Navy Can Use High-Intensity Sonar off SoCal Coast Pending Court Challenge

By Ed Joyce / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published September 11, 2007 at 2:12 PM PDT

This story was published more than 17 years ago.

An environmental group narrowly lost the second round in its legal efforts to prohibit the U.S. Navy from using high-intensity sonar off the Southern California coast. The case now heads to another co

Navy Can Use High-Intensity Sonar off SoCal Coast Pending Court Challenge

(Image: A screen capture from 'Lethal Sounds,' an NRDC video .)

An environmental group narrowly lost the second round in its legal efforts to prohibit the U.S. Navy from using high-intensity sonar off the Southern California coast. The case now heads to another court. KPBS reporter Ed Joyce has details.

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The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-to-1 to lift an injunction that prevented the Navy from testing the mid-frequency sonar. The Natural Resources Defense Council says the use of high-intensity sonar harms marine life.

Joel Reynolds is an attorney with the NRDC and director of the group's Marine Mammal Protection Project. He says the group wants safeguards to protect marine life in the waters where the Navy is doing the testing.

Reynolds : It's an area where this sort of technology needs to be used, if at all, only with the greatest degree of caution, and that's what our litigation is intended to ensure.

He says a three-judge panel will now hear the full case in November. Reynolds says the Navy will likely conduct another sonar exercise before the case is heard. The Navy says the sonar program requires realistic and frequent training at sea. The exercises are scheduled to continue through 2009.

Ed Joyce, KPBS News.

Ed Joyce

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Ed Joyce was the environment reporter and afternoon news anchor for KPBS-FM. Before joining KPBS, he worked as an editor/columnist with Copley News Service in San Diego. Ed has an extensive background in newspaper, radio, web and TV journalism. After graduating with a B.A. in Communications from the University of Washington in Seattle, Ed began a career in broadcast journalism. His work has included stints in public broadcasting, commercial broadcasting and education -- working as an affiliate professor of communication and reporter at the University of Idaho and Washington State University in Pullman, Wash. During the past 20 years he has worked in radio, TV and print as a news reporter, anchor, writer, editor and producer. Along the way he has won numerous awards for general news reporting, newswriting, feature and issue reporting and breaking news reporting from The Associated Press, The Society of Professional Journalists, San Diego Press Club and other organizations. During the mid-1990s, while working for Oregon Public Broadcasting, he was a frequent contributor to National Public Radio, including a feature report on the memorial service for 14 U.S. Forest Service "hotshots" who died fighting a wildfire in Colorado (the crew was based in a central Oregon town). He’s also filed reports with Marketplace, KQED’s California Report and Climate Watch and with national and regional networks throughout the United States. At KPBS, Ed continues his contributions to National Public Radio and other national and regional news organizations. He has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and San Diego Press Club for his environmental reporting at KPBS-FM-TV and for producing and anchoring radio newscasts. In 2007 he was selected a National Press Foundation fellow for Understanding Violent Weather II program. The seminars were held at the National Weather Center in Norman, Okla. In 2008 he spoke at a UC San Diego conference on U.S. National Security as part of the school’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Ed led a discussion with the 18 foreign government officials and academics about the political debate over climate change. In 2010, Ed was elected to a three-year term on the board of the San Diego Press Club.

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