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FEDERAL COURT ISSUES INJUNCTION AGAINST LFA SONAR!
Blasting of seas with sound violates many laws, says federal judge
This Halloween a very scary technology got a big setback. Federal Judge Elizabeth LaPorte ruled that the National Marine Fisheries service issued the U.S. Navy an illegal permit to blast the oceans with sound.
Those of you who have followed the GPF website and campaign have some ideas of the destructive potential these intense sound sources can have on marine wildlife. Marine mammals could be killed at some distance, and seriously harassed throughout most of the worlds oceans. The effect on the many thousands of OTHER species in the seas which use sound cannot even be guessed at.
Greenpeace Foundation President Susie White lauded the results of the case filed by NRDC and other nonprofit groups. "Its about time the impacts on the broader world were addressed in the escalation of military technology. Ive heard it said by proponents that enemy subs are potential terrorists, but as of this writing there is no huge danger from the low-tech submarines of rogue nations." White went on to urge the scrapping of this "inappropriate technology" in favor of more computer-intensive "acoustic daylight", which doesnt harm the environment and which doesnt betray the positions of U.S. ships and subs to a potential adversary.
Judge LaPorte, in issuing the injunction, found that NRDC and the other plaintiffs are likely to prevail in proving violations under the MMPA, NEPA, ESA, and APA.
In fact, the systems are already partially deployed, and we may now expect the Defense Department to claim that conservationists and the conservation laws themselves are standing in the way of national defense. "Defense from what?" asks White. "I grew up in a military family and support the people of the U.S. military, but enemy submarines are not high on the list of threats to this nation; while immediate irreversible damage to the ecosystem certainly is. LFA sonar doesnt even confer a strategic advantage, since it lights up US submarines too. Wed probably be better off as a nation by taking that money and using it to search incoming container ships and police the border. Wed be safer as a nation and we wouldnt be in the business of harming the seas."
It has been reported that LFA sonar sound has been measured at 140 decibels 300 miles away from the sonar source. Sound of this intensity can cause actual physical damage.
We havent heard the last of this, but it is a historic moment: the eternally-escalating human machinery of war has been forced to pause due to considerations of the effects on nonhumans. And its about time.
