Navy can't quell sonar doubts

Service says data will make its case, but fishing interests demur

By its own account, the U.S. Navy has done an imperfect job convincing people that a sonar training range it wants to build off North Carolina will not hurt fishing.

But more data will make that case once an environmental report for the range is complete, a Navy emissary said Monday during a presentation to the Joint Legislative Commission on Seafood and Aquaculture.

"We need to bring more information forward to explain how we came up with those conclusions," said Aileen Smith, natural resources manager for the U.S. Fleet Forces Command.

Despite the assurances, Smith and her fellow ambassadors did not sway everyone attending the meeting, which involved legislators and appointees who have an interest in the fishing and seafood industries.

"I don't leave this presentation feeling any better than I did coming in," said Republican Rep. Robert Grady from Onslow County. "You say there is no evidence there will be long-term, significant behavioral disruptions on fish. You might find out later that there is."

The Navy wants to install a 660-square-mile range 47 miles off shore for training ships and aircraft in the use of sonar, a technology that detects objects under the sea by bouncing sound off them. The Navy says sonar is the best defense against a new generation of quiet submarines that can threaten coastal waters.

It evaluated three East Coast sites and says that an area off Camp Lejeune, the Marines base in Onslow County, best suits its purposes.

That section of ocean is the right depth, easily reachable from Navy ports to the north and south and not too far from land controlled by the military, said Navy Commander Mike Jensen, who also spoke Monday.

When the Navy released a draft environmental assessment of the range in October, environmentalists and the fishing community warned that frequent use of mid-frequency sonar could bother sea life, including endangered whales. The Navy says it expects only mild disturbance to some whales and hardly any effect on fish or sea turtles.

North Carolina's Division of Marine Fisheries, for one, is not convinced. It says the Navy inadequately evaluated the impact its cables and microphones will have on coral outcrops on the ocean floor. The coral are important to fish such as snapper, grouper and bass.

The legislative commission requested a briefing from the Navy to hear more about mid-frequency sonar and its impact on fish.

Smith, a biologist dispatched with a team from Virginia, said fishing is unlikely to be disrupted by the sonar range. As evidence, she cited a small number of scientific studies, and the Navy's experience near a sonar training range in the Pacific Ocean.

But the Navy recognizes that commercial and recreational fishermen remain skeptical and says it will take steps to be more accommodating. The Navy will submit its analysis that fish habitat will not be threatened by the project to the National Marine Fisheries Service for additional review, Smith said.

Also, rather than simply sending out radio warnings to mariners, as it planned, it will find other means to notify people about the timing of its exercises, possibly using the Internet. And the Navy is willing to arrange its schedule around important fishing tournaments, Smith said.

Those changes did not win confidence from Sean McKeon of the N.C. Fisheries Association.

"There is significant uncertainty. I have not heard much that changes that uncertainty," he said.

Environmentalists have asked the Navy to extend beyond Dec. 28 the period in which it will accept public comment on its draft environmental review. They say two pending scientific reports could give important insight into the impact sonar has on marine mammals, which are more aggressively protected by federal laws than fish are.

One study, by the marine fisheries service, is evaluating what caused the rare beaching of three species of whales on the Outer Banks almost a year ago. The Navy used sonar offshore before the strandings but has said it was too far away to have caused trouble. Environmentalists have sued to obtain government documents on that and other strandings.

The other report, conducted by the Marine Mammal Commission, was ordered by Congress to evaluate the effect of sound on sea life.

Federal law would require the Navy to modify its impact report if either study presents information that significantly contradicts the Navy's current assessments, Smith said.