Texas Size KILL ZONE

Will this latest programme cancel out the US Navy's earlier programme of training dolphins, orcas etc to 'kill' US enemies...?

see -

http://www.angelfire.com/nj4/navydolphins/



Thanks Brian - now edited

 

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans a bunch of the Navy dolphins got free. I'm pretty sure it's the truth, although the first time I heard about it was on Jon Stewart's Daily Show on Comedy Central.

 

As a matter of interest ha anybody thoght of the damage being done to surface creature with the electronic emissions coming from silly buggers talking absolute rubbish about things they have no control over (and probably little knowledge) who continually spout forth on the internet, a lot of which is becoming wireless - which means its poured straight into the atmosphere with no control. Bit like pumping poo through a pump - and don't blame me I didn't start it and I don't bloody care anyway!

over to the bleeding hearts _they tell me whales taste nice, who are you to withdraw my human right to eat whale meat? Bet you'd soon get upset if I closed down your 'burger shops - now that would be a blessing to the world!

 

Kill zone the size of texas! is that supposed to mean something? where or what is texas?

 

In that case I think we should all eat lots of tinned 'tuna' just to make sure
this new danger is eliminated...

 

Safewalrus - Vera Lynn liked whalemeat - she even sung about it........
perhaps you could open up a whale burger bar, mind you you would need huge buns.........

 

With a voice that carried like Vera's, you needed huge 'buns...'

 

Google it!

 

I believe Texas is a state in the New World, Walrus, about the size of a medium sized sheep station here in Australia...

 

LFA sonor effects

Dear Walrus, I spent 6 years working with the nuclear submarine fleet. I was on the weapons end rather than the detection end, so I do not claim to be a sonar expert. I just know of some of its effects. And I knew how far advanced we were over our competitors. We don't need to deploy this technology at this time, particularly when we don't yet know the full conseqences of doing so.

Did you happen to read this referenced document http://www.bigmarinefish.com/sonar_effects.htm

...a couple of excerpts...
It is important to realize that the decibel scale is not linear, but logarithmic. This means that 160 dB is 10 times the intensity of 150 dB, 170 dB is 100 times the intensity of 150 dB and so on. Therefore, the full deployment intensity of LFA sonar is 1,000,000,000 (one billion) times the intensity of 150 dB - the intensity at which lethal effects are documented, as noted below.

Sound behaves differently in water compared to air. It travels five times faster in water than in air. In water, it is also transmitted much farther with much less attenuation than in air. (And LFA sonar maintains its intensity much farther than does mid-range sonar.) LFA sonar will maintain relatively high intensity levels hundreds of miles from the source. For example, a marine mammal scientist working off the Washington coast recorded a loud sound (measured at 140 dB). After investigating, he learned it was produced by Navy LFA sonar exercises conducted off Southern California - a distance of over 900 miles!

Sound penetrates an animal's body when immersed in water. In air, 99.97% of the acoustic energy is reflected from a body. In water, however, there is no reflection or reduction of energy because the body is mostly water. Essentially all of acoustic energy goes into a body immersed in water. This effect, which can cause tissue rupture and hemorrhage, has not been adequately addressed in the Navy's FEIS. The implications (of the effect of sound penetration) for marine life are very serious, as described next.

Gas supersaturation will be greatest in those species that dive to great depths in search of prey. Obvious examples include the imperiled bluefin tuna, swordfish, blue marlin, bigeye tuna and deep-diving whales. Using the new pop-off satellite tagging technology, bluefin tuna have been shown to reach depths below 2,400 feet (the limit of the pressure-sensing device first employed) and to stay beyond such depths for more than an hour (on a daily basis) (Block, et al., 2001, Science 293:1310-14). Deep-diving species will accumulate the highest concentrations of gasses dissolved in their blood and tissues and thus will be especially vulnerable to supersaturated gas bubble activation by high intensity sonar. The Navy's FEIS does not address the potential for injury from sound-activated bubble growth in fishery resources or marine mammals.

The second mechanism for lethal injury involves hemorrhaging caused by acoustic resonance of the LFA sonar signal in cranial and other airspaces such as lungs and swim bladders. Specifically, the rapid change in pressure (from very high to very low several times per second for the duration of the one-minute LFA sonar blast) can rupture the delicate membranes enclosing the airspace

The killing is largely due to resonance phenomena in the whales' cranial airspaces that are tearing apart delicate tissues around the brains and ears. This is an entirely separate issue from auditory thresholds and traumas that the Navy has fixated upon. In my earlier comments, I questioned whether there might be a problem with injurious resonance phenomena created by the sonar system described in your OEIS/EIS; but, now I have seen the problem and can attest to the fact that there is massive injury to whales caused by sonar. This is not an exaggerated statement, and I am reasonably sure that the Navy knows that.

Therefore, through these two potentially lethal mechanisms, not only marine mammals but also most fish species and many other forms of marine life are vulnerable to the direct lethal effects of sonar at intensity levels of 150 to 160 dB - well below (100 to 1,000 times less than) that which the Navy has claimed is safe (i.e., 180 dB). Because LFA sonar travels very long distances with little attenuation, the area so affected will be quite large - more than 200 km in diameter. In fact, the Navy states in its FEIS that LFA sonar can still be 160 dB several hundred miles from the source. Therefore, the potential direct "kill-zone" for LFA sonar is an area larger than the state of Texas.

As noted above, the direct and indirect "kill zones" around such high intensity sonar blasts could, according to the Navy's FEIS, extend several hundreds of miles and thus affect many imperiled species in thousands of square miles of their critical habitats.

The Navy has stated in testimony before a Congressional subcommittee that it has passive listening systems that can detect quiet submarines in littoral waters where previously they were thought to be undetectable. Evidence concerning the present and future availability of new and advanced passive sonar technologies (such as Advanced Deployable Systems tested off California, Robust Passive Sonar (RPS) and towed arrays equipped with Acoustic Rapid Commercial-off-the-shelf Insertion (ARCI) processing) which have the potential to locate quiet submarines without harm to marine life are not discussed in the FEIS. (See RADM Malcolm I. Fages and RADM J.P. Davis, Statement before the House Armed Services Committee, Military Procurement Subcommittee (June 27, 2000) and Presentation of Dr. Thomas J. Green, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), to Department of Defense (Sept. 6-8, 2000) noting the potential effectiveness of a "Robust Passive Sonar" system apparently in development at DARPA). Why authorize highly dangerous LFA sonar when safe alternatives exist?

The precautionary principle should be adopted here as well as in the fishery management arena - deployment of LFA sonar should be approved only if the Navy can demonstrate that there will be no significant adverse effects on marine life over broad areas of the ocean at full deployment intensity levels. We do not believe NMFS should approve the Navy's deployment or even additional potentially lethal testing in marine environments until NMFS and the Navy can answer the question "what will likely be the lethal and sublethal effects of LFA sonar at full deployment intensity levels on marine life for which NMFS is the federal steward, including fish as well as marine mammals and other protected species?" Specifically for fish, we need to know

"at what decibel level does LFA sonar no longer cause direct mortality and at what lower decibel level is there no longer any debilitating injury?" Only then will we know how large an area of ocean and how much marine life could be seriously affected.

Sincerely,
James R. Chambers

Most of the subs built by Russia were never supersilent for a number of reasons. The Dutch, the Chinese, and a few other countries are developing these mostly supersilent 'electric subs' that lack the range to be serious threats to our domination

 

The USN knows EXACTLY that it will eventualy kill everything in the sea. That is probably what they want. A sterile body of water. A sub or a person would stand out like black and white. "Hey, I am going to protect the country , if I have to starve or kill everyone in the process." -------------------------One federal agency is going to ask another for permission to PROTECT the USA?------- A, NO you can't, would mean Stalin's Moles are still with us!

 

Hey, Cyclops - while I agree whole-heartedly with you - you realise that talk like that could get you a one-way ticket to Guantanamo Bay...

 

If it comes down to the fish or the security of us, the fish go. No debate.

 

Brian,

It's pretty serious, your last post really puts it in perspective.

The reality is, I suppose, that if they can spend 2 billion dollars in 1945 to create the atomic bomb it really says it all.

J. Robert Oppenheimer and his team must have been aware of the consequences but continued anyway famously stating "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds".

Can you think of any government spending the equivalent of 2 billion dollars in todays money with a team of the best brains on the planet trying to save our environment in one project? - I THINK NOT.

 

Enormous power also brings enormous risk. As we grow to the end of lives we see life, country, even ones own life, in a very different set of priorities. If we are allowed to live long enough, most will stop taking and begin to give back to a country that has provided us with a almost endless childhood. There is always a price to the endless pleasures we enjoy in America. Many people never truly want to accept the fact of Mother Nature. Only the fitest will survive. How that condition exists, the fitest, will always become closer to the total end of humanity. Technology speeds up the process so fast,that at times the choices seem cruel.