RALEIGH, North Carolina, February 26, 2009 (ENS) – The Federal Emergency Management Agency is awarding $5 million to the state of North Carolina for a statewide risk assessment and mitigation strategy demonstration of the potential impacts of sea level rise caused by climate change.

Announcing the award on Tuesday, FEMA Regional Administrator Phil May said the information and results from this study may help formulate strategies to deal with potential effects of sea level rise along all of the nation’s coastlines.

FEMA also will use the results of this study to assess the long-term fiscal implications of climate change as it affects the frequency and effects of natural disasters.

Information from the study will be shared with other states to inform their climate change mitigation efforts.

“North Carolina has been very proactive in implementing and improving upon coastal zone management activities and policies,” May said. “Although the study is focused on just the state of North Carolina, the results of the study should be applicable to other coastal states as well.

In addition, the study will complement an existing study currently being performed by FEMA which focuses on the effect of climate change on the National Flood Insurance Program.

FEMA’s Mitigation Directorate administers the National Flood Insurance Program. This insurance, mapping, and land use program provides the availability of federally backed flood insurance to home and business owners located in participating communities.

Managing the study will be the North Carolina’s Office of Geospatial and Technology Management, part of the North Carolina Division of Emergency Management, the office that oversees the state’s floodplain mapping and management programs.

Hurricane Isabel washed away sections of North Carolina’s barrier islands. (Photo courtesy USGS)

Twenty North Carolina counties border the Atlantic Ocean, including 70 miles of low-lying barrier islands. While these counties hold just 10 percent of the state’s population, they host many thousands of tourists who support one of the state’s largest industries. In 2005, visitors spent more than $2 billion in coastal communities that are vulnerable to storms and hurricanes.

In September 2003, Hurricane Isabel breached one of the barrier islands in North Carolina. Damage in the state totaled $450 million, most of which was in Dare County where thousands of homes were washed away. The storm surge produced a 2,000-foot wide inlet on Hatteras Island, isolating Hatteras by road for two months.

Hurricane Floyd, in 1999, was a Category 2 hurricane when it hit Cape Fear, packing a 10-foot storm surge. Floyd claimed the lives of 56 people as it moved along the coast, and caused more than $6 billion in damage. Most of the deaths and damage were due to flooding rains that amounted to 19 inches in some parts of the state.

Recent studies show that hurricanes are becoming more powerful and more numerous, and this trend is expected to continue as the planetary temperature continues to increase. Coastal residents will experience sea level rise and higher storm surges that reach further inland.

The assessment North Carolina is conducting for FEMA will help to project how high the sea levels will rise and how much of the coastline will be inundated.

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VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia, May 18, 2008 (ENS) – When James Taylor picks up his guitar and sings in Virginia Beach on Thursday, May 22, he will be singing in part to protect land for migratory birds on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.

Taylor will donate a portion of the proceeds from the benefit concert to the Southern Tip Partnership, a coalition of conservation organizations including the Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program, Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, The Nature Conservancy and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

For nearly two decades the partnership has worked to protect land for migratory songbirds and wildlife on the southern tip of the Delmarva Peninsula, where the Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge is located.

James Taylor’s music will support bird
habitat. (Photo credit unknown)

Taylor’s generosity in the past has supported land acquisition and habitat restoration projects in the area.

The partnership signed an agreement in 2006, formalizing a commitment to share funding, equipment and technical expertise to fully leverage available resources to buy land and restore habitat.

“We prioritize land parcels and rank them according to the goals of each partner group,” says Refuge Manager Susan Rice. “We determine the highest acquisition or easement priority and that’s where we focus our energy.”

The Nature Conservancy has just purchased a particularly expensive 82 acre tract that the Fish and Wildlife Service then bought to add to the Eastern Shore of Virginia Refuge.

“It is through the partnership that we have been able to accomplish so much for the resource,” says Rice.

In addition to buying and protecting land, the partnership works to improve wildlife habitat on the Eastern Shore.

Project include control of invasive species, planting of native shrubs and trees for songbirds, and establishing butterfly gardens for migrating monarch butterflies. Lands have been managed to favor vegetation which produces fruit to feed migrating songbirds.

At the age of 60, James Taylor has sold some 40 million albums. He has earned 40 gold, platinum and multi-platinum awards and five Grammy Awards for a catalog running from 1970s Sweet Baby James to his Grammy Award-winning efforts Hourglass in 1997 and October Road in 2002.

Taylor’s first Greatest Hits album earned him the RIAA’s elite Diamond Award, given for sales in excess of 10 million units in the United States. Honors include the 1998 Century Award, Billboard magazine’s highest accolade, bestowed for distinguished creative achievement.

The year 2000 saw his induction into both the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame and the prestigious Songwriter’s Hall of Fame. In February 2006, The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences selected James its MUSICARES Person of the Year.

It is not yet known how much funding the partnership will receive from the Taylor concert, but ticket sales are brisk at the Verizon Wireless Virginia Beach Amphitheater.

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HONOLULU, Hawaii, March 1, 2008 (ENS) – The U.S. Navy is violating federal law and a federal judge has enjoined the Navy from carrying out its undersea warfare exercises in Hawaii’s waters without adhering to additional mitigation measures to protect marine mammals.

Hawaii federal district Judge David Ezra ruled Saturday that the Navy must use at least one dedicated aircraft for monitoring for marine mammals beginning 60 minutes before using sonar and continuing throughout the duration of each sonar exercise.

The Navy must “ramp up” sonar power slowly, by starting at a low level and increasing it, to allow marine mammals to escape.

In addition, the Navy must reduce sonar power by 6 decibels whenever a marine mammal is spotted within 1,500 meters of the vessel, by 10 decibels at 750 meters, and shut it down completely at 500 meters.

Judge Ezra also ordered the Navy to evaluate the impacts of its high-intensity, mid-frequency active sonar by preparing an environmental impact statement.

Humpack whale breaches in the Hawaii
Humpback National Marine
Sanctuary (Photo courtesy NOAA)

As many as 10,000 humpback whales may visit Hawaiian waters every year from November through May. Each year, they migrate from their summer home in icy Alaskan waters to their Hawaiian winter destination to breed and give birth. Many can be seen in the only national marine sanctuary dedicated to whales and their habitat – the the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary.

To protect the whales from Navy sonary, Earthjustice, on behalf of the Ocean Mammal Institute, the Animal Welfare Institute, KAHEA: The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Surfrider Foundation’s Kaua’i Chapter sued the Navy last May.

Judge Ezra issued a preliminary injunction after finding the Navy was violating the National Environmental Policy Act and the Coastal Zone Management Act and was likely to cause harm if allowed to proceed without greater protections.

The judge noted the Navy’s harm threshold – 173 decibels – contradicts the best available science, and “cast into serious doubt the Navy’s assertion that, despite over 60,000 potential exposures to MFA sonar, marine mammals will not be jeopardized.”

Judge Ezra said further the Navy had failed to analyze reasonable alternatives to conducting its exercises in the manner it proposed, failed to notify and involve the public as required by law, and failed to take into account the potential for serious harm from an exceptionally controversial activity.

The judge pointed out the importance of proper military training, but concluded that the Navy could conduct effective training while taking greater precautions, and ordered the Navy to do so.

Specifically, Judge Ezra ordered that the Navy, in addition to following all of its proposed protocols, must also:

* monitor the area for marine mammals 60 minutes before each day sonar is used, including using at least one dedicated aircraft for monitoring beginning 60 minutes before using sonar and continuing throughout the duration of the exercise;
* use three dedicated lookouts in addition to its normal watch component, plus passive monitoring to the extent practical, including use of bottom-mounted hydrophones at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kaua’i;
* monitor for 10 minutes before deploying dipping sonar from helicopters;
* power-down the sonar by 3 dB when any two of the following factors are present, by 6 dB when any three, and shut off sonar transmission when all are present:
1. rapid change in under water bathymetry;
2. multiple sonar-transmitting vessels;
3. chokepoints, which are areas surrounded by land masses, separated by less than 35 nm, and at least 10 nm in length, or an embayment; and
4. historical presence of a significant surface duct, which is an oceanographic condition that allows sound to travel farther without losing power.

“Today’s ruling affirms that the Navy is not above the law, and that it can, and must, take greater precautions to protect marine life from the devastating effects of its high-intensity sonar,” said Paul Achitoff of Earthjustice.

The Navy’s MFA sonar has been implicated in mass strandings of marine mammals in, among other places, the Bahamas (2000), Greece (1996), Madeira (2000), the Canary Islands (2002), and Spain (2006).

In 2004, during RIMPAC exercises, the Navy’s sonar was implicated in a mass beaching of up to 200 melon-headed whales in Hanalei Bay on the island of Kauai, after which a whale calf died.

Brendan Cummings, Ocean Program director of the Center for Biological Diversity, commented the ruling shows “Hawaii’s humpback whales and other marine life need not be sacrificed in order to protect national security.”

Achitoff says the Navy has used all of the measures the court ordered today in previous exercises, as well as others, but has resisted continuing to use them.

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LOS ANGELES, California, February 4, 2008 (ENS) – A federal court today struck down a waiver issued by the White House that would exempt the U.S. Navy from complying with environmental law during sonar training exercises off southern California.

In nullifying the waiver, U.S. District Court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper reaffirmed an injunction issued early in January, requiring the Navy to reduce harm to whales and other marine mammals from sonar training. The Navy has acknowledged that the high-intensity, mid-frequency sonar at issue can injure and kill whales and other marine mammals.

Gray whales migrating off the coast
of Southern California (Photo by Sue
Moore courtesy NOAA)

“The Court has affirmed that we do not live under an imperial presidency,” said Joel Reynolds, director of the Marine Mammal Protection Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council, NRDC, which obtained the injunction against the Navy.

“It is a bedrock principle of our government that neither the military nor the president is above the law,” said Richard Kendall, a senior partner at the Los Angeles law firm of Irell & Manella, and co-counsel with NRDC in the lawsuit. “Judge Cooper has upheld that fundamental doctrine.”

On January 15, President Bush issued the Navy an unprecedented waiver under the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA), and allowed the Navy an “emergency” waiver under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), for a series of training exercises involving high-intensity, mid-frequency sonar now underway.

Those statutes are the basis of a January 3 injunction issued by Judge Cooper, requiring the Navy to monitor for and avoid marine mammals while operating sonar during the SOCAL naval exercises.

Today, in rejecting the Bush administration’s waiver under NEPA, Judge Cooper wrote, “The Navy’s current ‘emergency’ is simply a creature of its own making, i.e., its failure to prepare adequate environmental documentation in a timely fashion.”

The judge said the Navy’s position “produces the absurd result of permitting agencies to avoid their NEPA obligations by re-characterizing ordinary, planned activities as ‘emergencies’ in the interests of national security, economic stability, or other long-term policy goals.”

“This cannot be consistent with Congressional intent,” she ruled.

In addition, although Judge Cooper expressed “significant concerns about the constitutionality of the President’s exemption of the Navy from the requirements of the Coastal Zone Management Act,” she wrote that no finding on the issue is necessary because the “Court is satisfied that its injunction stands firmly on NEPA grounds.”

The judge reaffirmed the January 3 injunction, which requires the Navy to maintain a 12 nautical mile no-sonar buffer zone along the California coastline; to avoid other key whale habitat; to shut down sonar when marine mammals are spotted within 2,000 meters; and to monitor for marine mammals using various methods, among other measures.

“The Navy doesn’t need to harm whales to train effectively with sonar. By following the carefully crafted measures ordered by the court, the Navy can conduct its exercises without imperiling marine mammals,” Reynolds said.

NRDC was joined in the lawsuit by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, Cetacean Society International, League for Coastal Protection, Ocean Futures Society, and Jean-Michel Cousteau.

The conservation groups warn that the high-intensity mid-frequency sonar systems can blast across large areas with levels of underwater noise loud enough to have killed marine mammals in incidents around the world.

The waters off Southern California have some of the richest marine habitat in the country, and include five endangered species of whales, a globally important population of blue whales, the largest animal ever to live on Earth, and seven species of beaked whales, which are known to be particularly vulnerable to underwater sound.

U.S. Navy sonar technicians monitor
contacts on their screens. (Photo
Communication Specialist 2nd Class
James R. Evans courtesy U.S. Navy)

Rear Adm. Larry Rice, director of the Chief of Naval Operations Environmental Readiness Division defended the Navy’s use of sonar in California coastal waters. He said sonar is essential to detect new, silent submarines and added that no marine mammal incidents have occurred in Southern California waters.

“The U.S. Navy has trained in Southern California for the past 40 years and they have had zero incidents with marine mammals – no strandings, no deaths, and no documented injuries,” he said.

“We want to keep that up,” said Rice. “In order to accomplish this, we have 29 protective measures that we already employ. The additional training restrictions that the court levied on us frankly don’t help us take care of the environment – and it restricts our training.”

Rice says worldwide naval use of active sonar has been correlated with the stranding of approximately 50 whales during the 10 year period from 1996-2006.

“Contrast that with over 3,500 marine mammal ‘normal’ strandings that occur on U.S. shores annually, and 600,000 marine mammal deaths each year by commercial fishing interests,” Rice said.

Rice attributes the U.S. Navy’s “success with sonar to the fleet operators who are paying attention to what is going on in the world with marine mammals and sonar, and they realize that this is really important.”

“The ocean is a noisy place,” said Rice, “not only are there submarines out there, but there is wave sound, rain sounds, there are other marine mammals, there are seismic sounds, earthquakes, volcanoes — a lot of sounds in the oceans, and they have to pick out that really quiet diesel electric submarine amongst all of those other sounds. That isn’t something that we can simulate.”

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OLYMPIA, Washington, January 21, 2008 (ENS) – The Washington state Department of Ecology has filed a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, for reconsideration of a decision that FERC made last month to grant five-year environmental approval for a wave energy project at Makah Bay, in far western Washington state.

The license is the first ever issued by the Commission for a wave, tidal or current energy project in the United States.

The project by Finavera Renewables of Vancouver, British Columbia, received FERC approval on December 20, 2007, but the state agency says FERC “sidestepped Ecology’s authority to provide timely environmental reviews of renewable energy projects.”

Finavera AquaBuoy wave
energy generator (Photo
courtesy Finavera)

The Finavera offshore energy project consists of four large wave buoys anchored three miles or less from the Makah Bay shore that would produce one megawatt of electricity. Power would be transmitted to shore by an undersea transmission line.

The land portion part of the project is the property of the Makah Indian Nation. The aquatic portion of the project is within Washington State waters, the federal Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, and the Washington State Flattery Rocks National Wildlife Refuge.

Finavera says the project is expected to generate 1500 megawatts per year, which is enough energy to supply about 150 homes in the Makah Indian Nation town of Neah Bay.

But Washington Department of Ecology officials say any FERC licensing decision must incorporate the state’s decision. For authority, they point to two federal laws – the federal Clean Water Act and the Coastal Zone Management Act.

Department of Ecology Director Jay Manning said the state agency “fully supports renewable energy projects in Washington, especially those designed to reduce or eliminate greenhouse gases and other climate-changing pollutants.”

“However,” he said, “the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission does not have the authority – by statute or Congressional intent – to set aside existing environmental laws designed to protect our state’s water quality and shorelines.”

The decision by FERC gives Finavera Renewables a conditional five-year license for the proposed project. The FERC license is conditional on the company obtaining all additional federal and state permits before construction may begin.

Gordon White, manager for the state agency’s Shorelands and Environmental Assistance program, said the Department of Ecology and the state Office of Regulatory Assistance are on track to make a water-quality certification decision for Finavera by mid-February.

He said that the department also was “on course” to determine that the project was consistent with state and federal shoreline regulations.

“By trying to circumvent other state and federal environmental permit processes, FERC’s decision gives companies like Finavera no assurance that their project will finally meet all environmental regulations,” White said.

“It could even make it more difficult for companies to get reliable funding by muddying the waters in our attempt to streamline the state permitting process for renewable energy projects,” he said.

White noted that there are eight to 10 other “in-water” renewable energy projects either seeking, or about to seek, environmental permits from Ecology. Some of the potential projects would be located in the Puget Sound, the Columbia River and on the state’s west coast.

“It is imperative that we have a clear efficient process for reviewing these projects,” White said. “Unfortunately FERC’s decision to issue a temporary permit decision leaves everyone unclear about whether a project has their approval or not.”

Regardless of the federal-state clash, Finavera Renewables CEO Jason Bak called the project, “an important part of the commercial development of wave energy in the United States.”

“The Makah Indian Nation has been a strong partner in this project, and deserves credit for its vision and desire to tap into the incredible potential of ocean energy,” Bak said.

“The Makah Nation is pleased to join with Finavera in a new energy venture – capturing electricity from the infinite wave energy power that results from the gravitational pull of the moon” said Ben Johnson Jr., chairman of the Makah Tribal Council.

Robert Martin, chief executive of the Makah Energy Enterprise, said, “We look forward to generating renewable, carbon free energy for the Tribe’s members and to growing our business relationship with Finavera to demonstrate this visionary technology.”

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WASHINGTON, DC, January 16, 2008 (ENS) – In an unprecedented action, President George W. Bush Tuesday overrode a federal court order that requires the U.S. Navy to minimize harm to whales and dolphins during sonar exercises off Southern California. Scientists say the loud blasts of sound emitted by Navy sonar to detect submarines harm and possibly kill marine mammals.

A spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which obtained the court order, says the group will appeal the Bush waiver to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals within 24 hours.

Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter said today the Navy “already applies 29 mitigation measures approved by federal environmental regulators when using active sonar, and these will remain in place.”

The issue is shaping up as a battle between the executive and the judicial branches of government.

While traveling in the Middle East, President Bush signed the memo giving the Navy a waiver under the Coastal Zone Management Act and also allowed a second “emergency” waiver under the National Environmental Policy Act.

Those laws are the basis of a January 3 injunction issued by U.S. District Court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper, that requires the Navy to monitor for and avoid marine mammals while operating high-intensity, mid-frequency sonar during the “SOCAL” naval exercises, now underway.

In his memo issuing the waiver, President Bush said that the Secretary of Commerce made a written request Friday that the Navy be exempted from compliance with the order in its use of mid-frequency active sonar during training exercises.

“As part of that request, the Secretary of Commerce certified that mediation … is not likely to result in the Navy’s compliance with the order.

The president determined that the training exercises “including the use of mid-frequency active sonar in these exercises, are in the paramount interest of the United States.”

U.S. Navy sonar technicians deploy
a towed sonar array. August 23, 2004.
(Photo by by Journalist 1st Class James
Pinsky courtesy U.S. Navy)

Compliance with the order “would undermine the Navy’s ability to conduct realistic training exercises that are necessary to ensure the combat effectiveness of carrier and expeditionary strike groups,” the president wrote. “This exemption will enable the Navy to train effectively and to certify carrier and expeditionary strike groups for deployment in support of world-wide operational and combat activities, which are essential to national security.”

“There is absolutely no justification for this,” said California Coastal Commissioner Sara Wan. “Both the court and the Coastal Commission have said that the Navy can carry out its mission as well as protect the whales. This is a slap in the face to Californians who care about the oceans.”

Judge Cooper’s order requires the Navy to create a 12-nautical-mile, no-sonar zone along the California coast and to post trained lookouts to watch for marine mammals before and during exercises. Sonar would have to be shut down when mammals are spotted within 2,200 yards, under the order.

The judge ruled that the Navy’s scheme to mitigate harm had been “grossly inadequate to protect marine mammals from debilitating levels of sonar exposure” in Southern California.

The Bush waivers would eliminate all of the court-ordered mitigations under the pretext of “emergency,” but the Natural Resources Defense Council, NRDC, says, “In fact, no emergency conditions exist: The SOCAL exercises are routine training drills planned long in advance, but without meeting legal standards.”

The exercises were challenged in court by the California Coastal Commission and the NRDC a year ago.

Judge Cooper did not issue a blanket injunction, but instead produced a tailored order that enables the Navy to conduct sonar training using mitigations and monitoring, many of which the Navy has already employed in previous exercises.

“The president’s action is an attack on the rule of law,” said Joel Reynolds, director of the Marine Mammal Protection Project at NRDC. “By exempting the Navy from basic safeguards under both federal and state law, the President is flouting the will of Congress, the decision of the California Coastal Commission, and a ruling by the federal court.”

Both waivers must survive court review for the Navy to legally ignore the injunction. However, the waiver under NEPA is illegal, according to NRDC, because that statute does not include an escape clause for the executive branch, as some statutes do.

Blue whale in California coastal waters.
The blue whale is the largest animal
ever known to have lived on Earth;
they can weigh over 330,000 pounds.
(Photo courtesy NMFS)

“This is not a national security issue. The Navy doesn’t need to harm whales to train effectively with sonar. It simply chooses to for the sake of convenience,” said Reynolds.

“By following the carefully crafted measures ordered by the court, the Navy could conduct its exercises without imperiling marine mammals, Reynolds said. “Instead, it is attempting to circumvent the court and our environmental laws through presidential fiat. These waivers are unnecessary and we doubt they will both survive judicial review

“We are already taking extensive measures to protect marine mammals, and we have had positive results from those measures,” said Winter. “We are furthermore committed to an extensive data collection effort to help inform our future efforts in this regard.”

Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead said that the actions were necessary in order to ensure the Navy’s ability to train sailors to detect quiet submarines that might threaten its ships.

“We cannot in good conscience send American men and women into potential trouble spots without adequate training to defend themselves,” said Roughead.

“The southern California operating area provides unique training opportunities that are vital to preparing our forces, and the planned exercises cannot be postponed without impacting national security,” said Roughead. “The steps that have been taken will allow our men and women to train realistically, while continuing the effective employment of proven mitigation measures that have been endorsed by the Council on Environmental Quality and our regulator, the National Marine Fisheries Service.”

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