Besieged by phone calls and faxes from outraged Californians, Fisheries delayed its permitting decision and extended the comment period to include public hearings in Santa Cruz and Kauai. Both hearings were well attended, and both went badly for the Scripps team. Munk was shouted down as a heartless whale killer. “A deaf whale is a dead whale!” became the opposition rallying cry from California to Capitol Hill. Fisheries’ two public hearings turned into a dozen meetings up and down the California coast and in Hawaii. For Munk, who attended each meeting until the bitter end, it was a torturous series of humiliating public rebukes. Virtually his only defender was a young Darlene Ketten, who flew out west with a sperm whale ear bone on her lap as a teaching prop to explain why Acoustic Thermometry’s low-frequency sound waves would likely prove harmless to whales. But no one seemed willing to trust Ketten’s and Munk’s assurances.
In reality, no one could predict the impact of Acoustic Thermometry on whales or other marine life. No one had ever broadcast 195 decibels of low-frequency sound for years on end, generated inside a marine mammal sanctuary and audible across an entire ocean basin. With bioacoustic experts reduced to speculation on both sides of the argument, Acoustic Thermometry became a test case for the precautionary principle. Oceanographer Sylvia Earle summed up the position of the skeptics in the written statement she submitted to Fisheries: “If you further damage the patient, the earth, while you try to take its temperature, then maybe the method is flawed.”
When Fisheries decided to table its decision on a permit, Acoustic Thermometry was at an impasse. ONR brought in a new project director, Bob Gisiner, to try to revive the permitting process. But at that late date, Gisiner could do little more than watch the Scripps team move through the five stages of grief for its formerly grand, now stranded, project.
Munk was dismayed at being cast as an environmental villain after conceiving an ingenious method for measuring climate change. A man who could predict the movements of underwater weather systems across the oceans had failed to anticipate the tsunami of opposition that had overwhelmed his global sound experiment.
Meanwhile, Reynolds—who felt emboldened by his recently won injunction against the Navy’s ship shock test—pressed Scripps to move its sound experiment outside the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. NRDC sent a direct mail letter to its members who, in turn, unleashed a torrent of letters to Scripps asking why the West Coast’s leading oceanographic institute would be endangering whales.
Munk was galled by Reynolds’ attacks, particularly since Scripps and NRDC scientists had recently collaborated on a nuclear-nonproliferation project to monitor underground explosive tests. In a fit of pique, Munk called NRDC Executive Director John Adams in New York to ask him to get Reynolds off his back. Or at least to agree not to sue Scripps. Wasn’t NRDC concerned about global warming? Munk asked.
Adams explained as diplomatically as possible that while he valued Scripps’ expertise and partnership, ocean noise was an important issue for NRDC, and it was going to see it through. “I don’t tell my senior attorneys how to do their job,” he told Munk, “and as far as I’m concerned, Joel Reynolds is just doing what I hired him to do.”
After he got off with Munk, Adams called Reynolds to tell him not to worry about Scripps or Munk. “Fuck ’em,” he said with characteristic bluntness. “Just keep doing what you’re doing. And don’t look over your shoulder.”
When Munk realized that Adams wasn’t going to rein in Reynolds, he called Sylvia Earle and asked her to broker a peace. She was the obvious person to bridge the chasm between physical oceanographers and marine biologists, having divided her career between both disciplines.17
Earle liked Munk personally. He had an irresistible continental charm, and he was unassailably a genius when it came to decoding the internal structures of the ocean. But she resented the arrogance of Munk’s generation of physical oceanographers, who turned a blind eye to marine life. She’ d recently resigned her position as chief scientist at NOAA—a stint she referred to as her “US Sturgeon General” period—to become a more vocal activist on behalf of ocean conservation. Her book Sea Change: A Message of the Oceans, published that same year, was a clarion call to rescue the oceans from “death by debris” and “death by a thousand cuts,” including noise pollution.
Munk distrusted Earle’s recent tilt toward environmental advocacy. But he was out of options. Earle had collaborated with Scripps on a number of research projects over the years, and she currently sat on NRDC’s board. The day after she heard from Munk, Earle got a call from John Adams with a parallel request that she coax the two sides toward a compromise. She agreed to try.
Earle convened a meeting in San Francisco where researchers on both sides could express their views and try to find common ground. No press was allowed. Neither was the general public. The goal was to move the discussion from the vitriol of a public debate to a closed-door meeting among scientists—and their lawyers. The hoped-for result would be a process for moving forward with Acoustic Thermometry without resorting to lawsuits—though NRDC clearly stood ready to go to court if the parties failed to reach an agreement.
Earle opened the meeting by expressing her own cautionary view of deep-sea sound experiments: “Listen before you leap, because you can’t undo damage once it’s done.” Otherwise she hung back and let the invited guests do the talking. Reynolds simply took notes as the scientists articulated their views.
By the end of the session, a framework for a settlement had emerged. Munk and his team would devote phase one of Acoustic Thermometry, including a third of its funding, to studying the effects of low-frequency sound on marine mammals. Phase two would proceed only if monitoring of phase one demonstrated that the sound source posed no threat to the whales in its path. Munk would move the California sound source from the ocean floor off Point Sur in the Monterey Marine Sanctuary up the coast and farther offshore, where there were fewer marine mammals. Reynolds and the Scripps attorneys agreed to work out the details in a follow-up meeting.
Munk watched in dazed disbelief as his prized program drifted farther and farther out to sea. After years of painstaking mathematical calculations and logistical planning, after endless rounds of grant writing and fund-raising, after all the abusive public hearings where he’ d been treated like a war criminal, it had come to this: a roomful of lawyers who understood less about underwater acoustics than his first-year grad students were haggling over his Acoustic Thermometry assets like so much community property in a divorce settlement. It was simply too much to bear.
Munk shoved back his chair and glared across the table at Reynolds. When he spoke, his voice had none of its usual courtly lilt. “I really don’t understand why you’ve gone after us like this,” said Munk, clearly strained by fatigue and exasperation. “The Navy is putting so much more sound into the ocean, right here off the California coast.”
Reynolds sat stock still, waiting for Munk to continue. He’ d conducted enough depositions to know when to ask questions and when to shut up and let a witness do the talking. “Magellan II was transmitting up and down the coast just last summer.”
With as little inflection as he could, Reynolds intoned, “Magellan II . . .”
“Yes, Magellan II is much louder than our sound source,” Munk continued. “Two hundred thirty-five decibels.” He also quoted a frequency range of 250 hertz, which Reynolds scribbled on his legal pad. “Next to Magellan II,” Munk insisted, “Acoustic Thermometry sounds like a humming refrigerator.”
Reynolds scanned the room, but no one else seemed to register that Munk was detailing the acoustic specs of a code-named Navy operation—except for Sylvia Earle, who gave Reynolds a questioning glance. After the meeting adjourned and everyone else had left for the airport, Earle turned to Reynolds. “What was Munk talking about?” she asked. “Magellan II?”
Reynolds shrugged. He had no idea. But he was determined to find out.
* * *
* Though the Jasons�
�� summer study sessions continued without interruption throughout the Cold War and beyond, as late as their informal 50th reunion in 2010, no verifiable list of Jason members had ever been published.
15
The Sonar That Came In from the Cold
JULY 10, 1994
Los Angeles Office of NRDC
The morning after the Acoustic Thermometry settlement meeting, Reynolds was still puzzling over his handwritten notes: “Magellan II” . . . “sound source level: 235 decibels” . . . “transmission frequency: 250 hertz.”
Walter Munk had opened the vault of the Navy’s secret underwater sound experiments. But only a crack. The longer Reynolds stared at the figures on his yellow legal pad, the more mystified he became.
Everything Reynolds knew about marine mammals and underwater acoustics he’ d crammed during the prior six months of the ship shock and Acoustic Thermometry controversies. He understood the basics of how sound behaves in the ocean, and how whales and dolphins use acoustics to communicate, hunt, and navigate. But his knowledge of sonar and antisubmarine warfare began and ended with episodes of Sea Hunt he’ d watched on TV as a kid.
Internet and public database searches for “Magellan II” came up empty. Reynolds asked the nuclear disarmament wonks at NRDC’s office in Washington, DC, if they’ d ever heard of it. They hadn’t. All they knew was that it must be a classified program, which meant it wouldn’t be mentioned by name in public documents or peer-reviewed journals.
Over the next six months, Reynolds kept digging for leads in dry holes. Then one day in May 1995, a plain manila envelope arrived in his office mail. No return address. Inside he found the latest issue of Sea Technology, an esoteric trade magazine that billed itself as the “worldwide information leader for marine business, science & engineering.” A Post-it note pasted to the table of contents read, “Thought you’ d find this interesting—John.” Reynolds knew it must be from John Hall, the former Navy dolphin trainer who’ d coached him on all things Navy during the ship shock trial and Acoustic Thermometry negotiations.
Reynolds scanned down the list of articles to “Low-Frequency, High-Power-Density Active Sonar,” written by a commercial contractor for the Navy’s experimental Low Frequency Active, or LFA, sonar program. The article provided detailed specs of the system’s powerful sound transducer and the array of passive sensors towed behind to capture the return signals. It also described thousands of hours of sea tests, named Magellan I and II, which the Navy conducted between 1992 and 1995, around the world and off the California coastline, aboard the research vessel Cory Chouest—which Reynolds recognized as the same ship that Admiral Pittenger had loaned to Munk for the Heard Island Feasibility Test.
Armed with a raft of new search terms, Reynolds uncovered a US General Accounting Office report that outlined the Navy’s plan—conceived by Admiral Pittenger in the mid-1980s as part of his master plan for expanding active sonar—to install LFA sonar aboard dozens of newly commissioned ships and deploy it worldwide. John Hall filled in the gaps in Reynolds’ understanding of the technical specs of the system, including his personal observations of low-frequency sound experiments he’ d witnessed while working for the Navy.
Munk was correct in his assertion that Acoustic Thermometry’s sound level didn’t compare to the intensity of the Magellan transmissions. Since decibels progress logarithmically—much like the Richter scale that measures the intensity of earthquakes—Low Frequency Active sonar’s 235 decibels created a sound pressure wave 10,000 times more powerful than Acoustic Thermometry’s 195-decibel transmission. And its omnidirectional, low-frequency signal would carry for hundreds of miles across the ocean—thousands of miles if it entered the deep sound channel.
Reynolds’ subsequent outreach to acoustic experts confirmed the Navy’s interest in long-range active sonar technology, as well as its geographic range and intensity. As one of them described it to Reynolds, LFA sonar would “light up literally hundreds of thousands of square miles of ocean at a time.” What must 235 decibels feel like, Reynolds wondered, to the humpback, blue, and gray whales that lived and migrated along the California coastline? Or, for that matter, to a recreational swimmer or diver?
• • •
By mid-August 1995, Reynolds had completed a six-page letter of inquiry addressed to the Secretary of the Navy and the head of Fisheries. He catalogued the “significant and unknown” risks that LFA sonar posed to the whales, dolphins, and seals of the California coastline. After describing the legal implications of those risks, he asked pointedly if the Navy had complied with the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the US Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act—all of which this sonar system appeared to violate. If the Navy was not in compliance, Reynolds asked Fisheries to order the Navy to cease testing and deployment of LFA sonar “until all required permits have been obtained, legally adequate biological opinions have been issued, and a full Environmental Impact Statement has been prepared and certified.”
Reynolds knew less than his letter implied about the specifics of LFA sonar. But he wanted to make sure he got the attention of the Navy brass.
• • •
Reynolds was working in his office when he received a call from the San Diego field office of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. They were sending an agent over to interview him—as soon as his schedule permitted.
The interview lasted only a half hour. In a courteous but quietly menacing tone, the investigator explained that Reynolds’ letter of inquiry contained classified information related to Navy projects that were critical to the national defense. Whoever had shared them with him had likely violated the Defense Secrets Act. The investigator acknowledged that Reynolds wasn’t bound by an oath to protect state secrets, but he could surely understand the Navy’s interest in learning how he’ d come into possession of classified information.
Reynolds had no intention of identifying Walter Munk as his original source, though it remained a puzzle to Reynolds as to why Munk, who’ d worked on classified Navy programs his whole career, would disclose the existence of Magellan to an environmental attorney.* Reynolds simply told the investigator that the letter was the end product of a lengthy investigation during which he’ d spoken to a lot of people. As to the source of the technical specs, he handed the investigator a copy of Sea Technology, which, he noted, was available at several branches of the Los Angeles Public Library.
• • •
Three weeks after he sent his letter, Reynolds got a call from Navy General Counsel Steve Honigman, inviting him to the Pentagon for a personal briefing on Magellan II. Honigman was the same general counsel who had stepped in to negotiate a settlement to the ship shock injunction 18 months earlier. He wanted to avoid a repeat of that debacle and preferred to negotiate with Reynolds across a Pentagon conference table rather than place the fate of LFA sonar in the hands of a civilian judge.
After so many months of searching for details about LFA sonar, Reynolds was eager to be briefed inside the citadel. He invited Peter Tyack, a bioacoustician from Woods Hole who’ d been a friendly advisor during the Acoustic Thermometry negotiations, to serve as his wingman and marine mammal expert.
When they arrived at the Pentagon, Reynolds and Tyack were seated on one side of a long conference table. On the other side was a battalion of Navy and Fisheries personnel, including uniformed brass, lawyers, and scientists. Leading the marine biology side of the Navy’s briefing was Chris Clark, who had flown in overnight from a SOSUS listening station in the Pacific Northwest where he’ d been conducting research. (Clark was one of only two civilian scientists afforded access by the Navy to SOSUS stations for whale research.) Like Clark, Whitehead, and Weilgart, Tyack had come of age as a researcher on Roger Payne’s humpback whale expeditions in Argentina and Hawaii. Tyack and Clark had gone on to become rival bioacousticians at competing research centers. Now they found themselves facing each other across a table in an arena that was more politic
al than scientific.
Alongside Clark and Honigman sat a cast of characters who were familiar to Reynolds from the ship shock case, including Bob Gisiner from ONR, Roger Gentry from Fisheries, and Frank Stone from Environmental Readiness. They were flanked by a dozen naval officers of varying rank, including six admirals in blue dress uniforms, their jacket lapels heavy with medals.
Reynolds was accustomed to dealing with corporate CEOs, powerful politicians, and Hollywood celebrities. But it was hard not to feel a bit shabby and underdressed in the presence of the admiralty. The admirals’ demeanor was courteous; their erect, almost royal bearing, imposing. They spoke very little during the meeting. They didn’t have to. Their presence sent the clear message that when it came to safeguarding the country’s national security, they were in charge. The scientists and lawyers were mere functionaries.
General Counsel Honigman explained that the Magellan II exercises off the California coast were the latest in a series of 22 sea tests of LFA sonar that ONR had conducted around the world since the late 1980s. Like the program’s namesake, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, the Cory Chouest had circumnavigated the globe to test LFA sonar in every ocean environment of tactical significance to the US Navy’s antisubmarine warfare effort. Honigman contended that since each of the internal Environmental Assessments of the sea tests had arrived at a Finding of No Significant Impact, the Navy hadn’t been required to apply for permits from Fisheries. Reynolds was skeptical that the fig leaf of internal assessments would stand up to a legal challenge. But rather than contradict the Navy’s general counsel in the presence of the admiralty, he decided to hold his peace.
War of the Whales: A True Story Page 20
