Ocean Noise in the News
Sonar range called off the mark
by PATRICIA SMITH, The Daily News
November 18th, 2005
Almost all who spoke at a public hearing on the subject Thursday in Morehead City said the draft EIS needs more work.
"If we could actually do this in an environmentally responsible manner, then I would have no problem with it," said David Shiffman, a student at Duke Marine Lab in Beaufort.
"But I think we have a long way to go."
Many of the speakers disagreed with a conclusion in the draft EIS that the concentrated use of sonar would not significantly affect fish or fish habitat.
"As charter boat captains, we have witnessed a complete shutdown of fishing in this area while the Navy was conducting training," said Stephen Draughon, a Morehead City charter boat captain who spoke on behalf of North Carolina Watermen United.
A great deal of the economy in eastern North Carolina depends on fish like tuna, dolphin, wahoo and billfish, said Steve Tulevech, owner of Town Creek Marina in Beaufort.
The fishermen who use his docks spends thousands of dollars trying to minimize the sounds coming from their boats so as not to scare the fish, Tulevech said.
"I find it very hard to think that that ping development will not have an impact on these pelagic finfish," Tulevech said.
Joe Luczkovich, an East Carolina University professor of marine biology and expert in fish acoustics, said scientific studies have shown that fish will avoid the pings from a dolphin.
"It's clearly documented in nature," Luczkovich said.
"Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the Navy, they're good guys," said Terrell Gould, a Morehead City charter boat owner. "But the site ya'll picked out is bad."
Several who spoke at the hearing took the Navy to task on other aspects of the draft EIS, as well.
Mike Street, chief of habitat protection with the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries, said he was concerned about plans to bury cables in the ocean floor.
"Trenching the hard bottoms will, by definition, degrade those bottoms," Street said.
He asked the Navy what they would do to mitigate for that environmental damage.
Others expressed concern that a proposal to train personnel as marine mammal spotters will not be enough to avoid harming whales and dolphins.
"The monitoring program, at least what it looks like on paper, is a guy on the boat with binoculars," Shiffman said.
The Navy will accept written comments from the public on the draft EIS until Dec. 28. Comments should be mailed to Naval Facilities Engineering Command Atlantic, Attention Keith Jenkins, Code EV21KJ, 6506 Hampton Blvd., Norfolk, Va. 23508-1278 or faxed to (757) 322-4894.