Coastal Commission to discuss Navy sonar exercises in So Cal waters
The California Coastal Commission will discuss in closed session on Jan. 10 a staff recommendation to adopt a motion that would allow the Navy to conduct sonar and other exercises in waters off the Southern California coast. The motion includes adding mitigation measures relating to these exercises that would affect marine mammal and sea turtles.
Critics say the mid-frequency sonar exercises are harmful, even lethal, to whales, citing that dozens of whales have fatally or near-fatally stranded themselves on beaches in the U.S., the Bahamas the Canary Islands and Japan, since the Navy began conducting sonar experiments in 2000. Groups, including the National Resource Defense Council and Earth Island Institute, asked the Coastal Commission at a December meeting in San Francisco to not approve the training exercises until the Navy provided sufficient information to ensure that its activities will not harm marine mammals and other sea life.
A commission staff report notes that the activities the Navy seeks to conduct include those “with potential to disturb marine mammals” and include “ship movement, inert mine drops, underwater detonations, and, outside the coastal zone (up to 80 miles offshore), mid-frequency sonar, missile launches and amphibious landings.” The report also notes that the mid-frequency sonar exercises “would only occur outside the coastal zone, and, for the most part, beyond the 80 nautical miles from [the] shore (off San Clemente Island).”
Conditions, including a lower decibel threshold for sonar exercises and other measures to protect marine mammals and sea turtles, recommended by Coastal Commission staff to bring the Navy’s project into consistency with the marine resource policy of the Coastal Act, include avoiding, where possible, an effect on gray whales, the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, and areas with known high concentrations of marine mammals and complex steep seabed topography. The conditions also require that the Navy coordinate with the National Marine Fisheries Service to report any unusual marine mammal behavior, including stranding, beached live or dead cetaceans, floating marine mammals, or out of habitat/milling live cetaceans that may occur at any time during or shortly after major exercises.
The California Coastal Commission meeting will take place this Wednesday, beginning at 10 a.m., at the Hyatt Regency Long Beach, 200 S. Pine Ave., Long Beach, Calif.