The U.S. Navy Doesn’t “Save the Whales”
The U.S. Navy and the Bush Administration are taking on the almighty creatures of the ocean.
The Supreme Court today began hearing a case that questions who (or what creatures) get dibs on the ocean waters off the coast of California, according to the Christian Science Monitor.
The case is this: Last March 2007 conservationists brought a lawsuit against the Navy over its use of MFA sonar in training missions off the coast of southern California. They said that the sonar is too loud and disruptive for the ocean environment, and in some cases causes mass strandings of the animals, which include blue whales, pygmy sperm whales and bottlenose dolphins.
The Navy, meanwhile, wants to keep training. Says the Monitor, “It is the only place on the West Coast offering all the land, air, and seafloor features needed to train US air, sea, and undersea forces simultaneously in an integrated operation.”
Soon-not-to-be President Bush swam into the argument by exempting the Navy from some environmental regulations on the Coast, in the interest of national security. A court of appeals still laid restrictions on the Navy, telling them to reduce sonar power and pay more attention to marine animals in the water. But this still gives the Navy some exemption from the environmental standards of the coastal area.
Enter the Supreme Court.
This case centers around the conflicting interests of promoting national security and preserving the environment. What do you think? Are there times when the government be exempt from environmental regulations in the interest of national security? Personally, I say the Navy should find another area to hold training operations. Let the whales swim in peace.
Related Post:
Judge Orders Navy Sonar Restrictions to Protect the Whales
Photo Credit: trmdttr at Flickr under a Creative Commons License
What is an almighty creature as opposed to a regular creature?
No, they should not be exempt because this is not a immediate issue of national security. If we’re actively being attacked, then of course we wouldn’t worry about marine life in the area before we deploy sonar, weapons, etc. But in regular training missions? There has to be a more suitable place with fewer animals. They could even just try to work their training around the seasonal migration of most whales and dolphins - when they migrate north in the summer, the Navy could spend more time in southern California.
There is substantial evidence that this sonar causes severe damage to the ears and brains of marine mammals, either killing them or throwing off their ability to navigate, which leads to these mass strandings. These animals just fought back from the brink of extinction after whaling - they don’t need another roadblock in their way.
We don’t make environmental regulations just so we can exempt certain parties from them. These rules are in place for a reason - because without them, natural life as we know it would not exist.
What an air-headed assessment. First off, if we don’t use sonar, we don’t have any use for submarines. If we do away with submarines, something tells me both the Chinese and the Russians will not observe our new ban. Fortunately for them, we will never know if they honor the ban, because it would take submarines with sonar to police the ban. I guess we could take their word for it. Surely, they both would keep their word and not prowl our waters with nuclear tipped missiles.
This sounds like something we can expect to hear from an Obama administration.
[...] decision is a major setback for environmentalists, who had hoped the Court would uphold an earlier injunction by a federal judge requiring the navy to take precautions while undertaking su…. Environmental groups originally launched the lawsuit claiming that the use of sonar can injure or [...]