Sonar Testing Faces Court Challenge

Environmental groups have joined together to file a lawsuit that challenges the Navy’s plan to resume sonar testing and training. Under the plan approved by the National Marine Fisheries Service, Navy sonar training would take place in waters near Hawaii and southern California during a five-year period. Earthjustice, a Washington-based environmental activist group, filed the lawsuit in a Hawaii federal court Dec. 16 on behalf of the Conservation Council for Hawaii, the Animal Welfare Institute, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Ocean Mammal Institute. The organization cites Navy projections that the testing could harm 9.6 million whales, dolphins, and other marine mammals. The animals could experience exploding eardrums, lung injuries, and in some cases die because of the trauma brought on by the sonar tests, Earthjustice claimed.