The Sitka assembly has gone on record opposing training exercises by the US Navy in prime fishing habitat in the Gulf of Alaska next summer.
Most members agreed that the use of live explosives and powerful sonar could be harmful to fish and marine mammals — and detrimental to the state’s fishing industry.
Up until 2004, according to the Eyak Preservation Council’s Emily Stolarcyk, Naval training exercises in the Gulf of Alaska took place in winter. (US Navy image)
Emily Stolarcyk, with the Eyak Preservation Council in Cordova, was quick to point out that the resolution under consideration was not anti-military. The proposed training area occupies around 70,000 square miles of the Gulf of Alaska, between Kodiak and Sitka. Roughly 90-percent of the area is designated Essential Fish Habitat.
“This is about finding common ground between two very different user groups who have to use the same area — mainly commercial fishermen and the US Military. So what we’re asking for is for the Navy to make adjustments to their current plans to practice in the summer. We want them to go back to what they’ve historically done, and practice in the winter.”
Specifically, the resolution asks the Navy to move the training exercises — called Northern Edge — from the first two weeks of May, to anytime between mid-September and March. The Navy’s most recent permit for Northern Edge activities expired last year.
Stolarcyk supplied the assembly with detail on the amount of munitions the Navy planned to use during the exercises — all publicly available on the Navy’s Environmental Impact Statement. And the amounts are staggering: 352,000 pounds of bombs, missiles, targets, and other so-called training materials that contain 10,500 pounds of hazardous materials including dangerous heavy metals like chromium and cyanide.
But Stolarcyk said that’s not all.
“There’re are the munitions that the Navy uses, the bombs and so forth, and there’s the active sonar. Active sonar has only been used twice in the Gulf of Alaska, in 2011 and 2015. The noise level of the sonar is extremely loud – 235 decibels. To put that to scale, humans begin to experience hearing damage at anything over 85 decibels. A gunshot is about 150 db.”
The Navy EIS documents acknowledge the risks of harm and deaths the exercises pose to marine mammals. But fisheries are a question mark.
Assembly member Kevin Knox asked about this.
Knox – We have research and data about what sound does to mammals, but we don’t have a lot on finfish. Is that correct?
Stolarcyk – That’s correct. Fish are much more difficult to study, when it comes to sound. Mammals live longer, they’re larger, they’re easier to track. We also have the Marine Mammal Protection Act, so legislatively they’re a lot easier to protect than fish.”
Stolarcyk said that fewer than 100 of the world’s 24,000 species of fish had been studied with sound.
Assembly member Steven Eisenbeisz wasn’t necessarily buying it.
“When the Navy was last here in 2015 do we have any records or studies or anything indicating what damage did happen to any animals in the area, including fish, marine mammals, birds, or anything like that?”
Stolarcyk replied that the Navy was not required to research or report on the impact of its training activities after-the-fact, and the training area was c losed to independent research.
But the rest of the assembly was on board. Aaron Bean fishes com mercially. He called it “pretty straightforward.” Bob Potrzuski agreed. He wanted to protect Sitka’s seafood industry, which he calls “blue jobs.”
“If there is anything that could potentially damage what’s going on with our blue jobs, then I think we should do everything we can to avoid that. So I would certainly support this resolution.”
The assembly voted 6-1 to send the resolution asking the Navy to change the 2017 schedule of the Northern Edge training exercises to the winter months.
At the conclusion of the meeting, Stolarcyk spoke again under “persons to be heard” and thanked the assembly for joining Cordova, Kodiak, and Homer in speaking out on the issue. And she had a final argument for Steven Eisenbeisz, the assembly’s lone dissenter.
“We don’t necessarily need data to say that the Exxon Valdez spilling millions of gallons of crude oil into the pristine waters of Prince William Sound was not a great idea for habitat.”
Besides coastal communities, at least three Tribal governments have also passed the resolution. It’s expected to be heard by the city council of Girdwood at their next meeting.
