I'm 100% OK with that

Every year the Navy must request authorization under the Marine Mammal Protection Act to conduct sonar training exercises near Hawaii. This year there was no suspense, NOAA's Fisheries Service authorized the Navy to conduct sonar activities in 2009. The authorization process is annual.

Is seeking a permit news? Only if you are Natural Resources Defense Council and you are looking for a headline. The news ran under the headline: Navy Allowed to Kill Whales in Hawaii During Sonar Training

Fair and balanced? Not really, NRDC has never been a responsible actor in environmental issues related to the Navy, in their book the Navy does nothing but harm. There is irony of coarse, the Navy spends more money on environmental science and research of the Oceans than anyone in the world, which is why the NRDC always loses in a court that weighs the facts (the facts come from the Navy, so they usually make them up as the did in Appeals last year).

However, I will give Environment News Service credit, the headline is 100% accurate. Given all the actions the Navy takes to mitigate risks to whales, it probably won't happen, but the headline is accurate when it says the Navy is allowed to kill whales in Hawaii during sonar training.

And so far in 2009, we have already had an announcement that 6 more submarines will be purchased by an Asian power, this time South Korea. At the rate submarines continue to increase in the Pacific, if a whale dies during submarine training in the Pacific, well... read the title of the post.

If you are curious about what actions the navy takes to mitigate risks to whales, see here.

Update: There appears to be more to this than my bias and attempted humor allowed. The AP has an article that does make me think the Navy is trying something new here. It doesn't really influence me to think there is something nefarious, but new tactics are always interesting.

BTW, that AP article is inaccurate in one regard, we do know why beaked whales are more vulnerable than other mammals to mid-frequency sonar. The reason is because they dive much deeper than other whales and stay deep for up to 45 minutes at a time, sometimes as deep as 1000 ft. Until the Navy learned this, and used another type of sonar to study it, even the environmental groups had no idea how many beaked whales there were in the waters, indeed at the time some environmental groups were trying to get beaked whales protected because they thought there were so few of them.

It will be interesting to see if the National Marine Fisheries Service gets sued by environmental groups for issuing the permit. The answer is, of coarse they will file a lawsuit, but it is unclear if that means the permit will be voided, thus restricting the Navy from using sonar off the Hawaii coast.