EMERGING CONCERNS - Marine Pollution: What Everyone Needs to Know - page 136

the California Coastal Commission rejected a US Navy explo-
sives and sonar training program planned off the Southern
California coast that critics said could harm endangered
marine life. The commissioners ruled that the navy didn't
have enough information to support its claim that the threat
to marine mammals would be negligible, and were concerned
that the increased sonar activity could harm endangered ani-
mals such as the blue, fin, and beaked whales. While the navy
estimated that 130 marine mammals could die and another
1,600 could lose hearing from the program (which plans over
50,000 explosions and 10,000 hours of high-intensity sonar
use annually), critics considered this a gross underestimation
because the area encompasses 120,000 nautical square miles off
the coast of Southern California, including a corridor between
it and Hawaii, waters used by many endangered cetacean spe-
cies. The commission wants the navy to create safety zones
with no high-intensity sonar activity near marine sanctuaries,
protected areas, and areas with high seasonal concentrations
of blue, fin, and gray whales.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) is documenting human-made noises in the ocean
and turning the results into large sound maps, which use
bright colors to symbolize the sounds in the oceans. The scale
goes from red (115 decibels at the top) to orange and yellow,
and then to green and blue (40 decibels at the bottom), and
presents the results in terms of annual averages rather than
peaks. Many areas of the ocean surface (where whales and
other marine mammals spend most of their time) are orange,
indicating high average levels. The project's goal is to better
understand the nature of the noise and its impact on mam-
mals. The maps are enabling scientists, regulators, and the
public to visualize the serious risk that noise poses to marine
life. The findings are likely to prompt efforts to reduce the
problem through laws, regulations, treaties, and voluntary
noise reductions, nationally and internationally. However, one
might question the validity of using annual averages rather