A new set of rules might be in the works for the U.S. Navy's use of sonar off the Washington and Oregon coasts. The goal is to decrease the harm that sonar does to marine mammals.
If approved, those measures would be in effect from 2010 to 2015 for the Navy's training area in the Pacific Ocean off the Washington, Oregon and Northern California coasts.
The proposal does not seek permission for sonar training within Puget Sound, U.S. Navy spokeswoman Sheila Murray said.
The Navy, along with commercial and private ships and boats, routinely uses high-frequency, low-power navigational and fish-finding sonar in Puget Sound. This type of sonar does not harm marine mammals, Fischel said.
The Navy uses a different type of sonar to hunt for submarines. That sonar can harm marine mammals.
NMFS does not have authority over the the Navy using the sub-hunting type of sonar in Puget Sound or the Pacific Ocean, but it will investigate incidents if marine mammals are killed, Fischel said. NMFS can tell the Navy the maximum allowable number of killed and injured mammals.
Information on the current use of the sub-hunting type of sonar in Puget Sound is not available.
Meanwhile, the Navy is also asking NMFS to allow incidental harm and fatalities to marine mammals from training exercises in a 122,400-square-mile section of the Pacific Ocean off the Northwest coast.
Marine mammals such as whales and orcas have sensitive hearing that can be harmed by sonar.
Several months ago, the Navy put sonar-mitigation plans in effect for its three biggest training areas off the coast of the Atlantic states, Southern California and Hawaii, said Jim Lecky, who is charge of such protection programs for NMFS.
Those plans call for decreasing use of sonar when marine mammals are 1,000 and 500 meters from a ship -- with sonar being shut down at the 200-meter mark.
Lecky and Fischel said it is too early say what mitigation measures would be used off the Pacific Northwest coast.
The Navy is conducting an environmental impact study on the matter to submit to NMFS. A public comment period on a draft of that plan is expected in the fall, Murray said.
"I think this is a step in the right direction. ... This makes what happened with the Shoup longer possible," said Fred Felleman, a consultant with the Friends of the Earth, an organization that monitors the issue.
The destroyer USS Shoup's sonar apparently spooked Puget Sound's orcas in 2003.
However, Felleman contended that the Navy and NMFS need to do more extensive studies on sonar's effects on marine mammals that what is planned.
The July 13 Federal Register reported that the Navy wants NMFS to permit up to 14 dead marine mammals from its proposed sonar use up to 250 miles from the the Northwest coast. There are at least 26 species of marine mammals in that area -- mostly types of whales, plus orcas, sea lions and sea otters.
The Federal Register is a daily publication for rules and proposed rules for federal agencies and organizations. Sonar is suspected in five whale beachings worldwide in the past 12 years, with the 2000 beaching the Bahamas being the only confirmed case, the Federal Register said.
Sonar is believed to be the culprit that drove at least 150 melon-headed whales into shallow water off Hawaii in 2004, resulting in the death of one, the Federal Register said.
In April, the Navy released a draft plan to track sonar's effects on marine mammals off the Northwest coast that included passive acoustic monitoring buoys, air and sea surveys plus tagging some animals.
The Navy and NMFS are working on improving that draft.