[CPEO-MEF] BIOTA, MUNITIONS: Puget Sound (WA) underwater detonation

[Lenny Siegel <lennysiegel@gmail.com>]

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility News Release 
(www.peer.org)

For Immediate Release: July 29, 2008


NAVY SUED OVER PUGET SOUND DETONATIONS - Underwater Demolition Program a 
Threat to Marine Life

Washington, DC - A federal lawsuit filed today charges that the U.S. 
Navy setting off scores of underwater explosive charges each year in 
some of the most sensitive waters of Puget Sound violates environmental 
statutes. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and 
Wild Fish Conservancy also served legal notice that they would sue the 
Navy under the federal Endangered Species Act for the threat detonations 
pose to protected wildlife in the Sound.

On a regular basis, the U.S. Navy detonates live explosives in Puget 
Sound waters to provide "realistic" training for its divers in 
destroying and disabling mines. Unfortunately, the detonations also blow 
up marine life. In one exercise, for example, involving a five-pound 
explosive charge set off near Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, 
observers counted 1,000 dead fish on the surface but estimated that up 
to another 5,000 fish died and sank out of sight.

Since 2002, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the U.S. 
Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) have urged the Navy to change its 
practices to minimize damage to marine life, including deploying bubble 
curtains to drive away fish, using containers to muffle blast impacts or 
moving exercises to less sensitive sites such as submerged quarries or 
the open ocean rather than in the Puget Sound.

"The Navy has been repeatedly warned but apparently feels it does not 
have to comply with laws unless it is sued," stated PEER Staff Counsel 
Adam Draper, whose organization also released a series of e-mails 
obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showing continuing 
frustration about Navy intransigence in the face of evidence about harm 
to wildlife. "We are not trying to block Navy demolition exercises; we 
are simply trying to induce the Navy to train without creating needless 
carnage."

The Navy conducts approximately 60 demolition exercises each year, 
usually in the shallows of Crescent Harbor, Port Townsend and Hood 
Canal, using C4 plastic explosives, far more powerful than dynamite, in 
packets ranging in size from 2.5 to 20 pounds.

"The Navy doesn't need to destroy Puget Sound's wildlife at the same 
time they are training to protect us," said Kurt Beardslee, Executive 
Director of Wild Fish Conservancy. "Juvenile salmon and the food web of 
Puget Sound would be much better protected if the Navy would simply take 
the measures suggested by the government's own scientists."

The complaint filed today in U.S. District Court in Seattle by the law 
firm Smith & Lowney on behalf of PEER and Wild Fish Conservancy cites 
the Navy's failure to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act 
(NEPA) for ignoring the potential ecological effects of, and reasonable 
alternatives to, its underwater demolition program. PEER simultaneously 
served a notice of intent to sue on the Navy for violations of the 
Endangered Species Act, notably for impacts on federally protected 
species such as Chinook salmon, bull trout and marbled murrelets.

###



...

For the original press release, go to
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1084

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



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