The U.S. Navy should turn down the volume of its proposed sonar training range, says the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
which publicly released its comments on the Navy's plans last week. (see December 2 - latest news)

The Navy wants to build a sonar training facility off the North Carolina coast, and last October it concluded that the sonar would not harm marine mammals. NOAA disagreed, citing the risk of driving beaked whales and other marine mammals onto beaches. Beaked whales, about which little is known, live in deep water and have shown sensitivity to sonar. Also, NOAA said, the endangered North Atlantic right whale has been sighted nearby. North Carolina is the Navy's preferred site among three choices; the others are off Virginia and Florida. A range would be built over 10 years at an estimated cost of $98 million.

"These Navy sonar systems are very powerful and have the potential to kill marine mammals - atleast in some situations," said Steve Leathery, chief of protected resources permitting for National Marine Fisheries Service, part of NOAA. "It wasn't historically perceived as being as big a problem as we now recognize it is."

The Navy is now reviewing NOAA's concerns and more than 300 substantive public comments. The final report is expected in the autumn.