Kaveh L Afrasiabi has an interesting piece on the Asia Times Online today:
A federal judge in Los Angeles has imposed rigid limits on the navy's use of mid-frequency sonar off the coast of southern California. The sonar is suspected of causing disruption to whale and dolphin navigation systems.
The ruling, in response to a case brought by environmentalists, bans sonar within 12 nautical miles of the California coast, increases the navy's "shut down" zone for sonar use near marine mammals, and mandates the navy monitor for marine mammals one hour prior to sonar exercises as well as during them.
The court's finding, with "near certainty" that US naval sonic "mitigation schemes" are "grossly inadequate to protect marine mammals from debilitating levels of sonar exposure", has direct bearing on the navy's operations in the Persian Gulf, which include active sonar training "under actual conditions".
The navy's surface ships and submarines stationed in the Persian Gulf use sonar to detect Iran's Russian-made diesel submarines. And given the mass stranding of several species of whales following US naval exercises in, among other places, the Bahamas, the Canary Islands, Hawaii, North Carolina, Japan, Spain, Taiwan, and the US Virgin Islands, these operations could be called challenged....
...Recently, the US Navy went on record in support of the use of "all US environmental laws worldwide", but this was before the California decision....
...The US Navy's use of high intensity, mid-frequency sonar is probably behind the alarming rate of self-stranding dolphins and whales on Iran's beaches. The Persian Gulf is the habitat of 40 different types of dolphins and the largest living mammal, the blue whale, and both species are endangered by US sonar activities. These activities, per the US court ruling, "cause irreparable harm" to marine mammals. Many more mammals may have died in deeper waters and, in the absence of any systematic study and data, we may be witnessing only the tip of the iceberg with beached mammals....
...From the prism of international (environmental) law, US naval activities that harm the national resources of Iran and other Persian Gulf countries are prime for litigation in national and international courts. This is not to mention the pollution caused by the shipping noise as well as "military solid wastes" connected to explosives, munition fragments and other toxic material dumped into the Persian Gulf each time the US Navy holds a maneuver....
...Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinejad recently unveiled a cooperative plan for the Persian Gulf that prioritizes environment, and it would be a pity for Arab states of the Gulf Cooperation Council to ignore it....
...But the US has a special role to play. At a minimum, it can train Persian Gulf fishermen whose nets are partly responsible for the death of marine mammals, on how to install noisemakers ("pingers") to deter cetaceans from fishnets. In some cases, such as harbor porpoises in the Gulf of Maine, the use of pingers has significantly reduced the number of mammals becoming entangled....
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