A recent report by Dahr Jamail on the excellent liberal blog TomDispatch uncovers the devastating environment potential of an upcoming US Naval exercise to be held in the fishing lanes off the Alaskan coast. This month, the Navy will be conducting war games in the Gulf of Alaska involving the use of live munitions and active sonar.
The exercises will be conducted at the height of fishing season and risk destruction not only to marine life in the area, but also to the livelihoods of thousands of Alaskans, many of them American Indians, who depend on the Gulf for their livings. Among the marine species potentially endangered will be the critically endangered North Pacific right whale, of which there are estimated to be thirty left in the Bering Sea. The Navy itself admits there will be 182,000 "takes," deaths or detrimental effects on the Gulf's marine mammals.
My Gut Reaction: FTN
Analysis below the fold....
According to the Navy, these will be the largest war games ever conducted in the region, involving 352,000 pounds of expended materials. The exploding munitions will not only destroy the marine life and landscape, but will also release poison into the water. For example, one Naval torpedo will release a cyanide discharge of 140 to 150 parts per billion, which sounds small until you learn that the EPA's allowable level on cyanide is one part per billion.
Local Alaskans, including the indigenous community, are up in arms over this exercise, which threatens not only their environment but their ability to make a living off the sea. Jamail profiles one Alaskan, Emily Stolarcyk of the Eyak Preservation Council, who has been leading protests against the proposed exercises. She has been joined by trade groups representing local fishermen, who fear the impact of the exercises on local fish stock.
The Navy, for its part, is trying to claim that setting off thousands of pounds of explosives in the Gulf of Alaska will not do environmental damage. A research center in the region, the Prince William Sound Science Center, refuses to take a position because they receive funding from the Navy.