Court clears blasting of air guns in whale home

Environmental groups have lost a bid to stop a U.S. research vessel from conducting seismic tests in a marine protected area off the coast of Vancouver Island.

Federal Court Judge Michael Kelen ruled Thursday against a request for an emergency injunction to stop the RV Marcus Langseth from firing seismic air guns in the Endeavour Hydrothermal Vents Marine Protected Area.

The survey site, 250 kilometres southwest of Vancouver Island, is home to endangered whales that the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society and Living Oceans Society argued would be harmed by the seismic blasts. Lawyer Lara Tessaro had argued for a stay of the Foreign Vessel Clearance certificate issued to the research team last week by Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon.

The blasts are part of a month-long study led by the University of Oregon geological sciences department to better understand and predict earthquakes.

Kelen said in his judgment that measures ordered by the Canadian government are enough to protect marine mammals. But he noted that it was only after the lawsuit was filed that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans increased those measures.

“Imminent legal action may have precipitated the requirement for increased mitigation measures,” he said.

Those measures include a reduction in noise from airguns to 160 decibels from 180 decibels (a jet engine at takeoff is rated at around 160 on many decibel charts), DFO-approved observers are to watch for marine mammals, and testing will stop when a marine mammal is within a seven-kilometre exclusion zone.

After reviewing the changes, John Ford, head of the Cetacean Research Program at DFO’s Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, said as long as the measures are employed, the project is unlikely to cause injury or behavioural disturbance of any significance to whales or other marine mammals.

Sabine Jessen, spokeswoman for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, said environmental groups are disappointed with the ruling and believe it will be difficult to spot whales in the exclusion zone. “But we are feeling good about the fact that the judge recognized that, as a result of the lawsuit, DFO improved the safety of the project.”

The research ship arrived in the Endeavour area this week and started seismic tests Wednesday afternoon, said Doug Toomey, University of Oregon professor of geophysics, who is leading the research.

Low-frequency soundwaves create images of the structure beneath the seafloor, said Toomey, noting the Endeavour region is the source of numerous earthquakes. “Many of the earthquakes — which generate sound in the same frequency band as the RV Marcus Langseth seismic array — are louder than the sounds we will produce.”

The research will improve understanding of how the structure of the ocean crust and Juan de Fuca plate contributes to earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic hazards that threaten the region, Toomey said. It will also look at biodiversity around the hydrothermal site to help inform decisions about protection of deep-sea vent sites and surrounding ecosystems, he said.

The RV Marcus Langseth is owned by the U.S. National Science Foundation and operated as a research facility by the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, part of Columbia University.

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