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Sonar ruling lifts key training restrictions

SAN DIEGO — With a favorable ruling by the nation’s highest court, the 3rd Fleet commander lifted two sonar restrictions imposed last year by a federal judge, giving two naval strike groups operating off California broader ability to train to hunt enemy submarines.

In its split decision Wednesday, the Supreme Court majority ruled that restrictions on the Navy’s use of midfrequency sonar endanger the fleet more than it harms nearby marine mammals.

Vice Adm. Samuel Locklear, who commands San Diego-based 3rd Fleet, was pleased with the ruling that came just as some 10,000 sailors and Marines were immersed in predeployment training in the offshore Southern California Operating Area.

“There’s significant antisubmarine warfare training, with midfrequency sonar as kind of the centerpiece” in those training exercises, Locklear said from his Point Loma office. The two largest forces were Boxer Expeditionary Strike Group, wrapping up Composite Unit Training Exercises with the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, and John C. Stennis Carrier Strike Group, in its final Joint Task Force war games.

“The proliferation of extremely quiet diesel submarines around the world is exploding,” Locklear said. “They are anti-access weapons.”

Enemy boats, he said, can block crucial shipping lanes, ports and choke points or threaten naval or commercial vessels. Top Navy leaders, including Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead, have argued that sonar training is critical for sailors to learn how to find and track the growing threat from super-quiet, stealthy boats.

They’ve contended that the Navy’s own mitigation measures, including easing or turning off sonar when marine mammals are spotted nearby, sufficiently protect the environment. But conservation groups, led by the Natural Resources Defense Council, said those steps weren’t enough to safeguard marine mammals and last year sued to block MFA sonar in the California training area.

Roughead said the high court’s ruling in the case was of “vital importance” to national security. “We will continue to train realistically and certify ... our Navy strike groups in a manner that protects our nation’s security and the precious maritime environment,” Roughead said in a statement.

The court’s majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts and supported in full by four other justices, sided with the Navy’s protest of two restrictions a federal district judge in California ordered last year. Judge Florence-Marie Cooper required that MFA sonar be shut down when marine mammals were within 2,200 yards and reduced during “surface ducting” conditions, which occur when sound energy concentrates in water, often at shallower depths where marine mammals may be.

Navy officials had called those two restrictions “crippling.” Ducting conditions often occur in shallower areas where enemy submarines could operate, they noted. The judge’s restrictions “put us out of balance,” Locklear said. “It wouldn’t be possible for me to train these crews in anti-submarine warfare.”

Roberts, in his opinion, noted that the Navy works in the offshore operating area with at least 37 species of marine mammals, including whales and sea lions. While the majority wrote there was no proven certain harm to marine mammals, it also said that any injury “is outweighed by the public interest and the Navy’s interest in effective, realistic training of its sailors,” and said that “forcing the Navy to deploy an inadequately trained antisubmarine force jeopardizes the safety of the fleet. Active sonar is the only reliable technology for detecting and tracking enemy diesel-electric submarines.”

The Supreme Court’s ruling solely dealt with the expanded 2,200-yard safety zone and restrictions in surface-ducting conditions.

Four other mitigations that Cooper ordered remain in effect: No MFA sonar use within a 12-nautical mile “exclusion zone” extending off the California coast; the use of trained lookouts on ships and other monitoring for the presence of marine mammals one hour before and during training exercises; aerial checks by Navy helicopter crews 10 minutes before using any active dipping sonar; and no MFA sonar use in Catalina Basin, an area between the Navy’s San Clemente Island and nearby Santa Catalina Island.

In more than 40 years of operating MFA sonar, Locklear said, “we don’t have any loss of a marine mammal that has been directly connected to the use of midfrequency sonar. We have put in place many mitigations ... that ensure we are properly using the system ... that potentially limits any damage to the environment,” he said. “We take pride in our environmental stewardship.”