Appeals court rejects sonar waiver for Navy

A federal appeals court has rejected White House efforts to exempt the US Navy from laws intended to protect endangered whales and other marine mammals by curbing the use of sonar off the California coast.

A three-judge panel upheld a lower court order requiring the Navy to take precautions during the sonar training to minimise harm to marine life.

The Navy has 30 days to file an appeal to the US Supreme Court, during which time it must comply with the bulk of the precautions.

A US District Court in January barred the Navy's use of powerful submarine-hunting mid-frequency active radar within 12 miles of the coast, protecting a strip of water that is habitat for whales, dolphins and other marine mammals. But US President George W. Bush intervened, citing the national security necessity of Navy training off the California coast, and exempted the Navy from the environmental laws at the heart of the legal challenge.

A federal judge rejected that argument on February 4, and the panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling on Friday. The appeals court "found that the Navy must be environmentally responsible when training with high intensity sonar, and that doing so won't interfere with military readiness," Joel Reynolds, director of the Natural Resources Defence Council's marine mammal protection project, said in a statement on Saturday.