Christopher Dunagan has the story in the Kitsap Sun:
The Navy’s use of sonar this week in the Strait of Juan de Fuca has again raised concerns about the appropriate balance between Navy operations and protection of marine mammals.
The USS San Francisco, a fast-attack submarine, left Bremerton on Tuesday and conducted “required training dives,” including the use of sonar, according to Navy spokeswoman Sheila Murray. The sub and its escort ship took required steps to avoid marine mammals, she said.
Hydrophones (underwater microphones) operated by researchers in the San Juan Islands picked up loud sonar “pings” from about 7 p.m. Tuesday until after 3 a.m. Wednesday.
Val Veirs, a San Juan Island resident and retired professor of physics at Colorado College, reported that sound levels coming from the San Francisco could be heard underwater from Port Townsend to Whidbey Island to the San Juans and beyond.
“The received levels of the signals at Lime Kiln Lighthouse (on San Juan Island) were about the most intense sounds that the hydrophones there have recorded in the past several years of continuous operation,” Veirs said in a written statement.
Based on an estimated distance of 10 nautical miles, sound levels were on a par with those from the USS Shoup during a 2003 incident that triggered an interagency investigation, he said.
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