NOAA challenges Navy proposal for Atlantic sonar-training range

WASHINGTON -- The civilian agency in charge of marine issues has sharply challenged the Navy's plans to build an underwater sonar-training range in the Atlantic, saying that the military significantly underestimated the danger posed to whales and other marine mammals and that the science the Navy used to reach its conclusions is flawed.

In a technical letter to the Navy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the Navy had neglected to address the likelihood that its midfrequency sonar would kill whales and that the highly endangered right whale makes its annual migrations near the proposed site off North Carolina and could be threatened.

But most tellingly, the NOAA letter said the Navy had used a measure for allowable noise 100 times higher than the level recommended by the agency.

The sonar-testing range is a high priority for the Navy, which says it needs an Atlantic site to train sailors to detect foreign submarines near American shores. But it is trying to get the project approved at a time when scientists have become increasingly convinced that the loud blasts of active sonar have caused whales to strand themselves and die.

The NOAA letter, which is a formal comment on the Navy's environmental impact statement regarding the sonar range, is the most public indication so far of what agency insiders have described as friction between NOAA and Navy officials regarding the issue.

In the past, the agency has generally supported the Navy's plans with reservations, but the most recent letter makes little effort to hide significant disagreements.

NOAA, for instance, wrote that the Navy predicted only lower-level ''harassment" of whales by the sonar, despite recent fatal and near-fatal mass strandings in Hawaii and elsewhere that many scientists believe were caused by Navy sonar.

''NOAA believes the Navy should seriously reconsider the potential for mortality of [whales] due to strandings related to activities" in the proposed sonar-testing range, the letter said.

NOAA officials did not respond Friday to requests for comment about the specific issues raised in the letter, which was sent Jan. 30. In an e-mail statement, Lieutenant William Marks, a Navy press officer, said that the Navy is reviewing all comments about its proposed sonar range, that NOAA ''is a cooperating agency with the Navy" regarding the project, and that the Navy and NOAA would meet to discuss their differences. He said the Navy expected to have a final environmental impact statement ready by the fall.

As the NOAA letter made clear, however, the two sides have been meeting for years on the subject and have some deep disagreements about both science and policy regarding sonar and whales.

''What the NOAA letter does is confirm that the Navy analysis is fundamentally flawed," said Michael Jasny, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council. In the past, his organization has accused NOAA's Fisheries Service of minimizing the effects of sonar on whales, but he said that this time the agency stood by the evolving science.

''They're an agency with their own institutional integrity," Jasny said.

''No doubt NOAA -- like other agencies -- can bend. But here the Navy is asking them to snap."