WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration on Monday cleared the way for Navy use of a powerful low-frequency sonar to identify enemy submarines, a move environmentalists say will lead to increased strandings and deaths of whales.
The Commerce Department's National Marine Fisheries Service granted the Navy, which has spent $300 million developing the system, a five-year exemption from the Marine Mammal Protection Act. It allows "harassment" of marine mammals by the Navy with its intense low-frequency sonar, called the Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System, or Surtass LFA.
The National Marine Fisheries Service said in a statement that, with proper monitoring and safeguards, "Marine mammals are unlikely to be injured by the sonar activities and the sonar will have no more than a negligible impact on marine mammal species and stocks."
The exemption is due to be reviewed on an annual basis.