A federal judge has ordered the Navy to stop using its nasty sonar because it might be traumatizing whales.

A federal district judge in Los Angeles on Monday rejected the Bush administration’s attempt to exempt Navy sonar training from key environmental laws, ruling that there’s no real emergency to justify overruling court-ordered protections for whales and dolphins.

U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper also suggested that President Bush’s effort to maneuver around an earlier federal court order was “constitutionally suspect,” although she made no ruling on that issue.

The 36-page order issued late Monday means the Navy will have to follow Cooper’s previous injunction forbidding the use of powerful submarine-detecting sonar in areas where whales are abundant, such as within 12 nautical miles of the coast and in the waters between Santa Catalina and San Clemente islands.

That January order also will require the Navy to shut down sonar when whales or other marine mammals are spotted within 2,200 yards of vessels or under certain sea conditions that allow the powerful sonic blasts to travel farther than usual. This type of sonar has been linked to panicked behavior and mass deaths of whales in the Bahamas, the Canary Islands and elsewhere, although never off Southern California.

Of course, it’s evil George Bush’s fault. So I guess we just cross our fingers and hope that no enemy/terrorist vessels start roaming those predefined waterways where our sonar will no longer be running? God forbid if Al Qaeda starts taking whalewatching tours. Ridiculous.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 at 3:21 PM and is filed under Nutter Butters, technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.