The EIS predicted that 200 deaths and 1,600 instances of hearing loss would be suffered by marine mammals in the Navy’s testing and training ranges in Hawaii and California, reported AP writer Audrey McAvoy.

The old Navy analysis, she said, listed injuries or deaths to about 100 marine mammals.

So what caused these increased estimates of injury and death, and what are the implications for the Northwest Training and Testing Range Complex in Washington state?

It turns out that the causes are multiple and the implications many, as I reported in a story in Sunday’s Kitsap Sun.

In both California-Hawaii and the Northwest, the greatest effects come from the use of sonar and explosives, which the Navy considers essential to proper training and testing. By far, the greatest number of injuries and deaths are to dolphins. But the higher numbers do not mean that the Navy will be changing its operations to a great degree. If one doesn’t read this carefully, the higher numbers are easy to get confused.

To better understand the increased numbers, I asked for help from Sheila Murray, public information officer for Navy Region Northwest. She arranged a conference call with Navy officials Alex Stone, project manager; John Van Name, senior environmental planner; and Roy Sokolowski, an acoustic modeling expert.

“I would like to point out,” Alex told me at the outset, “that there is quite a bit of difference between this study and the previous studies.”

We had a good discussion, but here’s the bottom line: Without running more computer simulations, it is hard to identify the precise source of the increased injuries predicted in the new EIS for California-Hawaii. They can, however, be divided into three categories:

1. New activities that the Navy wishes to conduct or an increased tempo of existing activities,
2. Ongoing activities not included in previous analyses, or
3. New studies that adjust the model, such as greater effects on marine mammals than understood before (threshold changes) or a greater number of marine mammals in areas where activities are taking place (density changes).

I’m told that the greatest increase in numbers comes from additional studies and more accurate modeling. The Navy has spent millions of dollars studying the effects of its operations on the environment, with particular emphasis on marine mammals.

Navy officials emphasize that they are striving to protect the environment. They say that can be accomplished while adequately training and testing Navy personnel to protect the United States from enemy threats. But it’s a balancing act.

I’m hoping that the Navy can produce a fact sheet clarifying the numbers for readers of the California-Hawaii EIS, even if it takes more analysis. It could be a chart showing the number of “takes” for each species under the old and new analysis, with a breakdown describing how much of the increase fits into each of the above categories.

I’m told that similar increases are likely to be seen when the Navy unveils its EIS for the Northwest Training and Testing Range Complex, scheduled for release toward the end of next year. To avoid confusion, it would help if a fact sheet explaining the numbers would be released at the same time.

In my story on Sunday, I talked a little about what environmental groups may do with the new analysis being used in California and Hawaii. Some organizations last year filed a lawsuit over testing and training in the Northwest. More will be coming out in the future.

As for other parts of the country, Navy training and testing continue to make the news. A report last week by David Fleshler of the Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., revealed:

“The South Florida Ocean Measurement Facility, located off Port Everglades, will see an increase in ship traffic, mine countermeasure training and the testing of unmanned underwater vehicles, according to the environmental review (released by the Navy).

“The facility encompasses a network of undersea cables and detection devices used to determine the acoustical and electromagnetic characteristics of different ships.

“Under the new testing plan, ‘you will definitely be seeing new classes of ships,’ said Roxie Merritt, spokeswoman for Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division, which includes South Florida.”

While the story did not include estimates of harm to marine mammals, it did include a quote from Michael Jasny of the Natural Resources Defense Council:

“When the Navy intrudes such intense disruption into the environment, it tears at the very fabric of their surroundings. Sonar can have a range of effects causing animals to break off foraging, abandon habitat or die on the beach.”

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L-112 in happier times. The 3-year-old orca died in February, and her death is the subject of an intense investigation.
Photo by Jeanne Hyde, Whale of a Porpoise
(Click on image to see Jeanne's tribute page)

For the first time, all the key members on a committee studying the death of L-112 got together last week. Their latest conclusions were updated in a report released yesterday.

More tests on tissues taken from the injury site are planned, even as the investigation continues into what human activities may have been occurring in or near the Columbia River at the time of L-112’s death.

The female orca was found dead at Long Beach on Feb. 11. For information, check out my previous reports in Water Ways:

Feb. 18: So far, sonar has not been linked to orca death

March 15: Balcomb wants to know if young orca was bombed

March 22: Mystery of orca’s death only deepens with new info

April 4: Orca’s death enters the realm of law enforcement

Veterinarian Joe Gaydos of the SeaDoc Society told me yesterday that the investigators have been unable to pinpoint what caused the extensive bruising and swelling on both sides of the head, especially on the right side.

The trauma was spread out fairly evenly across the head, consistent with force from an explosion or other high-pressure impact, Joe said, but a similar injury could result from a glancing blow from a boat or even a strong impact with the tail of another whale. It was not a straight-on blow, however.

“The bones in the area where the hemorrhage occurred are not tough bones,” Joe said. “It would not be hard to break that bone.”

Yet the bones in that part of the head were not broken, which shows that the “pressure was diffusely spread out,” he explained.

I haven’t had a chance to talk with Steve Raverty, a pathologist at the Animal Health Center in British Columbia, who is studying the tissue damage. But Joe tells me that some additional tests are planned to see whether signs of blast trauma can be distinguished from impact trauma.

One question is whether the injury burst blood vessels and caused blood to leak into the surrounding muscle and other tissue. That could help tip the weight of evidence. The problem is that tissue breakdown had taken place to the extent that discrete blood cells were no longer visible. With special staining techniques, it may be possible to determine whether blood had escaped into the surrounding tissue.

Another test will look for fat in the blood vessels and organs, Joe said. Some previous studies suggest that explosions can dislodge blubber, leaving fat deposits that can be found later.

One of the ongoing difficulties for the investigators is that the tissues were not fresh enough for them to make the finer judgments needed to rule out one source of trauma over another, although it seems apparent now that the animal did not die of disease.

Aside from L-112 herself, NOAA Fisheries is trying to identify human activities, such as blasting or bombing, that may have caused the fatal injury. U.S. and Canadian navies say they were not operating in the area at the time, although the Canadians set off two underwater charges in the Salish Sea far to the north on Feb. 6. Ocean currents would not have carried a dead whale from there to Long Beach, however.

Investigators are still waiting to hear whether the U.S. Coast Guard or Army Corps or Engineers were conducting any operations in the area at the time.

Fishing vessels were not likely to be off Long Beach or the Columbia River in February, according to reports.

There is some hope that acoustic-recording buoys in the area may have picked up the sound of an explosion or the sound of killer whales moving through the area to pinpoint the time of death.

Brad Hanson of the NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center tells me that NOAA operates four buoys in the general area of consideration. The buoys stay in place and sample sounds in the water for 30 seconds out of every 10 minutes. That’s one-twentieth of the time, an interval chosen to conserve hard-drive space while capturing enough information to determine if killer whales are passing by and to identify the pods if other noises do not interfere.

For most of the buoys, the data won’t be available until the end of summer, when the buoys are pulled from the water and the data processed. Another coastal buoy broke loose from Cape Flattery at the northwest corner of the state during the winter and was later recovered. Brad said that data is being processed now. While it isn’t certain yet whether the buoy was still in place in February, there’s a good chance it was, since it was recovered in April.

Brad said he will look specifically for sounds recorded before Feb. 11 to see if he can help solve the mystery of L-112’s death. Other recorders closer to the Columbia River may be more revealing when their data are processed later.

The full report of the investigation team can be downloaded: Southern Resident Killer Whale L112 Stranding Progress Report, May 15, 2012 (PDF 72 kb).

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Kenneth Hess, a Navy public affairs officer, posted a comment today on the recent blog entry “Balcomb wants to know if young orca was bombed.” In his comment, Hess repeats that the Navy did not conduct any training with sonar, bombs or explosives in the days preceding L-112’s death. He called it “irresponsible and inaccurate” to blame the Navy for “blowing up” the whale.

Another new development today is an e-mail I received from Lt. Diane Larose of the Canadian Navy, responding to my inquiry about any explosive devices used in the days before L-112 was found dead on Feb. 11. Read the e-mail (PDF 16 kb) I received:

“On February 6, 2012 HMCS Ottawa was operating in the Straits of Juan de Fuca, specifically in Constance Bank, conducting Work Ups Training including a period of sonar use and two small under water charges as part of an anti-submarine warfare exercise. These small charges were used to get the ships’ company to react to a potential threat or damage to meet the necessary training requirement.”

In talking to experts involved in the investigation, it seems unlikely that L-112 could have been injured or killed in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and then wash up dead on Long Beach five days later. So the mystery continues.

In tomorrow’s Kitsap Sun, I’m reporting that environmental groups on both sides of the Canadian border are calling on their respective navies to disclose all the specific activities during the 10 days leading up to the discovery of L-112’s carcass at Long Beach on Feb. 11. The groups also are calling for a complete cessation of sonar use for training and testing in the Salish Sea.

Check out three letters submitted to the navies involved, including one from U.S. and Canadian scientists:

Letter from 18 U.S. conservation groups (PDF 52 kb)
Letter from six Canadian conservation groups (PDF 212 kb)
Letter from 20 U.S. and Canadian scientists (PDF 156 kb)

Meanwhile, I’ve heard from a few people who may call on the National Marine Fisheries Service to declare an “Unusual Mortality Event” related to the death of L-112 and possibly the deaths of other killer whales.

Unusual Mortality Events are normally associated with the mass stranding of whales or dolphins. UMEs are not normally declared in relation to the death one animal, no matter how unusual. Still, some of the seven criteria for declaring a UME include sudden or unexpected declines in populations, especially endangered ones. See NOAA’s Office of Protected Resources page for the list of criteria.

A UME is declared after consultation with a specially appointed working group that includes scientists, agency officials and members of conservation groups. Members are selected for their expertise in biology, toxicology, pathology, ecology and epidemiology.

I’m not sure what more could be gained by declaring a UME for Southern Resident killer whales, but Michael Jasny of the Natural Resources Defense Council told me that it could intensify the investigation into the death of L-112. It is a way to bring widespread attention to the issue, he said.

Ken Balcomb, director of the Center for Whale Research, said such a declaration could help increase access to historical records. He is interested in possible correlations between specific Navy activities — currently classified — and the deaths of marine mammals. Ken mentioned the deaths of L-60 and L-90, as well as L-112.

“It is baffling to demographers why this (Southern Resident) population is doing so poorly compared to the northern population,” Ken told me. “Something weird is going on, and that’s a consensus.

“In the early days, Mike Bigg (a Canadian orca researcher) and I were amazed that females seemed to be immortal. We just didn’t have many female deaths, and it was clearly related to their long life spans.”

The story has changed over the past 35 years, Ken said, and the number of recent deaths of females is driving the species closer to extinction.

Ken is clearly worried. Years ago, he would not have been so outspoken. I recall when Ken was a typically reserved, cautious scientist. But actions taken to shift environmental factors in favor of the orcas have been slow or nonexistent. Meanwhile, the future of these killer whales — a genetically distinct population — still hangs in the balance.

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L-112 in happier times. The 3-year-old orca died in February, and her death is the subject of an intense investigation.
Photo by Jeanne Hyde, Whale of a Porpoise
(Click on image to see Jeanne's tribute page)

“Clearly the animal was blown up,” he told Scott Rasmussen, a reporter for the Journal of the San Juan Islands.

When I asked Ken to explain, he provided a lot more detail and informed me that he was calling for a law-enforcement investigation into the whale’s death by the National Marine Fisheries Service. Why he is seeking more than a biological analysis of the death will become clear in a moment.

What Ken is suggesting is that L-112 was killed by a bomb, possibly dropped from an aircraft during a training event in the Navy’s Northwest Training Range off the West Coast. His evidence is circumstantial, but he wants some answers.

What we know for sure is that this young female orca washed up dead at Long Beach on Feb. 11 in relatively fresh condition, allowing a complete necropsy, including CT scans of the head and dissections of the internal organs and head.

Joe Gaydos, a veterinarian with The SeaDoc Society who participated in the necropsy, said the whale showed signs of “blunt force trauma” with injury to the right and left sides of the head and right side of the body. Blunt force trauma might be what a human would experience if dropped from a helicopter onto soft ground, he explained.

Blast trauma can be similar, depending on how the shock waves reach the animal. Acoustic trauma, such as sonar, is not well defined in the world of pathology, he said, but it is different from blunt force and blast trauma.

Joe and most of the other scientists involved with the study of L-112 are withholding judgment until all the information is in.

“What we need to do now,” he told me, “is put all the pieces of the mosaic together. What is the highest probability of what caused those particular injuries?”

Whatever the cause, he said, the young orca did not swim very far before she died.

Ken Balcomb, director of the Center for Whale Research, has a long history with unusual deaths of marine mammals going back to 2002, when the Navy apparently killed 16 whales during an exercise involving sonar in the Bahamas. The Navy acknowledged its responsibility two years later. See the Kitsap Sun report of Jan. 1, 2002. In that incident, Ken was instrumental in saving the heads of some animals for forensic examination, without which the mystery may have gone unsolved.

When I talked to Ken yesterday, he said the injuries sustained by L-112 were similar to what he has seen before. He mentioned a Cuvier’s beaked whale found near Seaside, Ore., in 2002; a killer whale, L-60, found about a month later at Long Beach; and a Berardius (Baird’s beaked whale) at Lapush in 2003.

“Now we have L-112,” he said. “It was massively bloody in the ears and at the base of the ears.”

L-112, laid out and prepared for necropsy.
Photo by Cascadia Research

Balcomb has zeroed in on live aerial bombing practices conducted off the West Coast. According to a permit issued under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (PDF 690 kb), the Navy is allowed to conduct an average of 30 bombing exercises each year. That includes the use of 500-pound Mark-82 aerial bombs — although the Navy says the actual number of exercises does not come near that number.

“What we may have experienced over these years is an unusual mortality related to these bombing events,” Ken said.

Last night, I contacted the Navy’s John Mosher, Northwest program manager for the U.S. Pacific Fleet. There were no bombing exercises in the Long Beach vicinity for at least 30 days before L-112 was found, he said.

I addressed the possibility of a sonar injury in Water Ways on Feb. 18.

Ken, a former Navy technician, is suspicious of Navy statements because of his experience in the Bahamas, where the Navy eventually admitted to using sonar in a planned exercise.

“They lied to us for a month about the existence of that exercise,” Ken said. “We had to show them pictures of the Navy ships with their hull numbers.”

As he tells it, his requests for information kept being directed to other Navy exercises. It took a month before he could get confirmation of the exercise in question, he said, and that’s when the Navy decided it was time to quit denying the indisputable evidence.

To examine past bombing practices, Ken and I both called up the first “Annual Range Complex Exercise Report” (PDF 121 kb) covering the period from Nov. 12, 2010, to May 1, 2011.

We found that all the details about exercises along the West Coast — including the number of bombing events — was marked “classified.”

Lynne Barre, a marine mammal specialist with the National Marine Fisheries Service, said her agency has staff experts in Washington, D.C., who are qualified to review classified documents. They looked at the numbers and concluded that the training exercises during that period met the requirements of the permit, and they issued a new one.

If we are to discount connections between Navy bombing and the death of L-112, it would be reassuring to know exactly when such activities took place, Balcomb says. But not even Lynne Barre, a leading marine biologist with the federal government, is trusted with that information.

Lynne told me she may need to seek help from her headquarters office to work on possible correlations between Navy activities and the mortality of marine mammals on the West Coast, including L-112 and possibly other dead whales going back for years.

By the way, we know that the Canadian Navy was conducting an exercise with sonar in the Strait of Juan de Fuca about the time L-112 died. While that activity was not likely the cause of L-112’s death, acoustic expert Scott Veirs has identified an explosion on a hydrophone in the ocean before that exercise began. (See Water Ways, Feb. 18.)

My inquiry a month ago about any exercises involving explosions during the time in question remains unanswered by the Canadian Navy.

Balcomb is asking the law-enforcement arm of the National Marine Fisheries Service to conduct an investigation into the deaths of the whales and to involve the Department of Justice, if necessary.

“That way, nobody can withhold or filter the information without being liable for prosecution,” he said, “and the Navy would not be able to claim the whole thing is classified.”

L pod, the largest of the three Salish Sea orca pods, has been the one with the greatest number of individuals who have mysteriously disappeared. In 2008, during the annual return of the killer whales to the San Juan Islands, a shocking seven orcas came up missing — including five from L pod. See Kitsap Sun, Oct. 23, 2008.

Did something kill them all at once? We may never know. But I can’t avoid an uneasy feeling about L-112, who would normally be traveling with her closest relatives, including her mother, brother and aunt.

Let’s hope that whatever killed L-112 left her relatives alone, and we’ll see them swimming into Puget Sound with the rest of L pod in May or June.

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In a letter dated March 13 (PDF 16 kb), the groups said the format of the meetings is not designed to encourage public discussion or even allow public comment. In addition, the Navy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have ignored ongoing calls for the Navy to better protect marine wildlife and the environment along the Washington Coast and other biologically important areas, they say.

Navy's Northwest testing and training ranges. Click to enlarge.
Map by U.S. Navy

The Navy will seek a new permit from NOAA for the incidental harassment of marine mammals during testing and training activities. Most of the activities are identical to what is taking place now, but some new activities are added — including the testing of sonar from ships docked at piers.

Between now and 2015, Navy officials will describe and study the effects of various activities on marine life and update existing mitigation with new research findings. See my initial story in the Kitsap Sun, Feb. 27, and a related post in Water Ways, March 6. Also, you may review the official notice in the Federal Register.

Back to the letter, which states in part:

“As you know, the scoping process is the best time to identify issues and provide recommendations to agencies on what should be analyzed in the EIS. However, a process developed for activities with controversial impacts, like those at issue here, that does not provide opportunity for the public to testify or speak to a broader audience, or to hear answers to questions raised by others, and that fails to engage major population centers is not designed to help citizens and organizations effectively participate in agencies’ environmental reviews.”

The letter (PDF 16 kb) was sent to Jane Lubchenko, administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service, and Kimberly Kler, project manager for the Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Northwest.

It was signed by Zak Smith, staff attorney for Natural Resources Defense Council; Peter Galvin, conservation director for Center for Biological Diversity; Marcie Keever, Oceans & Vessels Project director for Friends of the Earth; Kyle Loring, staff attorney, for Friends of the San Juans; Priscilla Hunter, chairwoman of InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council, a consortium of 10 Northern California Indian tribes; Darlene Schanfald, executive director of Olympic Environmental Council; Howard Garrett, executive director of Orca Network; Heather Trim, policy director for People For Puget Sound; Chris Wilke, executive director of Puget Soundkeeper Alliance; Jerry Joyce, advisor on marine issues at Seattle Audubon; Tristin Brown, conservation chair for the Washington State Chapter of the Sierra Club; and Kurt Beardslee, executive director of Wild Fish Conservancy.

For those who wish to attend one of the Navy’s scoping meetings to see what this is all about, check out the schedule on “Northwest Testing and Training EIS/OEIS.” The Navy has prepared a brochure (PDF 2 mb) about the process and related issues.

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Two days later, workers and passengers on the Clinton-Mukilteo ferry heard sonar pings apparently vibrating through the hull loud enough to be heard above the water. Scott Veirs was the first to report this issue in his blog Orcasphere that same day.

Jason Wood, a bioacoustician and research associate at The Whale Museum in Friday Harbor, made some phone calls and issued this report:

“The crew in the engine room, the captain, and passengers could hear the sonar, at times so loudly that the ferry agent on land could hear the sonar coming up through the ferry while it was at the dock…. The operations center called the Everett Naval base, but got no answers. They also called the Coast Guard. No (Navy) or Coast Guard vessels were reported seen during the sonar incident, other than a naval vessel at the dock in the Everett Navy yard.”

I phoned Sheila Murray, spokeswoman for Navy Region Northwest, who confirmed that the sonar was coming from the USS Shoup, docked at Naval Station Everett. She issued this statement:

“In response to your query, the Navy was conducting pierside testing of mid-frequency active sonar at Naval Station Everett yesterday. This is routine testing that is a longstanding and ongoing requirement, and is an essential process in preparing a Navy ship to get underway.

“Pierside testing is not continuous, but consists of very brief transmissions of acoustic energy interspersed with longer silent periods.”

The Shoup gained a notorious reputation among some killer whale researchers in 2003, when the intense sound of sonar pings was reported to have caused J pod to flee in a confused pattern. See Water Ways, Feb. 11, for links to videos of that incident.

Sheila also confirmed that this is the kind of “pierside testing” contemplated for the new permit being sought from the National Marine Fisheries Service, a permit that will allow incidental harassment of marine mammals under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Such activities will be analyzed in an upcoming environmental impact statement, as I described last week.

Reporter Gary Chittim of KING-5 television reported concerns from whale-watching skippers and from John Calambokidis of Cascadia Research, who said one or more gray whales may have been in the vicinity when the sonar was deployed in Everett last week. Among the concerns of whale-watching operators is that the sonar could drive away the whales and affect their business.

I asked Sheila what kind of mitigation measures are used to protect marine mammals when sonar is deployed at pierside, such as in Everett, and she provided me with a fact sheet on the Protective Measures Assessment Protocol, or PMAP (PDF 136 kb).

The fact sheet states that PMAP is an interactive software tool developed in 2004 “to help Navy units conduct safe, effective training at sea.”

“Protective measures contained in PMAP include many actions that are already common practice, such as posting trained lookouts and avoiding certain critical areas as well as other event-specific actions…

Examples of PMAP mitigation/protective measures:

• Employment of qualified watchstanders and lookouts
• Navy personnel received NMFS approved training to aid in spotting marine mammals
• Survey the area prior to conducting the event
• Establish safety or exclusion zones where the event will NOT occur if a marine mammal is sighted
• Avoidance of features that may attract protected species, such as algal mats, Sargassum rafts and/or coral reefs
• Use of passive listening devices
• Sonar power down or shut down zones
• Special instructions for designated critical habitats and/or sanctuaries as required…

The software is capable of being run directly from a website and incorporates “all mitigation measures from completed environmental analyses in the U.S. Navy’s major training areas along the East Coast, Gulf of Mexico, Southern California, Hawaiian Islands, Pacific Northwest and Marianas Islands.”

What is not described in the fact sheet is whether the Navy uses anything but “qualified watchstanders” to determine the location of marine mammals, including our endangered Southern Resident killer whales. It has been an ongoing question whether the Navy checks out visual sightings reported to Orca Network or listens to the Salish Sea Hydrophone Network. The ”use of passive listening devices,” mentioned in the list, has never been fully explained.

A factsheet from the National Marine Fisheries Service says the agency has approached the Navy to see if killer whales could be tracked by hydrophones. This is how NMFS described it in a question-and-answer format:

“The Navy’s response is that there is ‘no Navy environmental hydrophone network along the US West Coast.’ The Navy also noted that ‘Any other “Navy” system would be more operational and classified, in addition to not being used for environmental analysis.’”

Fred Felleman, Northwest consultant for Friends of the Earth, has been pressing the Navy to cooperate in tracking marine mammals without compromising its military operations.

As for the Navy’s next permit under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, work is starting now to have the permit completed by 2015, when the current one expires.

Kimberly Kler, environmental planner for the Navy, told me that the permit is primarily a consolidation of permits for the existing testing and training activities at existing ranges in the Northwest.

Pierside testing and maintenance of sonar systems is not covered by the existing permit but will be added in the future after consideration of the environmental consequences. The Navy has acknowledged that some of its sonar activities are not covered by existing permits. See my report of the fast-attack submarine USS San Francisco, Kitsap Sun, April 10, 2009.

Removed from the list of allowed activities in the new permit will be training that sinks vessels off the Washington Coast.

On the other hand, harbor-security training in inland waters might be increased, but it would involve smaller ships without sonar, Kler said. Also, testing for up to 14 days could resume in Carr Inlet in South Puget Sound, but the exact type of testing is yet to be described.

Mitigation measures will be discussed and possibly changed under the new permit, Kimberly Kler acknowledged. “Validated science will be incorporated into the analysis.”

Additional details should be available by the time eight open houses are held on the new permit, beginning Tuesday in Oak Harbor. Go to “Open House Information Sessions” for the schedule and “Northwest Training and Testing EIS/OEIS” for overall information as it becomes available.

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Could the two events be linked or could the timing be just a coincidence?

The two-year-old killer whale, L-112, was laid out after death and prepared for a necropsy.
Photo by Cascadia Research

So far, I have been unable to find a ship that was deploying sonar off the coast. At the same time, it appears highly unlikely that L-112 could have been injured by sonar in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and then somehow swam out of the strait and down the full length of the Washington coast, succumb to death and then wash up on the beach, all in less than five days.

New evidence may come to light, but for now I would caution that we need to wait for an investigation by the National Marine Fisheries Service and not jump to conclusions over our concerns about sonar.

I discussed the investigation with marine mammal expert Lynne Barre of NMFS. She said the endangered listing of Southern Residents has heightened interest in all killer whale strandings, particularly unusual deaths like that of this 2-year-old female orca.

Lynne seems to confirm the idea that the investigation will proceed along three tracks. First, there’s the physical condition of L-112, as will be determined through careful examinations. Second, there’s the question of where L-112 and her family group were located during the time of injury. And, third, investigators need to locate ships with sonar capabilities and determine whether any of them had been using them in the time period in question.

Jessie Huggins of Cascadia Research and Dyanna Lambourn of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife provided an initial report from the necropsy:

“The whale was moderately decomposed and in good overall body condition. Internal exam revealed significant trauma around the head, chest and right side; at this point the cause of these injuries is unknown.”

Jessie told me that the whale was probably dead two to four days before it washed up on the beach. Trauma to the head was consistent with a blunt force, such as a boat collision or an attack by another large animal. The report mentions the prospects for what researchers may learn from various tissue samples taken from the whale.

Of particular interest to the sonar question is the skull, which has been frozen for the time being. Lynne Barre said it will undergo a CT scan with the hope of obtaining information about the condition of the inner ear and the delicate tissues involved in echolocation. Damage to those tissues could be an indication of trauma from a sound source, but experts will need to account for any decomposition after death. These issues are more complicated than they might seem.

As for the location of L-112 and her family, that probably will never be known unless one of the hydrophones picked up and recorded calls from L pod. Scott Veirs, associated with OrcaSound, has been working tirelessly the past few days to locate any orca sounds that may have been picked up throughout the area.

Scott has noted that killer whale calls consistent with K and L pods were picked up on two hydrophones in the San Juan Islands on Monday, Feb. 6, just 18 hours after a Canadian frigate, the HMCS Ottawa, transmitted loud pings throughout the area (Water Ways, Feb. 11). The two hydrophones picked up the sounds one after the other, suggesting that those whales were heading south toward the Strait of Juan de Fuca (OrcaSound, Feb. 8).

The next day, Tuesday, Feb. 7, some members of K and L pod were spotted in Discovery Bay between Sequim and Port Townsend, according to reports to Orca Network. Nobody can remember seeing Southern Resident killer whales there before. Could they have gone into the bay one day earlier, seeking refuge from the sonar? We may never know.

But if we’re talking about the death of L-112, subsequent IDs of the whales in Discovery Bay suggest that the group probably did not include L-112 or her family. I’m still trying to learn which whales likely would have been with L-112 around the time of her death. But chances are she and her family were out in the ocean when all this excitement was taking place in Puget Sound.

So that leaves the question of whether a ship could have been using sonar off the coast when L-112 was within range. I have been in touch with both U.S. and Canadian Navy public affairs officials, and both have denied that their ships were using sonar in the ocean during this time.

Lt. Diane Larose of the Canadian Navy confirms that two sonar-equipped Canadian Navy ships, the HMSC Ottawa and the HMCS Algonquin, were out at sea before entering the Salish Sea at the time of Exercise Pacific Guardian. But neither ship deployed their sonar before reaching the Salish Sea on Feb. 6, when Ottawa’s pinging was picked up on local hydrophones, she said. Navy officials say they followed procedures to avoid harm to marine mammals and have seen no evidence that marine mammals were in the area at the time.

A lot of gaps remain to be filled in, including the source of an unusual explosive-type sound at the beginning of the hydrophone recording that includes the Ottawa sonar, which Scott Veirs discovered (OrcaSound, Feb. 6).

Lynne Barre of NMFS agreed that the best thing for now is to wait until the investigation begins to answer some of the lingering questions. Sometimes the cause of death may include contributing factors, such as weakened immune systems that lead to disease that ultimately lead to a physical injury of some kind.

This is the third dead killer whale to be found in the vicinity since November. The others were a newborn calf from an offshore group of orcas and a very decomposed adult orca from the offshore population.

In all the discussions about sonar, we should not forget that the loss of this young female killer whale is significant for a variety of reasons. I remember the optimism that came with her birth back in the spring of 2009. See Kitsap Sun, March 5, 2009. L-112 also was one of the orcas who received two names, in this case Sooke and Victoria, because Ken Balcomb also named some whales at the time. (See Water Ways, Aug. 25, 2010.)

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After Monday’s incident, whale advocates were in an uproar over concern for killer whales, dolphins and other marine mammals. Jeanne Hyde was the first to raise the alarm and later placed a sample of the sound on her blog, “Whale of a Porpose.”

Michael Jasny of the Natural Resources Defense Council railed against the Canadians’ use of sonar in his blog on “Switchboard”:

“The simple fact is that these waters should not be used for sonar training. Period. Even the U.S. Navy — which has thus far refused to protect marine mammal habitat anywhere else on the west coast — has effectively put the area off-limits to sonar use.

“NRDC will appeal to both the Canadian and U.S. governments to ensure that this patently dangerous activity does not happen in this place again.”

The U.S. Navy policy against sonar use during training was solidly confirmed in 2009, when the National Marine Fisheries Service issued a permit for the Navy to use sonar off Washington’s coast. The permit did not include inland waterways.

When I inquired about this, Navy officials confirmed that they never requested authorization for training in waters east of Cape Flattery. For details, check out the story I wrote for the Kitsap Sun, July 29, 2009.

Contrary to some beliefs, the Navy did not say it would never use sonar in inland waters under any circumstances. In fact, in April of 2009, the USS San Francisco, a fast-attack submarine, left Bremerton after a refit and conducted “required training dives,” including the use of sonar that was reported as unusually intense. See Kitsap Sun, April 10, 2009.

How did that happen? The federal permit, according to the Navy, makes an exception for sonar related to “safety and navigation; testing; maintenance; and research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E).”

The San Francisco incident fell under “safety and navigation,” according to Navy spokeswoman Sheila Murray.

I’m not sure whether the Navy has ever answered the question of how it intends to address potential harm to marine mammals when sonar is used outside approved testing ranges, for which environmental reviews have been conducted. Meanwhile, a coalition of environmental groups has sued NMFS for failing to protect marine mammals within testing ranges along the West Coast. Check out the news release by NRDC.

And so we return to this week’s incident with the Canadian Navy, which has no restrictions on where sonar can be used in training exercises, although the Navy follows a written procedure designed to protect marine mammals, according to Lt. Diane Larose of the Royal Canadian Navy. Download the procedure here.

That policy was followed early Monday morning when the Canadian frigate HMCS Ottawa deployed sonar in Haro Strait on the Canadian side of the border, Larose told me. The protection measures, said to be consistent with those of other NATO navies, include watching (with night-vision equipment if necessary), listening with passive sonar and other gear, and searching with airplanes, helicopters or submarines, if available.

It would be interesting to conduct a test to determine if these precautions really work. Can sentries aboard a ship find and identify a few killer whales in the dark across miles of water where islands may impede visual sightings? If not, then someone needs to rethink these procedures, because these are the conditions that were present on Monday when the Ottawa was using its sonar.

Scott Veirs, who helps maintain the Salish Sea Hydrophone Network, pieced together information from Monday’s incident with the help of Jason Wood, research associate with The Whale Museum. Here’s a summary of the analysis on his blog Orca Sound:

“Below are the compressed (mp3) recordings and coarse spectrograms of the sounds that were auto-detected this morning. They begin with a series of low frequency sounds and echoes that may have been from an impulsive source, like a detonation or explosion. Then the series of high-frequency pings occurs between 4:42:50 and 5:08:17 at three network locations: Lime Kiln (13 pings), Port Townsend (1), and Orcasound (1).

“While we are not yet sure if pings were detected at Neah Bay or on the NEPTUNE Canada hydrophones located near the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, it appears that the sonar ensonified a good portion of the eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca and southern Haro Strait.” (Emphasis added by me.)

Before the end of that same day, killer whales could be heard on hydrophones in the area and were later identified as our local K and L pods, according to reports made to Orca Network. The proximity of the whales to the exercise was disconcerting.

“It would have been more comforting if we had not seen them for a couple of weeks,” Scott noted.

The question on everyone’s mind relates to potential injury to killer whales and other marine mammals from the intense sound of sonar pings. During the 2003 incident with the USS Shoup, killer whale researchers in the area reported J pod fleeing the sound in a confused pattern, though Navy biologists reviewing the video denied that the orcas were acting unusual.

Ken Balcomb of the Center for Whale Research reviews that incident on a video for Earthjustice. Equally revealing but with less commentary is the raw video of the incident.

Studies are ongoing to consider the effect of sonar on a variety of marine mammals, but Scott Veirs points out that Navy’s sonar is most powerful at a frequency of about 7 kilohertz, which is within the sensitive part of a killer whale’s hearing range — “not the most sensitive, but close to it,” he told me.

“Mid-frequency sonar is a bit of a red flag, because the frequency overlap is really quite complete,” he said.

I was wondering whether the sonar pings heard Monday in Puget Sound were of any concern to the Canadian Navy. I shouldn’t have expected any introspection. Lt. Larose pointed out that nobody has reported seeing any marine mammals in the area at the time.

Will the Canadian Navy reconsider its policy in light of the U.S. Navy’s policy against training with sonar in Puget Sound? I posed the question and got this response from Larose:

“The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) takes its role as environmental steward very seriously. The RCN’s Marine Mammal Mitigation Policy is reviewed annually to ensure that it reflects current scientific data, the capacities of Royal Canadian Navy equipment and environmental concerns. It is applicable to all Canadian military vessel wherever they may operate.

“Sonars found on board Canadian ships, submarines, and maritime aircraft, are different from that of our allies and therefore call for country specific mitigation policy.”

For years, more than a few marine mammal experts have been calling on the U.S. Navy to use its network of hydrophones to track endangered killer whales and other vulnerable species. It’s not enough, they say, for the Navy to post a lookout during training exercises when the Navy’s listening buoys have the potential of knowing with some precision where the whales are.

Fred Felleman, Northwest consultant for Friends of the Earth, says the Navy spends plenty of money filtering out biological sounds to detect the sounds of enemy ships. Similar algorithms could inform us when marine mammals pass within hearing range of Navy hydrophones.

“We’ve met with at least three admirals through the years to present them with explicit proposals,” Fred said. “They never said ‘no,’ but they never gave us an answer.

“Now that they are asking for permits from NOAA, they should be willing to make an obligation to help advance our understanding of the whales. The Navy knows this domain better than anybody. They are the best listeners on the planet.”

The Navy has been requesting and receiving “take” permits from NMFS with not much more mitigation that putting someone up on deck to look for marine mammals, Fred said, expressing his ongoing frustration.

He added, “It’s about time that the Navy stop asking for ‘takes’ and start finding ways of giving.”

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The sunny weather provided prime viewing for boaters and shoreline observers, as the huge radar platform — called the Sea-Based X-Band Radar, or SBX — moved out of Elliott Bay and up through Puget Sound.

The radar ship is part of the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) and is the only vessel of its kind in the world. One of the upgrades during refit was a new electrical system to allow the ship to operate with offshore power instead of running its diesel generators while in port.

The radar that sits on top of an oil-drilling platform is extremely powerful and can cover a huge area, limited mainly by the Earth’s curvature.

“You could put the SBX in the Chesapeake Bay and it could track something the size of a baseball hit outside here from Safeco Field, provided it could get over the curvature of the earth,” Army Col. Mark Arn was quoted as saying on the Seattlepi.com website after the ship arrived in Seattle. Arn is the Missile Defense Agency’s project manager for the X-band sensors.

In operation, the radar is designed to track missiles in flight, with the ability to distinguish between a hostile missile warhead and decoys, according to a fact sheet (PDF 148 kb) from the Missile Defense Agency and a booklet called “A Brief History of the Sea-Based X-Band Radar-1” (PDF 3.4 mb) Data collected from the radar system can be transmitted to interceptor missiles that are sent out to destroy the incoming missile before it strikes its target.

When the SBX first came in, I wondered what the radar equipment looked like under that white dome, which stands 103 feet high and is made of a synthetic inflatable fabric that apparently can withstand 130-mile-per-hour winds. I found a photo on Boeing’s website that shows the ship under construction and the radar being installed. Click on the Boeing SBX link and click again to see a large version.

The SBX is 240 feet wide and 390 feet long, larger than a football field. It towers more than 280 feet from its keel to the top of the radar dome.

The main deck houses living quarters, workspaces, storage, power generation, bridge, and control rooms, as well as the radar antenna array plus command, communication and data-analysis centers.

The video embedded on this page was produced by Erik Hyypia, a kayaker who paddled a little too close to the docks to get this shot when a patrol boat asked him to move back. The later shots were taken yesterday from Seacrest Park in West Seattle as the platform passed by.

Erik, who works as a senior engineer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, enjoys taking video in his spare time. His YouTube channel features a variety of kayaking and hiking videos.

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Would they search for evidence to show that aliens could not possibly exist, declare the idea a hoax and insist that any defense of our planet would not be worth the cost? Or would they study ALL the evidence, analyze the risks and look for the best way to address the uncertain crisis?

I keep thinking about this hypothetical alien scenario when I hear certain members of Congress ignoring climate change and essentially spitting in the face of climate scientists by calling their best research a “hoax.”

Greenhouse warming may seem like an alien concept to some people, but here’s my point: If you run and hide until the aliens have landed, you face a much greater peril than if you face the problem in a practical way.

Now I’m all for discussing the many uncertainties — such as how high ocean waters may rise under various assumptions. But please don’t tell me that some basement scientist has disproved the idea that temperatures are rising or has shown that humans could not possibly affect the Earth’s climate.

Here’s what I’m wondering: Would those who turn their backs on climate change act the same way if the entire Earth were under attack from a common enemy? Maybe our nation’s leaders would be better able to deal with a direct attack, uncomplicated by the uncertainties of science.

That’s more than I wanted to say about people who choose to ignore climate change. What I really wanted to write about is the U.S. Navy’s serious approach to the topic, which can provide an example for the rest of us.

In May of 2009, the Chief of Naval Operations established “Task Force Climate Change,” designed to ensure that the Navy meets its national security obligations as the oceans and shorelines undergo significant changes.

Heading the task force is Rear Adm. Dave Titley, the Navy’s chief oceanographer. Titley said he was once a climate-change skeptic (see top video). But after he dug into the data, he changed his mind.

Now Titley is focused on updating the Navy’s mission, force alignment, tactics, facilities and research. He sees countries throughout the world working together to deal with the effects of climate change.

“In this context, climate change may be viewed as a ‘common enemy’ that will bring nations together towards a common end,” Titley said during the United Nations Conference on Climate Change two years ago in Copenhagen.

The Navy task force has called on more than 400 people from 120 government and non-government entities around the world to help the Navy prepare for the future.

Last year, when the task force outlined its priorities, Titley had this to say:

“We must ensure our Navy is fully mission-capable and ready to meet national requirements in the future. That responsibility includes anticipating the impact of changing climatic conditions on mission requirements, force structure and infrastructure.”

Titley outlines some of his thoughts in the video you’ll find at the bottom of this page.

Meanwhile, last month, Titley was pleased with new guidance from the National Research Council titled “National Security Implications of Climate Change for U.S. Naval Forces.”

The review committee stated in the report:

“Even the most moderate current trends in climate, if continued, will present new national security challenges for the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. While the timing, degree, and consequence of future climate change impacts remain uncertain, many changes are already under way in regions around the world, such as in the Arctic, and call for action by U.S. naval leadership in response.”

The report made six recommendations for action:

1. Support ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of
   the Sea: The Arctic and other regions are becoming prone to geopolitical disputes because of potential new shipping lanes and access to natural resources.
2. Prepare for anticipated strain on Navy capabilities: More severe or more frequent droughts, floods, storms and other events can reduce available food and water supplies, calling for increased humanitarian aid and putting greater stress on governments around the world. Geopolitical conditions in the Arctic may require increased ship deployments, including specialized vessels such as icebreakers.
3. Address vulnerabilities at coastal installations: Sea level rise will occur at different rates in different places. Each naval installation should assess its specific risks and develop a plan to maintain capabilities.
4. Consider climate change effects in relation to U.S. allies and their militaries: Vulnerability assessments should be conducted at overseas installations, taking into account the risks of localized conditions. To cover contingencies, develop or expand maritime partnerships with other nations.
5. Address technical underpinnings that allow the Navy to operate throughout the world, especially in the polar regions: The Navy will need to maintain its navigation and communication systems as well as oceanographic data as it increases its mobility. Also, submarine movements and training should be increased in the Arctic.
6. Support research and development with implications for Navy operations: Consider a philosophy of increasing access to previously classified information that can aid climate researchers and ultimately help the Navy prepare for changes. The Navy should become more involved in specific research, such as sea-level rise and ice depths in specific locations.

All the while, the Navy is working hard to address its contribution to greenhouse gases and its use of nonrenewable energy supplies. For examples of this effort, check out the latest issue of “Currents” (Winter 2011), the Navy’s environmental magazine.

One last thing: Titley is one of many people featured in a new PBS documentary called “Earth: The Operators’ Manual” about creating a sustainable society. The program is scheduled to air on many stations (including Spokane’s KSPS) tonight at 9 p.m. After that, it should be available as streaming audio on the “Earth: The Operators’ Manual” website.

KCTS, Channel 9 in Seattle, will delay the program until April 24 at 3 p.m.

The video below describes Titley’s views on why the Navy cannot ignore climate change.

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