Yesterday the Supreme Court heard the Navy Sonar case that originated in California early this year when the Whitehouse attempted to overrule a district court judgment on the US Navy’s proposed sonar exercises off of the California cost. The actual…
Acidification of the oceans and attenuation
The ever-vigilant Jim Cummings – OCR board member and director of Acoustic Ecology Institute sent us the following article that correlates increased acidity in the ocean with decreased acoustical attenuation of sea water. This means that along with all of…
House approves offshore drilling
This afternoon the house voted and passed a bill that would allow offshore oil drilling. This bill would change a 30 year moratorium on offshore oil extraction – if it it can be reconciled to a complimentary Senate bill, and then be approved by…
BBC report on IFAW
The BBC reported on an International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) report on ocean noise. While there is nothing “new” in this report per-se, it adds to the legacy of work being done on the issue and increases our global…
More on ESA threat
I am including a bit more on the current end-run on the Endangered Species Act (ESA). I mentioned this issue in last week’s e-mail, which was generated in response to the proposed changes to the Act in the Federal Register. The easiest…
March 2007 Strandings
I have been notified of two recent stranding events associated with noise pollution. The first is an account of three separate strandings of beaked whales in Japan this May. The article also relates that over 81 whales have stranded in…
LFA Judgement
Judge LaPorte form the 9th District courts has approved a settlement on the SURTASS-LFA sonar (Surveillance Towed Array Sonar System – Low Frequency Active). This settlement continues to limit the deployment of Low frequency Active Sonar to certain areas in…
NYT article on whales and security
This NYT editorial is a fresh read on the recent movement on the fallout form the California Coastal Commission/NRDC v. the US Navy: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/opinion/02wed3.html?ex=1215662400&en=bb5b0e615dff8a4d&ei=5070&emc=eta1 While we can hope for the best judgment in this case from the nation’s highest court, given…
New Orleans ASA report
I have just returned from an Acoustical Society meeting held in New Orleans last week where I presented a paper on using natural occurring sounds and biological thresholds as a basis for an ocean noise criteria. Our proposed “metric” is simple to…