apparently

the assholes who made this decision NEVER SAW STAR TREK IV OR HEARD FAREWELL TO TARWATHIE







Supreme Court: National Security Trumps Whales, Environmental Law
By Brandon Keim
It's a loud, sad day off the coast of California: the Supreme Court today ruled in favor of the Navy and against environmentalists who argued that military sonar frequencies kill whales.

"The balance of equities and the public interest ... tip strongly in favor of the Navy," wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority opinion. "The Navy’s need to conduct realistic training with active sonar to respond to the threat posed by enemy submarines plainly outweighs the interests advanced by the plaintiffs."

On the legal side of the whales is the Natural Resources Defense Council, who in 2005 filed a lawsuit in Santa Monica, California, contending that the Navy's use of mid-frequency sonar in whale-rich areas violates the Environmental Policy Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.

"By the Navy's own estimates, even 300 miles from the source these [low frequency] sonic waves can retain an intensity of 140 decibels — a hundred times more intense than the level known to alter the behavior of large whales," reads the NRDC's marine sonar page. "Mid-frequency sonar is more widely used and has been associated with mortalities of whales."

The NRDC produced graphic evidence of whales beaching themselves in distress, their brains and ears bleeding, or suffering from "the bends" — an affliction known to deep-sea divers who surface too quickly. Sonar appeared to have disoriented the whales, which rely on sound to navigate, in much the way that unrelenting and blinding light might make life difficult for people............