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Navy Seeks Supreme Court Review of SONAR Injunction

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS080401-01
Release Date: 4/1/2008 6:42:00 AM

Special Navy Office of Information

WASHINGTON, D.C. (NNS) -- The Navy released a statement in response to filing with the Supreme Court on its use of SONAR. The statement reads:

The Navy today asked the Supreme Court to review a district court's injunction that restricts the Navy's ability to train with sonar off the coast of southern California, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' affirmation of that injunction. The petition for a writ of certiorari, filed by the Solicitor General on behalf of the Navy, argues that the Ninth Circuit's February 29 ruling conflicts with the judgment of Congress, the President, and the nation's top naval officers, as well as previous decisions of the Supreme Court.

The district court's injunction imposes a series of restrictions on the use of mid-frequency active sonar. These include a requirement to shut down sonar altogether when marine mammals are within 2200 yards of any sonar source, and to reduce sonar power by 75% when significant surface ducting conditions are present. The 2200 yard shutdown zone has a radius eleven times greater than the existing zone developed in consultation with the National Marine Fisheries Service, effectively imposing a 4.9-square mile shutdown zone around each of our ships. The requirement to reduce sonar power during significant surface ducting conditions would prevent our ships from detecting submarines in the very conditions in which submarines seek to hide, even when marine mammals are nowhere in sight.

Anti-submarine warfare is a high-stakes cat-and-mouse game that may span days and requires large teams of personnel to work around the clock. The loss of sonar-tracking capability during integrated air, surface and subsurface training can negate the effectiveness of the entire exercise, unacceptably risking national security and the Navy's ability to deploy adequately trained strike groups.

The Navy continuously deploys strike groups to high-threat areas in the western Pacific and Middle East, where modern quiet-running, diesel-electric submarines are operated by the Nation's potential adversaries. Sonar is a strike group's only effective means to detect diesel-electric submarines before they close within weapons range, and such timely detection is essential to our survivability. The preliminary injunction jeopardizes the Navy's ability to train Sailors and Marines for wartime deployment during a time of ongoing hostilities, posing substantial harm to national security.

The Navy seeks to achieve realistic, integrated training to the maximum extent allowed. We work tirelessly to see that protection of the environment and the security of our nation are properly balanced. We undertake extensive measures to protect marine mammals while we train and those measures are effective. This is an issue that is essential to national security, and we believe that the Supreme Court's review is warranted.