Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Wall Street Journal
June 27, 2008
Pg. 12
Now that the Supreme Court has decided to review the case of high intensity Navy sonar, it will do well to ignore your editorial ("Judge Ahab and the Whales," June 19).
There is nothing "speculative" about the serious harm caused by sonar, as the Navy itself concedes. Though the harm can be reduced by conducting training with common sense safeguards, the Navy has refused to do so, even in the face of overwhelming evidence linking mass whale mortalities to sonar exposure -- a link characterized as "completely convincing" by the Navy's own consultants.
Nor is there anything "activist" in the decisions of every federal court that has considered the Navy's sonar training practices, concluding without exception that the Navy is not above the law and that, when it tests and trains with sonar, it can and must do so in an environmentally responsible manner.
In the case up for review, the trial and appellate courts found that the Navy has repeatedly violated the law, that its own limited mitigation is "woefully inadequate," and that the health of our oceans can be better protected without compromising the Navy's sonar training. Determining the facts about Navy sonar training, and then carefully applying the law, is precisely what these federal judges have done, and their decision should be affirmed.
Joel Reynolds, Director, Marine Mammal Protection Project, Natural Resources Defense Council, Santa Monica, Calif.
June 27, 2008
Pg. 12
Now that the Supreme Court has decided to review the case of high intensity Navy sonar, it will do well to ignore your editorial ("Judge Ahab and the Whales," June 19).
There is nothing "speculative" about the serious harm caused by sonar, as the Navy itself concedes. Though the harm can be reduced by conducting training with common sense safeguards, the Navy has refused to do so, even in the face of overwhelming evidence linking mass whale mortalities to sonar exposure -- a link characterized as "completely convincing" by the Navy's own consultants.
Nor is there anything "activist" in the decisions of every federal court that has considered the Navy's sonar training practices, concluding without exception that the Navy is not above the law and that, when it tests and trains with sonar, it can and must do so in an environmentally responsible manner.
In the case up for review, the trial and appellate courts found that the Navy has repeatedly violated the law, that its own limited mitigation is "woefully inadequate," and that the health of our oceans can be better protected without compromising the Navy's sonar training. Determining the facts about Navy sonar training, and then carefully applying the law, is precisely what these federal judges have done, and their decision should be affirmed.
Joel Reynolds, Director, Marine Mammal Protection Project, Natural Resources Defense Council, Santa Monica, Calif.