NAVY SONAR
When 12 Cuvier’s beaked whales came ashore
along the coast of Greece in 1996, the event raised
alarm bells among scientists. Cuvier’s beaked
whales, like other beaked and bottlenose whales
(not be confused with the more familiar bottlenose
dolphins), are deep-diving, open-ocean animals that
rarely strand en masse; prior to the 1996 event,
only seven strandings of more than four individuals
had been recorded since 1963.43 Two of those had
occurred the decade before, in 1988 and 1989,
both times in the Canary Islands. However, there
were more that would follow: in the Bahamas in
2000, in Madeira that same year, twice more in
the Canary Islands, in 2002 and 2004, off Spain,
Greece, Italy, and other locations
—all involving one
or more species of beaked whales, with several
featuring other cetacean species as well.44
The common factor? As far back as 1991, an
article in the scientific journal Nature had suggested
that cetaceans might be at risk from certain
military activities, and another article in the same
journal following the Greek strandings pointed an
accusatory finger specifically at nearby naval
exercises testing a form of “active sonar” for the
detection of submarines.45 Subsequent studies
delved into the link in greater depth, and by 2004
the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling
Commission agreed that “there is now compelling
evidence implicating military sonar as a direct
impact on beaked whales in particular.”46 The
primary culprit was mid-frequency active sonar, one
of the Navy’s primary means of submarine detection,
which puts out high-intensity sound that is acutely
alarming to marine life. Often used during the
Cold War to track a deep-sea submarine threat,
mid-frequency sonar is increasingly used to scan
shallower environments for submarines that are
able to operate in most coastal waters.47
Necropsies of beaked whales stranded in the
Bahamas in 2000 clearly revealed that the animals
had suffered acoustic trauma resulting in
hemorrhaging around the brain, in the inner ears,
and in the acoustic fats located in the head that
are involved in sound transmission. Analysis of
beaked whales that stranded during the 2002
Canary Islands episode found acute systemic
micro-hemorrhages and gas and fat emboli.
These findings are consistent with a scenario in
which the whales experience such stress from the
sonar blasts that they rapidly change their diving
to escape them —too rapidly, in fact, to the
extent that they suffer hemorrhaging and physical
trauma akin to ‘the bends,’ or decompression
sickness.48 Subsequent studies have only
underscored this conclusion.49
Stranded whales represent the most visible impacts
of naval sonar, but on the Navy’s ranges the
cumulative effects of repeated disruptions of
foraging and other vital behaviors may be of greater
concern. Recent studies have shown that sonar
suppresses blue whale foraging calls and could
drive these ocean giants from their krill patches.50
Another line of study shows that sonar causes
beaked whales to stop feeding, go silent, and
abandon their habitat
—again and again —on
exposure to sonar. Compared with their beaked
whale neighbors, the population of Blainville’s
beaked whale that lives on the Navy’s Bahamas
range is much smaller in abundance and has
remarkably few juveniles and calves: a sign that
the range has become a population sink, allowing
the whales enough food to survive but not to
effectively reproduce.51 Analysis by the U.S. Navy
itself has acknowledged that testing of their active
sonar can, over periods of several years, affect
marine mammals millions of times.52
It is worth noting that none of the cases mentioned
involve naval confrontations with submarines. They
are all training exercises and at-sea equipment
tests, refining equipment and readying sailors
for such events. Neither NRDC nor IFAW, nor other
partners involved in legal action, wishes to
compromise national security. However, the Navy
should follow the advice of scientists and not
conduct its training and testing activities in or near
sensitive habitat for vulnerable whales and other
marine mammals during periods when these
species are present. In 2015, in the wake of
legal action, the Navy and conservation groups
hammered out an agreement that would
safeguard important marine mammal habitat
without compromising military readiness off
Southern California and Hawaii, in two of the
Navy’s most intensively-used ranges. Protecting
habitat is a common-sense measure that will allow
the Navy to continue securing its sailors at sea,
without sacrificing the marine life that lives
beneath the waves they patrol.
AN OCEAN OF NOISE: OTHER HUMAN IMPACTS
The rise of ambient noise in the ocean has been
described by eminent oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle
as being like a “death by a thousand cuts.”53 Almost
everywhere, particularly in coastal regions but also
in the open ocean, humanity has introduced an
industrial chorus of bangs, clanks and thuds across
the sea, transforming large swaths of the ocean
into a horn-honking, traffic-choked Manhattan. From
almost every corner, the noises grow and continue.
Pile driving is used for harbor works, bridge
construction, oil and gas platform installations, and
the construction of offshore wind farm foundations;
the noise produced not only enters the water
column directly, it also travels through the seabed.54
Dredging and digging are undertaken to maintain
shipping lanes, extract geological resources such
as sand and gravel, and to route seafloor pipelines.
Offshore wind farms produce not only high levels of
low-frequency noise during their construction, but
also more moderate levels during their operation.55
Underwater explosions
—in the course of construction
or as a result of detonation of marine ammunition
dumps
—can cause not only injury or death from
shock waves, but hearing damage from the sound.56
Likewise, the contributions of the oil and gas
industry to the sonic din do not end with seismic
testing: once deposits are found, the drilling or
extraction phase adds even more noise into the
underwater environment.
Reducing noise outputs is theoretically more
feasible for some of these activities than for others.
Oil platforms, by their very size and nature, do not
easily lend themselves to quietening measures; the
noise from pile driving, however, may be reduced at
the source by using continuous pressure or suction
rather than a hammer action to place the pile into
the sea bed.57 Noise propagation may also be
reduced by fixed screens or bubble curtains around
the piles, although some of these measures are
practical only in low tidal currents and relatively
shallow water.58 Deploying bubble curtains may also
be a practical solution for reducing the impact of
detonations and explosions.
Yet so great is the scope and variety of the noise
sources with which we are bombarding the marine
environment that ultimately a more comprehensive
approach
—one that, for example, seeks to reduce
or limit the total amount of anthropogenic noise
in the ocean
—may prove essential. Already the
European Union has taken the first steps towards
holistic, multi-sector regulation of ocean noise.
Meanwhile, with every day that ocean noise levels
increase, the broader noise footprint worsens.
Seismic tests do not just create loud blasts that
carry for hundreds of miles; they reveal oil and gas
deposits which, when burned, cause carbon dioxide
to enter the atmosphere. Some of that carbon
dioxide returns to the ocean, sparking a process
in which the pH of the ocean is becoming lower,
a process known as ocean acidification.59 And,
as is well-known, much of the carbon dioxide that
is released from the burning of fossil fuels enters
the atmosphere, warming it; the effects of
planetary warming are especially pronounced in the
Arctic, where diminishing sea ice seems destined to
result in more ship traffic, more associated
port construction, and yet more oil and gas
exploration
—all creating more ocean noise.60
Increased levels of anthropogenic noise cause
cetaceans to avoid areas they would normally
inhabit, sometimes permanently. It provokes
changes in diving and foraging behavior, leading to
the expenditure of greater energy and the loss of
feeding opportunities. It can cause temporary and
permanent deafness, and in some cases lead to
fatalities. It has the clear potential to induce a state
of chronic stress. And it is creating an oceanic world
in which species that have evolved over millions of
years to talk and listen to each other across tens,
hundreds and, for the great whales, even thousands
of miles are no longer able to do so.61
They are calling still, some effectively yelling to be
heard above the din. As we are creating the ever
increasing noise, it is up to us to hear them, and to
turn down the noise in the ocean.
RECOMMENDATIONS
To date, much of the effort made to mitigate ocean
noise has focused on safety: trying to spot marine
mammals within a few hundred meters of a powerful
piledriver or airgun array, and pause operations
until they have gone and are no longer at risk of
direct injury. But this approach fails to address
the fundamental threat that ocean noise poses to
marine ecology, systems, and habitat. Around the
world the scientific community and policymakers
have increasingly urged noise reduction and habitat
conservation as the way forward in management of
this global problem, and the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the European
Union (EU), the International Maritime Organization
(IMO), and other authorities have begun to take
up the call. On the industry side, noise-quieting
technologies are gradually becoming available for
offshore construction, oil and gas exploration,
commercial shipping, and other activities, but
require regulatory intervention to further develop
and bring to market.
Here are ten critical actions that Congress and the
Administration should take to meet the challenge
of ocean noise pollution.
Leading the way in noise quieting
1) Using all authorities available to them under
the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the
Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, and other
statutes, NOAA, the Bureau of Ocean Energy
Management, and other regulatory agencies
should require as standard practice that
industry use technology and methods with the
smallest environmental footprint during seismic
exploration, offshore construction, and other
activities. Additionally, the agencies should
use incentive measures and action-forcing
mechanisms
—an approach that has borne
success in Europe
—to accelerate development
of new noise-quieting methods.
2) Congress should require implementation of
IMO ship-quieting guidelines on all new U.S.-flag
vessels, and should provide tax benefits for new
and existing privately-owned U.S.-flag vessels
to install ship-quieting technologies and to
obtain quiet-ship notation from a member of
the IACS, the International Association of
Classification Societies.
3) The Administration should establish a program
to advise and aid port authorities in establishing
noise management plans. Such plans should
include monitoring the noise output of individual
commercial ships (which some North American
ports have begun to undertake), in order to
encourage quiet performance and, per IMO
recommendation, to identify the noisiest ships for
potential management action by shipping lines.
4) Federal agencies, such as the Bureau of
Ocean Energy Management, should fund
research aimed at improving noise reduction
methods (e.g., for seismic exploration) and at
assessing the environmental impacts of those
methods. Additionally, agencies should utilize
the National Oceanographic Partnership
Program to fund cooperative public-private
research on the cost, efficiency gains or losses,
and noise-reduction benefits of ship-quieting
technologies for new and existing vessels.
Congress should increase the funds available
to agencies for such research.
5) The U.S. government should begin championing
the amendment of MARPOL, the International
Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from
Ships, to include underwater noise or energy
as a form of pollution. While a long-range goal,
amendment ultimately is essential to close
an historical gap in oceans law and achieve
international regulation of this global problem.
Managing noise in important marine habitat
6) Congress should authorize and fund an ocean
noise management program within the National
Marine Sanctuaries, and NOAA should incorpo
-
rate noise management into its management
plans and consultations for National Marine
Sanctuaries and marine national monuments.
In protecting these recognized areas, we
are taking an important step in establishing
acoustic refuges for marine life off our shores.
7) NOAA, in collaboration with other agencies,
should conduct a review of ship traffic off the
U.S. coast, synthesizing the available acoustic,
species distribution, and ship-tracking data
in order to determine how best to reduce and
manage shipping noise impacts on our coastal
and marine habitat. As part of this effort, the
Administration should identify specific areas of
importance for noise reduction and establish
an interagency program to reduce noise in those
areas, through routing measures, ship-speed
reduction, and other means.
8) The President should direct NOAA to use its
existing authorities to protect the acoustic
habitat of marine species; and, in facilitating
this effort, to dedicate a portion of its annual
budget to the implementation of NOAA’s new
Ocean Noise Strategy, as a joint initiative
between NMFS’ Offices of Science and
Technology and Protected Resources and the
Office of National Marine Sanctuaries.
9) Much as the Department of Defense has
done for hazardous activities on its land-based
ranges, the U.S. Navy and NMFS should
establish protected areas on the Navy’s
offshore ranges within habitat and at times
of particular importance to marine mammals.
Within these areas, high-intensity sonar and
underwater explosives activities should be
restricted or limited.
10) The Administration should champion noisemanagement efforts within intergovernmental
organizations, continuing its leadership on
underwater noise at the IMO and International
Whaling Commission and advancing noise
management within other bodies, such as
the Arctic Council, which the U.S. will chair
through 2017.
43 Frantzis, A. 1998. ‘Does acoustic testing strand whales?’
Nature 392:29
44 Cox. T.M., et al. 2006. ‘Understanding the impacts of anthropo
-
genic sound on beaked whales.’ Journal of Cetacean Research
and Management 7(3): 177-187.
45 Simmonds, M.P., and Lopez-Jurado, L.F. 1991. Whales and
the military. Nature 351: 448; Frantzis, Does acoustic testing
stranding whales? supra
.
46 International Whaling Commission. 2004. ‘Report of the Scien
-
tific Committee.’ Journal of Cetacean Management 7. (Suppl.):
37–39.
47 U.S. Department of the Navy. Forward…from the Sea.
Washington, D.C.: Navy, 1994.
48 Fernández, A., Edwards, J.F., Rodriguez, F., Espinosa de los
Monteros, A., Herraez, P., Castro, P., Jaber, J.R., Martin, V., and
Arbelo, M. 2005. ‘Gas and fat embolic syndrome’ involving a
mass stranding of beaked whales (Family Ziphiidae) exposed to
anthropogenic sonar signals. Veterinary Pathology 42: 446-457
49 E.g., DeRuiter, S.L., et al. 2013. ‘First direct measurements of
behavioural responses by Cuvier’s beaked whales to mid-fre
-
quency active sonar.’ Biology Letters 9: 20130223; S.K.
Hooker, A. Fahlman, M.J. Moore, N. Aguilar de Soto, Y. Bernaldo
de Quiros, A.O. Brubakk, D.P. Costa, A.M. Costidis, S. Dennison,
K.J. Falke, A. Fernandez, M. Ferrigno, J.R. Fitz-Clarke, M.M.
Garner, D.S. Houser, P.D. Jepson, D.R. Ketten, P.H. Kvadsheim,
P.T. Madsen, N.W. Pollock, D.S. Rotstein, T.K. Rowles, S.E. Sim
-
mons, W. van Bonn, P.K. Weathersby, M.J. Weise, T.M. Williams,
and P.L. Tyack, Deadly diving? Physiological and behavioural
management of decompression stress in diving mammals,
Proceedings of the Royal Society Part B: Biological Sciences
(2011). Kvadsheim, P.H., Miller, P.J.O., Tyack, P.L., Sivle, L.L.D.,
Lam, F.-P.A., and Fahlman, A.2012..Estimated tissue and blood
N2 levels and risk of in vivo bubble formation in deep-, intermediate- and shallow diving toothed whales during exposure to
naval sonar. Frontiers in Physiology 3: 1–14.
50 Melcon, M.L., Cummins, A.J., Kerosky, S.M., Roche, L.K., and
Wiggins, S.M. 2012. Blue whales respond to anthropogenic
noise. PLoS ONE 7(2): e32681. Goldbogen, J.A., Southall, B.L.,
DeRuiter, S., Calambokidis, J., Friedlaender, A.S., Hazen, E.L.,
Falcone, E.A., Schorr, G.S., Douglas, A., Moretti, D.J., Kyburg,
C., McKenna, M.F., and Tyack, P.L. 2013. Blue whales respond
to simulated mid-frequency sonar. Proceedings of the Royal
Society B: Biological Sciences, 280: 20130657.
51 Claridge, D.E. 2013. Population ecology of Blainville’s beaked
whales (Mesoplodon densirostris). PhD. dissertation, University
of St. Andrews. New, L.F., Moretti, D.J., Hooker, S.K., Costa, D.P.,
and Simmons, S.E. 2013. Using energetic models to investigate
the survival and reproduction of beaked whales (family Ziphiidae).
PLoS ONE 8(7): e68725. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0068725.
52 U.S. Department of the Navy. 2013. Hawaii-Southern California
Training and Testing Environmental Impact Statement/ Overseas Environmental Impact Statement.
53 Earle, S. 2005. Defining the problem. In: Jasny, M. Sounding
the Depths II: The Rising Toll of Sonar, Shipping, and Industrial
Ocean Noise on Marine Life. New York: NRDC.
54 Hildebrand, J.A. 2009. ‘Anthropogenic and natural sources of
ambient noise in the ocean.’ Marine Ecology Progress Series.
395:4–20.
55 OSPAR Commission. 2009. ‘Overview of the Impacts of Anthro
-
pogenic Underwater Sound in the Marine Environment.’ London:
OSPAR Commission, 134pp.
56 Kochinski, S. 2011. Underwater noise pollution from munitions
clearance and disposal, possible effects on marine verte
-
brates, and its mitigation.’ Marine Technology Society Journal
45 (6): 80-88
57 Spence, J., et al. 2007. ‘Review of Existing and Future Poten
-
tial Treatments for Reducing Underwater Sound from Oil and
Gas Industry Activities.’ Noise Control Engineering, Inc. NCE
report 07-001.
58 Nehls, G., et al. 2007. ‘Assessment and Costs of Potential
Engineering Solutions for the Mitigation of the Impacts of Un
-
derwater Noise Arising from the Construction of Offshore Wind
Farms.” BioConsult SH report. Husum, Germany. On behalf of
COWRIE Ltd.
59 Caldeira, K., and Wickett, M.E. 2003. Anthropogenic carbon
and ocean pH. Nature 425: 365.
60 Alter, S.E., Simmonds, M.P., and Brandon, J.R. 2010. Fore
-
casting the consequences of climate-driven shifts in human
behavior on cetaceans. Marine Policy 34: 943-954.
61 Weilgart, L.S. 2007. ‘A brief review of known effects of noise
on marine mammals.’ International Journal of Comparative
Psychology 20: 159-168
When 12 Cuvier’s beaked whales came ashore
along the coast of Greece in 1996, the event raised
alarm bells among scientists. Cuvier’s beaked
whales, like other beaked and bottlenose whales
(not be confused with the more familiar bottlenose
dolphins), are deep-diving, open-ocean animals that
rarely strand en masse; prior to the 1996 event,
only seven strandings of more than four individuals
had been recorded since 1963.43 Two of those had
occurred the decade before, in 1988 and 1989,
both times in the Canary Islands. However, there
were more that would follow: in the Bahamas in
2000, in Madeira that same year, twice more in
the Canary Islands, in 2002 and 2004, off Spain,
Greece, Italy, and other locations
—all involving one
or more species of beaked whales, with several
featuring other cetacean species as well.44
The common factor? As far back as 1991, an
article in the scientific journal Nature had suggested
that cetaceans might be at risk from certain
military activities, and another article in the same
journal following the Greek strandings pointed an
accusatory finger specifically at nearby naval
exercises testing a form of “active sonar” for the
detection of submarines.45 Subsequent studies
delved into the link in greater depth, and by 2004
the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling
Commission agreed that “there is now compelling
evidence implicating military sonar as a direct
impact on beaked whales in particular.”46 The
primary culprit was mid-frequency active sonar, one
of the Navy’s primary means of submarine detection,
which puts out high-intensity sound that is acutely
alarming to marine life. Often used during the
Cold War to track a deep-sea submarine threat,
mid-frequency sonar is increasingly used to scan
shallower environments for submarines that are
able to operate in most coastal waters.47
Necropsies of beaked whales stranded in the
Bahamas in 2000 clearly revealed that the animals
had suffered acoustic trauma resulting in
hemorrhaging around the brain, in the inner ears,
and in the acoustic fats located in the head that
are involved in sound transmission. Analysis of
beaked whales that stranded during the 2002
Canary Islands episode found acute systemic
micro-hemorrhages and gas and fat emboli.
These findings are consistent with a scenario in
which the whales experience such stress from the
sonar blasts that they rapidly change their diving
to escape them —too rapidly, in fact, to the
extent that they suffer hemorrhaging and physical
trauma akin to ‘the bends,’ or decompression
sickness.48 Subsequent studies have only
underscored this conclusion.49
Stranded whales represent the most visible impacts
of naval sonar, but on the Navy’s ranges the
cumulative effects of repeated disruptions of
foraging and other vital behaviors may be of greater
concern. Recent studies have shown that sonar
suppresses blue whale foraging calls and could
drive these ocean giants from their krill patches.50
Another line of study shows that sonar causes
beaked whales to stop feeding, go silent, and
abandon their habitat
—again and again —on
exposure to sonar. Compared with their beaked
whale neighbors, the population of Blainville’s
beaked whale that lives on the Navy’s Bahamas
range is much smaller in abundance and has
remarkably few juveniles and calves: a sign that
the range has become a population sink, allowing
the whales enough food to survive but not to
effectively reproduce.51 Analysis by the U.S. Navy
itself has acknowledged that testing of their active
sonar can, over periods of several years, affect
marine mammals millions of times.52
It is worth noting that none of the cases mentioned
involve naval confrontations with submarines. They
are all training exercises and at-sea equipment
tests, refining equipment and readying sailors
for such events. Neither NRDC nor IFAW, nor other
partners involved in legal action, wishes to
compromise national security. However, the Navy
should follow the advice of scientists and not
conduct its training and testing activities in or near
sensitive habitat for vulnerable whales and other
marine mammals during periods when these
species are present. In 2015, in the wake of
legal action, the Navy and conservation groups
hammered out an agreement that would
safeguard important marine mammal habitat
without compromising military readiness off
Southern California and Hawaii, in two of the
Navy’s most intensively-used ranges. Protecting
habitat is a common-sense measure that will allow
the Navy to continue securing its sailors at sea,
without sacrificing the marine life that lives
beneath the waves they patrol.
AN OCEAN OF NOISE: OTHER HUMAN IMPACTS
The rise of ambient noise in the ocean has been
described by eminent oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle
as being like a “death by a thousand cuts.”53 Almost
everywhere, particularly in coastal regions but also
in the open ocean, humanity has introduced an
industrial chorus of bangs, clanks and thuds across
the sea, transforming large swaths of the ocean
into a horn-honking, traffic-choked Manhattan. From
almost every corner, the noises grow and continue.
Pile driving is used for harbor works, bridge
construction, oil and gas platform installations, and
the construction of offshore wind farm foundations;
the noise produced not only enters the water
column directly, it also travels through the seabed.54
Dredging and digging are undertaken to maintain
shipping lanes, extract geological resources such
as sand and gravel, and to route seafloor pipelines.
Offshore wind farms produce not only high levels of
low-frequency noise during their construction, but
also more moderate levels during their operation.55
Underwater explosions
—in the course of construction
or as a result of detonation of marine ammunition
dumps
—can cause not only injury or death from
shock waves, but hearing damage from the sound.56
Likewise, the contributions of the oil and gas
industry to the sonic din do not end with seismic
testing: once deposits are found, the drilling or
extraction phase adds even more noise into the
underwater environment.
Reducing noise outputs is theoretically more
feasible for some of these activities than for others.
Oil platforms, by their very size and nature, do not
easily lend themselves to quietening measures; the
noise from pile driving, however, may be reduced at
the source by using continuous pressure or suction
rather than a hammer action to place the pile into
the sea bed.57 Noise propagation may also be
reduced by fixed screens or bubble curtains around
the piles, although some of these measures are
practical only in low tidal currents and relatively
shallow water.58 Deploying bubble curtains may also
be a practical solution for reducing the impact of
detonations and explosions.
Yet so great is the scope and variety of the noise
sources with which we are bombarding the marine
environment that ultimately a more comprehensive
approach
—one that, for example, seeks to reduce
or limit the total amount of anthropogenic noise
in the ocean
—may prove essential. Already the
European Union has taken the first steps towards
holistic, multi-sector regulation of ocean noise.
Meanwhile, with every day that ocean noise levels
increase, the broader noise footprint worsens.
Seismic tests do not just create loud blasts that
carry for hundreds of miles; they reveal oil and gas
deposits which, when burned, cause carbon dioxide
to enter the atmosphere. Some of that carbon
dioxide returns to the ocean, sparking a process
in which the pH of the ocean is becoming lower,
a process known as ocean acidification.59 And,
as is well-known, much of the carbon dioxide that
is released from the burning of fossil fuels enters
the atmosphere, warming it; the effects of
planetary warming are especially pronounced in the
Arctic, where diminishing sea ice seems destined to
result in more ship traffic, more associated
port construction, and yet more oil and gas
exploration
—all creating more ocean noise.60
Increased levels of anthropogenic noise cause
cetaceans to avoid areas they would normally
inhabit, sometimes permanently. It provokes
changes in diving and foraging behavior, leading to
the expenditure of greater energy and the loss of
feeding opportunities. It can cause temporary and
permanent deafness, and in some cases lead to
fatalities. It has the clear potential to induce a state
of chronic stress. And it is creating an oceanic world
in which species that have evolved over millions of
years to talk and listen to each other across tens,
hundreds and, for the great whales, even thousands
of miles are no longer able to do so.61
They are calling still, some effectively yelling to be
heard above the din. As we are creating the ever
increasing noise, it is up to us to hear them, and to
turn down the noise in the ocean.
RECOMMENDATIONS
To date, much of the effort made to mitigate ocean
noise has focused on safety: trying to spot marine
mammals within a few hundred meters of a powerful
piledriver or airgun array, and pause operations
until they have gone and are no longer at risk of
direct injury. But this approach fails to address
the fundamental threat that ocean noise poses to
marine ecology, systems, and habitat. Around the
world the scientific community and policymakers
have increasingly urged noise reduction and habitat
conservation as the way forward in management of
this global problem, and the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the European
Union (EU), the International Maritime Organization
(IMO), and other authorities have begun to take
up the call. On the industry side, noise-quieting
technologies are gradually becoming available for
offshore construction, oil and gas exploration,
commercial shipping, and other activities, but
require regulatory intervention to further develop
and bring to market.
Here are ten critical actions that Congress and the
Administration should take to meet the challenge
of ocean noise pollution.
Leading the way in noise quieting
1) Using all authorities available to them under
the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the
Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, and other
statutes, NOAA, the Bureau of Ocean Energy
Management, and other regulatory agencies
should require as standard practice that
industry use technology and methods with the
smallest environmental footprint during seismic
exploration, offshore construction, and other
activities. Additionally, the agencies should
use incentive measures and action-forcing
mechanisms
—an approach that has borne
success in Europe
—to accelerate development
of new noise-quieting methods.
2) Congress should require implementation of
IMO ship-quieting guidelines on all new U.S.-flag
vessels, and should provide tax benefits for new
and existing privately-owned U.S.-flag vessels
to install ship-quieting technologies and to
obtain quiet-ship notation from a member of
the IACS, the International Association of
Classification Societies.
3) The Administration should establish a program
to advise and aid port authorities in establishing
noise management plans. Such plans should
include monitoring the noise output of individual
commercial ships (which some North American
ports have begun to undertake), in order to
encourage quiet performance and, per IMO
recommendation, to identify the noisiest ships for
potential management action by shipping lines.
4) Federal agencies, such as the Bureau of
Ocean Energy Management, should fund
research aimed at improving noise reduction
methods (e.g., for seismic exploration) and at
assessing the environmental impacts of those
methods. Additionally, agencies should utilize
the National Oceanographic Partnership
Program to fund cooperative public-private
research on the cost, efficiency gains or losses,
and noise-reduction benefits of ship-quieting
technologies for new and existing vessels.
Congress should increase the funds available
to agencies for such research.
5) The U.S. government should begin championing
the amendment of MARPOL, the International
Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from
Ships, to include underwater noise or energy
as a form of pollution. While a long-range goal,
amendment ultimately is essential to close
an historical gap in oceans law and achieve
international regulation of this global problem.
Managing noise in important marine habitat
6) Congress should authorize and fund an ocean
noise management program within the National
Marine Sanctuaries, and NOAA should incorpo
-
rate noise management into its management
plans and consultations for National Marine
Sanctuaries and marine national monuments.
In protecting these recognized areas, we
are taking an important step in establishing
acoustic refuges for marine life off our shores.
7) NOAA, in collaboration with other agencies,
should conduct a review of ship traffic off the
U.S. coast, synthesizing the available acoustic,
species distribution, and ship-tracking data
in order to determine how best to reduce and
manage shipping noise impacts on our coastal
and marine habitat. As part of this effort, the
Administration should identify specific areas of
importance for noise reduction and establish
an interagency program to reduce noise in those
areas, through routing measures, ship-speed
reduction, and other means.
8) The President should direct NOAA to use its
existing authorities to protect the acoustic
habitat of marine species; and, in facilitating
this effort, to dedicate a portion of its annual
budget to the implementation of NOAA’s new
Ocean Noise Strategy, as a joint initiative
between NMFS’ Offices of Science and
Technology and Protected Resources and the
Office of National Marine Sanctuaries.
9) Much as the Department of Defense has
done for hazardous activities on its land-based
ranges, the U.S. Navy and NMFS should
establish protected areas on the Navy’s
offshore ranges within habitat and at times
of particular importance to marine mammals.
Within these areas, high-intensity sonar and
underwater explosives activities should be
restricted or limited.
10) The Administration should champion noisemanagement efforts within intergovernmental
organizations, continuing its leadership on
underwater noise at the IMO and International
Whaling Commission and advancing noise
management within other bodies, such as
the Arctic Council, which the U.S. will chair
through 2017.
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