AWI Comments on a Proposed Seismic Survey on the Blanco Fracture Zone by the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory

July 6, 2004

Objections to the Issuance of an Incidental Harassment Authorization to the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory for a Seismic Survey on the Blanco Fracture Zone

The Animal Welfare Institute and the groups listed at the end of this document object in the strongest terms to the granting of official US Government permission (in the form of an Incidental Harassment Authorization (IHA) from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)) to conduct this survey.

The application for an IHA permit is inappropriate

According to application information found at the NOAA website http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/prot_res/PR2/Small_Take/smalltake_info.htm#IHA, in order to qualify for an IHA, a project must have either no possibility of causing severe injury or death or incorporate mitigations which will negate any possibility of severe injury or death. This project does not qualify for an IHA because it cannot meet either condition, but instead is based on a string of false assumptions, including:

-    that the possibility of causing severe injury or death can be eliminated;

-         that the mitigation measures proposed will negate the hazards posed to marine mammals - especially beaked whales;

-         that seismic airgun firing in the open ocean environment poses a significantly less hazardous situation for beaked whales involved than sonic events in “enclosed areas”;

-         that “ramping up” an airgun array will eliminate the chance of causing harm to beaked whales because they will move away;

-         that the hazard this project presents to fish, and therefore marine mammal habitat and resources, is negligible;

-    that physical injury begins at 180 decibels in the marine mammals involved in this application, and that through visual observation, whales can be kept away from harmful levels of sound. (Note- all references to decibels refer to dB measured in MicroPa@1meter);

-         that the behavioral responses of beaked whales to all sounds that might be produced in this experiment would be negligible;

-         that current research indicates that no harm will come to beaked whales exposed to the levels of sound anticipated in this study;

-         that it is possible to extrapolate with any precision the spread of sound from a source in different bodies of ocean on different days, to accurately determine what damage might be caused to marine mammals;

-         that the sound generated from either of the active sonar devices involved (the multibeam sonar and the sub-bottom profiler) present no additional or different hazard to marine mammals beyond the use of airguns, and therefore require no separate assessment of potential harm;

-         that all severe injuries and mortalities will be apparent in the short term and there will be zero severe long term effects

-         that the argument that the numbers of whales who might be affected is negligible in relation to the entire population is relevant for an IHA; and  

-         that only intense sonic energy released horizontally by active sonar (as opposed to vertically aimed sonar and airgun arrays) has the potential of causing severe injury or death.

NMFS must consider the best available science

In considering any application for an IHA, NMFS must incorporate in their deliberations the best available science. Failing to do so is a violation of the Administrative Procedures Act. In the application in question, studies that provide evidence that levels of harm might be higher than imagined by the applicant are either ignored or mentioned only in passing, avoiding their conclusions and implications.

This is especially true in considering the behavioral reactions of different species of cetaceans to sound, including the level at which beaked whales exhibit a startle response, and the mechanism for injury of beaked whales startled by sound. Relevant studies include the following paper by Jepson, many studies concerning the effects of intense sounds on fish (citations included as addendum), and the following: A call for research to assess risk of acoustic impact on beaked whale populations, SC/56/E36, Taylor et al. 2004; Historical mass mortalities of Ziphiids, Mead, J. 2000; Whales and the Military, Nature 337:448, by Simmonds, M.P. and L.F. Lopez-Jurado, 1991; Summary of the report of the atypical mass stranding of beaked whales in the Canary Islands in September 2002 during naval exercises by Martin-Martel, V. 2003; Does Acoustic testing strand whales? Nature 392:29, by Frantzis, A., 1998; Joint Interim Report on the Bahamas Marine Mammal Stranding Event of 15-16 March 2000, by Evans, D.L. and G. R. England.

The study by Jepson published in the October 4 issue of Nature entitled “Gas-Bubble Lesions in Stranded Cetaceans” (Nature 425: 575-576) describes the findings of necropsies performed on eight Cuvier’s beaked whales, a Blainville’s beaked whale and a Gervais beaked whale who stranded in the Canary Islands during and after an international naval exercise. Describing the microvascular hemorrhages found throughout the vital organs of the whales, the paper says,

“These lesions are consistent with acute trauma due to in vivo bubble formation resulting from rapid decompression (as occurs in decompression sickness). Bubble formation in response to sonar exposure might result from behavioral changes to normal dive profiles (such as accelerated ascent rate), causing excessive nitrogen supersaturation in the tissues (as occurs in decompression sickness); alternatively, bubble formation might result from a physical effect of sonar on in vivo bubble precursors (gas nuclei) in nitrogen-supersaturated tissues.”

The study cites other cases of stranded cetaceans who exhibited evidence of bubble-associated tissue injury, including three Risso’s dolphins, three common dolphins, one harbor porpoise, and one Blainville’s beaked whale who stranded on the coasts of Britain between October 1992 and January 2003. All showed “gas bubbles in their blood vessels and gas-filled cavities in their parenchymous organs”.

The conclusions of this important paper were presented to general acclaim at the Marine Mammal Commission’s Beaked Whale Technical Workshop held from April 13-16. Dr. Peter Tyack pointed out that beaked whales are unique in their shallow angle of rise from dives, about 30%, more shallow a pitch than pilot whales and sperm whales. He surmised that this might be due to the fact that they are susceptible to a condition akin to decompression sickness (DCS) in humans, adding that this is the type of trauma we are now finding in beaked whales subjected to intense sounds.

Also presented at this workshop was the conclusion by Dr. Jay Barlow that the actual likelihood of spotting a beaked whale from a given vessel is a mere 1 to 2%.

Combining the ramifications of these studies and statements, a highly plausible new mechanism for injury emerges that must be considered by NMFS in all applications requesting permission to emit intense sounds into the ocean, especially but not exclusively when beaked whales are known to live in the area.

The mechanism described appears to be an acute behavioral response to relatively low (100-160 decibels) levels of sound, which may lead to death.

Recent events, subsequent research and expert discussions support the contention that beaked whales may startle when ensonified by specific anthropogenic noises from seismic survey experiments and mid-range sonars, rise suddenly without adequate decompression time, and suffer injuries and/or die from symptoms similar to decompression sickness in humans.

Given this information, the premise that a ship can avoid causing severe injury or death because they can visually identify whales within a safety zone that extends to the perimeter of 180 decibels, is shown to be false for two reasons: because the onset of injury appears to come from much lower sound levels and because the whales can’t be seen. If the safety perimeter is to include levels of sound that might cause physical injury, injuries that come from an acute behavioral response must be included.

Judging from the evidence from strandings of beaked whales in Greece, the Bahamas, Canary Islands, Baja California and the Azores, and considering the likely received levels of sound from the locations of ships and the locations of strandings, it cannot be proven that this startle response by the whales who died was not provoked by received levels of sound well below 160 decibels.

With the exception of Baja, these events were correlated with mid-frequency sonars. The Baja event has extended the potential for behavioral responses leading to injury and death to any high intensity sound, including the lower frequencies and shorter duration of tones used in seismic surveys. The applicant’s request cannot establish that this proposal would avoid impacts similar to those noted in the Baja event.

This application states that the reach of the 10 gun array at 160 decibels is 6,500 meters. With the 12 gun array, the reach of 160 decibels is set at 7,250 meters. Even with one 80 inch³ airgun firing at the initial start of ramp-up, the reach of 160 decibels is said to be 350 meters. A beaked whale directly under the ship at start-up could receive enough sound to startle and die just from the one air gun. And with the entire array activated, no observer in the clearest of conditions could see a whale at 6 or 7 kilometers.

The Mitigation Measures are Inadequate

Taken one by one, the proposed mitigation measures fail to meet the challenge of reducing the possibility of severe injury of death to zero. By law, all possibility of any severe injuries or deaths must be eliminated by mitigations, or never exist. The following quotes come from the applicant:

“The directional (downward) nature of the arrays to be used in this project is an important mitigating factor.”

In fact, in Figures 6 and 7, modeling schematics show the 168 decibel isopleth to be extensive within a relatively shallow angle to the surface of the water. The picture is not one of a narrow cone of sound focused towards the bottom of the ocean but of a bell with a very wide top. If a whale was diving deep, as beaked whales and others do, he could be hit by sound of at least 168 decibels many kilometers from the vessel, and no observer would ever know. Supersaturated whales might be startled to surface very quickly, perhaps triggering a DCS event. The applicant must disprove this potential for a wide horizontal impact zone from airgun array signals.

Additionally, these diagrams assume the best-case scenario, that the spread of sound from a source is predictable and will spread according to a model derived from calibration trials in the Gulf of Mexico. By contrast, each of the best studied beaked whale mass stranding events (in the Canary Islands, Azores and Bahamas) were facilitated by natural environmental conditions that concentrated the sound in ways that would be impossible to predict before making the sounds.

The formation of water lenses or channels are just some of the many variables affecting the spread of sound from a source in open ocean, including: wave action, “biological scattering agents”, depth of water, salinity, temperature, currents and the mixing of waters with differing attributes. The applicant does not have the capability to determine the actual acoustical environment prior to or during an experiment, or to predict zones of potential impact on beaked whales and other marine animals. There is no empirical evidence to substantiate the applicant’s implied claim that there will be no injurious behavioral responses or direct injury, because they also lack the technology and data to determine risk thresholds within the zones. It is also inappropriate for the applicant to assume that conditions on one day will be similar to the next.

“The size of the airgun arrays (which are smaller than the 20-airgun array used for some surveys) is another inherent and important mitigation measure.”

According to the application, the airgun array in question, when firing 12 airguns, produces 257 decibels (peak to peak) and when firing 10 airguns, produces 255 decibels, both levels among the highest anthropogenic sounds ever made. Even if most of the energy is directed vertically, the power levels are sufficient to cause injury if not death for most marine life within cubic kilometers of nearby waters. To say that the size of the airgun array is a mitigation because it is not bigger is like disparaging the clout of an atomic bomb by claiming that at least it is not a hydrogen bomb. And to argue that we must begin measuring potential impact far away from the source is to claim that we can be certain no creatures are below or close to the array when it is operating. We cannot. The applicant’s contention that a source level of “only” 257decibels is a mitigation in itself is capricious and illogical.

“Vessel-based observers will watch for marine mammals near the array when it is in use.”

As previously quoted from Dr. Jay Barlow, because of beaked whales’  inconspicuous shape, behavior and exhalations, the most experienced observers recognize that any beaked whale actually seen represents no more than 2% of the whales that may be present, even when close to the ship in still waters and in daylight. Given the 24 hour airgun schedule and workable sea state, visual mitigations for applicable marine creatures must be assumed to represent far less than 1% of the creatures close enough to be severely injured or killed. An IHA requires mitigations that negate any possibility of severe injury or death. It cannot reasonably be argued, and there is no proof, that vessel-based human monitors will be able to do anything at all to reduce potential injuries and mortalities.

"Ramp-up"

Ramp-up assumes that all vulnerable animals will be motivated to move away from the source before receiving levels that may result in deleterious impacts. This assumption apparently comes almost exclusively from citations from Richardson concerning the avoidance of bowhead and beluga whales in the path of approaching icebreakers and the grey whale avoidance noted by Tyack during the Low Frequency Active Sonar (LFA) Scientific Research Project (SRP). Both of these references involved millions of times less intense levels of sound with a far, far diminished reach.

Considerable evidence instead documents numerous behaviors such as approaching operating sources, or bowriding on vessels towing operating arrays. It is logical to expect different responses from experienced and naïve individuals.

Ramp-up cannot guarantee a response sufficient to negate any possibility of severe injury or death.

The applicant’s ramp-up also assumes that a beaked whale that happens to be within 350 meters beneath the source will move away laterally, and ignores the potential for the animal to rise vertically and come closer to the source because it must breathe, or be startled by the sound and ascend fast enough to trigger a DCS event.

Also, if beaked whales startle and sometimes die at levels of 160 decibels or lower, and if ramp-up begins with firing the 80” airgun which sends 160 decibels 350 meters, that may well be all that would be necessary to kill a beaked whale.

“The numbers of individual animals expected to be closely approached during the proposed activity will be small in relation to regional population sizes. With the proposed monitoring, ramp-up, and powerdown provisions, effects on those individuals are expected to be limited to behavioral disturbance. This is expected to have negligible impacts on the species and stocks.”

This claim may be considered to be a mitigating factor in other presentations, but not in applying for an IHA. The burden on the applicant is not merely to show negligible impacts on the species or stocks but on completely eliminating any possibility of causing severe injury or death. The applicant in this case is requesting permission to ensonify 138 beaked whales, hundreds of dolphins and thousands of Dalls porpoises with up to 160 decibels of sound energy, and yet apparently argues that not one will suffer a severe injury or death. This conclusion is logically untenable.

As they are based on the unproven mitigations from visual monitoring, there is nothing in the power-down procedures, the course alterations, or the shut-down procedures that give any additional protection to marine mammals or mitigate in any way the potential for these airgun devices to cause more harm than an IHA would permit.

There is no research that indicates that the hazards loud noises pose to cetaceans in enclosed bays and underwater canyons is eliminated when airguns or sonar are employed in the open ocean. In fact, the Joint Interim Report on the Bahamas Marine Mammal Stranding Event of 15-16 March 2000 concluded that “reverberation from the sides or bottom of the submarine canyons likely did not contribute significantly.” It also states “Although the Bahamas stranding appears to be the outcome of an immediate acute response to sound [emphasis this author’s], several reviewers have noted that chronic short or long term sound effects might not manifest themselves in any overt behavioral or physiological effect, but instead only be apparent in symptoms of stress such as depressed immune system function.”

It is indeed a reasonable hypothesis that beaked whales are found more frequently stranded after sonic events near land because there are beaches to strand upon. Considering the negative buoyancy of beaked whales, their difficulty of being spotted from a ship, and the paucity of data concerning the population size of these creatures in any sea, there is a great likelihood that whales could be killed without ever being seen, avoided or tallied. This is unacceptable under any conditions, especially under an IHA.

The application optimistically and firmly states, “any injurious effects on fish would be limited to short distances” and mentions “within a meter or so of an airgun.” This statement is false, according to the best available science. References provided with this document include 21 citations from peer-reviewed scientific literature that document far-reaching, extensive and dramatic effects on fish and fisheries from the use of airguns. The conclusions expressed in this literature counter this “mitigation”, and must not be ignored by the applicant, or by NMFS.

It is likely that this type of project has previously caused marine mammal deaths.

The application mentions strandings of beaked whales associated with seismic activities and the September 2002 Baja California strandings, and states that “The evidence with respect to seismic surveys and beaked whale strandings is inconclusive, and NMFS has not established a link between the Gulf of California stranding and the seismic activities (Hogarth 2002).”

There is a need to revise this statement in light of a recent paper authored by some of those directly involved in the September 2002 stranding who are also NMFS scientists. The paper, entitled, “A call for research to assess risk of acoustic impact on beaked whale populations” prepared for submission to the Scientific Committee of the 56th International Whaling Commission meeting (SC/56E36) reports on the stranding as being “the first observation implicating low-frequency seismic exploration in whale strandings.”  The authors document first-hand experience of beaked whale strandings that coincided exactly with a seismic survey being conducted by R/V Maurice Ewing (operated by Columbia University, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory) – the same vessel subject to the current IHA permit application.  The paper concludes “there is reason to suspect that high-intensity sound used for academic research and perhaps maritime oil exploration may also be capable of injuring some types of cetaceans.”

Conclusion

It is not within the NMFS’ scope to balance the economic or scientific value of the study against the value of the marine mammals who may be taken. NMFS is responsible for protecting marine mammals by enforcing the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The MMPA only authorizes the lethal taking of marine mammals under extraordinary circumstances.

It is now clear that beaked whales and other species have been washing up by the dozens in connection with the use of sonar and seismic airguns. No one argues that the levels of sounds employed are incredibly high. The arguments in favor of allowing these devices hinge on the presumption that whales and other creatures will not be harmed, or will just leave an area when barraged by sound. These presumptions are either not based on science or are simply false.

US federal courts have repeatedly found a preponderance of evidence that the use of seismic and sonar devices present a clear and present danger to whales and dolphins: on October 28, 2002 restraining the operations of the very ship in question in this application (the Maurice Ewing) for their connection to the stranding of two beaked whales, on October 30, 2002 blocking the worldwide deployment of Low Frequency Active (LFA) sonar, and then on August 26, 2003 when a permanent injunction was issued on the use of LFA in coastal areas. All of these operations, plus the use of sonar in the Bahamas, were permitted by NMFS. Obviously, we are failing to stop projects that can prove lethal. And yet, NMFS officials believe that the burden of proof falls upon their shoulders to show that there will be more than negligible harm to a population from a project in order to deny an application.

That is not the case here. The applicant has applied for the wrong type of “small take authorization”. The proposed project poses a lethal threat to marine mammals and therefore does not qualify for an IHA, an abbreviated form of application only allowed where there is no possibility whatsoever of causing a severe injury or death.

The area planned for this seismic study has a high concentration of rare whales, one of them the most endangered baleen whale on earth (the North Pacific Right Whale.) The applicant does not know where the whales will be if the airguns were to be turned on, how many will be there, what their reactions might be, or what the cumulative effect of multiple exposures might be. They don’t really know how far the sound will reach at different depths or at what point creatures will be harmed by either resonance, ear damage or bubble growth in their blood or organs. There is no study planned or data offered concerning long-term deleterious effects. With almost no data about the size of current populations of beaked whales, or a reliable way to accurately count them in the future, there is no way to ground-truth the assumption that the project will cause zero deaths or severe injuries. With this extensive absence of data, deference must be made to the creatures involved.

If NMFS grants an IHA to this applicant, NMFS is accepting unproven or rejected assumptions and, without scientific justification or legal merit, is accepting responsibility for knowingly allowing an action that is unable to promise no possibility of causing severe injury or death, or able to incorporate mitigations that NMFS is certain will negate any possibility of severe injury or death.  The application for an Incidental Harassment Authorization from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory for a seismic survey along the Blanco Fracture Zone must be rejected. 

Co-Signees:

ASMS Ocean Care (Germany)

Canadian Marine Environment Protection Society

Cetacean Society International

Earth Island Institute

Elsa Nature Conservancy (Japan)

Finns for the Whales

Helsinki Humane Society

Humane Society of Canada

Mundo Azul (Peru)

National Trust Malta

New York Whale and Dolphin Action League

North Coast Cetacean Society

Ocean Mammal Institute

Orcalab/Pacific Orca Society

Project Thursday’s Child

The Dolphin Project

Zoocheck, Canada