PANAMA CITY BEACH — The U.S. Navy has approved a plan to increase the frequency of training and testing activities — including the use of active sonar and explosives — along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.
The Navy’s Atlantic Fleet Training and Testing (AFTT) Environmental Impact Statement was finalized about two weeks ago,providing a five-year training and environmental mitigation plan for range complexes and testing ranges within the AFTT region, which covers about 2.6 million square nautical miles.
Project manager Jene Nissen said the statement includes an increase in live, at-sea training to address the growing threat in submarine and mine warfare.
“We, the Navy, are continuously looking at our training and testing programs to see what improvements need to be made, what modifications can be made,” Nissen said. “We’ve identified that we need to do more live training and more at-sea training … to make sure that our requirements are met and our sailors are employed with the skills they need to have.”
One of the major issues addressed in the analysis, Nissen said, focuses on the impact Navy testing has on marine animals and the environment.
Scientific models used in the report show the use of vessels, sonar and explosives could cause harassment, injury or mortality of marine mammals, but Nissen said all activities within the plan have been approved by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and are in accordance with the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act.
Nissen said NMFS has determined there will be no population-level impacts and no long-term impacts on marine animals; the Navy also has an extensive sweep of mitigation measures in place to avoid harm.
“We believe that through our mitigation and through our historical use of these systems at sea that the likelihood of mortality or injury is very low,” Nissen said. “If we see the animals, we’ll either move or stop the event.”
The new plan also includes updated information on how testing affects water quality, air quality and marine species, specifically how species are affected by sound.
Overall, Nissen said, the process is in place to help sailors be better prepared to do their jobs.
“We’ll never stop evaluating how to make our training better,” Nissen said. “The reason we do this is to ensure that when we send sailors into harm’s way that they’re prepared the best they can be.”
The Navy renews the environmental impact statement every five years. The current plan will span 2014 to 2019.