported those causes to the best of my ability, those non-profits I believed in and trusted.”
Thanks to 8string and a few other ‘environmentalist’ I am now taking a hard look at these organizations because I no longer trust they are what they seemed and claimed to be.
When public donated dollars to a non-profit are spent on lawsuits to stop the US Navy from training rather than address the basic desperate NEED for our survival – clean water – that organization has sidetracked and wasted time, money, and resources.
Without clean water, we will not HAVE anything but sick and dying creatures in our waterways.
I will look further, but if you are mostly about lawsuits against our military without the focus on CLEAN WATER for our creatures and ACTIVELY setting yourselves ‘out there’ to fight for our lives…then you do not serve a real purpose.
“Our Orcas are so toxic that they cannot be buried in a landfill if they wash ashore”
Stick to that ‘battle cry’ for IMMEDIATE active work to clean waterways and I would be pleased to join the fight.
Sharon O’Hara
November 13th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Get real OrcaNetwork. Show the urls for the unbiased studies and research done to substantiate your claims…or stop making them.
The ‘real’ purpose for training with sonar is for our NATIONAL DEFENSE…and the need to train without a so called environmental group dictating when, where Navy training can take place.
If you cared for the Orcas you would work toward CLEAN WATERWAYS not work to destroy this country’s defense system.
Work for the whales well being by way of CLEAN WATERWAYS, not trumped up charges against the Navy’s right to train.
Sharon O’Hara
November 14th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
It is easy to sit back and do nothing while the world goes to hell in a handbasket. Even Mark Twain commented on it, as it related to politics, but is worth thinking about as I hear you say you want clean water but not say what you are doing to get it. Are you waiting for us to do it for you?
“…the citizen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth’s political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal; he is a traitor.
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
We look forward to you coming out, joining us and actually, “getting muddy” for the cause you say you want to see accomplished.
November 15th, 2008 at 10:26 am
““…the citizen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth’s political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal; he is a traitor.
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court …”
Do you mean as I’ve accused ‘environmental’ groups of talk and law suits without touching the REAL problems – stopping the ongoing pollution of our waterways…our environment?
How many of you KNEW our country distinction as being the #2 worse organic water pollution country in the WORLD and never ‘said’ a word? I had to find it online…big shock!
China is #1 and India is #3 and yet I’ve NEVER read where ‘you’ve’ petitioned local government AGAINST allowing variances in direct opposition to our clean water goal.
Where have you demonstrated against these acts by our own local government of deliberate disregard of our endangered and DYING waterways – right here in Kitsap County?
Not once – to my knowledge.
Just the other day I saw the headline of smelts in PO. I felt sickened that people would really catch and eat what used to be the most delicious treat in the world – the smelt….living today in our poisoned waters.
Or that farmed salmon were raised in filthy conditions – yet the fish are sold to be eaten by the unaware public.
Where have the environmentalists been outside of a courtroom? How about demonstrating? Letters to the editor?
How about giving people alternative ideas for safe raising of their own fish and seafood?
How safe would stocking your own filtered pond with rainbow trout and fishing them out for meals be compared to eating the fish caught in the ‘natural’ environment?
Don’t get caught in the ‘world’ spin…clean up here at home…and it will spread around the world.
The people in other countries don’t want to eat toxic seafood either… and I wonder how many of the Chinese and Indian people KNOW their world ranking for polluted waterways? I doubt they would be any prouder of their standing than I am at ours.
Sharon O’Hara
November 15th, 2008 at 10:39 am
“I hear you say you want clean water but not say what you are doing to get it. Are you waiting for us to do it for you?…”
Well, you haven’t done it yet, have you? All you’ve done is sue the Navy to stop training.
How many times have you picked up after other people on your nature hikes?
No, it is clear you haven’t visibly done anything to stop the polluting…. You’ve done a terrible job of cleaning up our waterways… or stopping the polluting travesty – its time for the public to step up to the plate.
Sharon O’Hara
November 15th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
8string…thanks for putting yourself ‘out there’ to help promote the need for public awareness…OrcaNetwork too.
Sharon O’Hara