RESPONSE TO 2005 STORIES

posted 03/24/05 May I ask for space for one last response to Ben White? After this I promise I shall vanish whence I came, at least until the next series of 'diaries' Please forgive the lengthy technical bits, they have partly been in his diaries, and are the nub of the argument. I'm just grateful that publishing on your excellent journal doesn't involve chopping down trees!

To get a couple small niggles out of the way;- Mr White needs to read carefully what I actually said about his funding, he attributes views to me that I didn't express and don't hold. Also (I just can't resist a tease) readers might be forgiven for thinking that his remarks about the arrogance of Americans involved with the Ewing in Mexico were a case of the pot calling the kettle black.....

Now the serious stuff;-

As a relative newcomer to this debate, although not to marine acoustics, I am astonished how polarised it is. Each side seems to have its own literature to support its arguments, although I'm sure both sides are entirely sincere. Rather than get involved in an argument about the relative merits of other peoples' work, I have been trying, so far without success, to put before Mr White some direct observations relating to the Chicxulub experiment that run contrary to his claims, and may well have wider relevance.

Mr White claimed explicitly in his diaries that the whole area would be bombarded with intense sound, that there would be the carcasses of dead mammals washed up on the beaches, and that the Ewing would leave a trail of dead fish behind it. The FACTS are that at 3.6 km from the guns it was not possible for a diver to hear them, and that fish are completely undisturbed at 190m from the guns. No dead fish were found - well, actually a couple were found in the water in front of the Ewing, apparently discarded by a fishing boat. No doubt a few others were washed up, as they occasionally seem to be when the Norte blows. No dead mammals attributable to the Ewing were found despite asiduous searches, although several dead turtles were washed up either wrapped in fishing lines or with stab wounds. The evidence is unequivocal. Therefore the claims made for the noise level and the impact on marine life during this experiment must be wrong. Put simply, I KNOW it was not a very loud sound, I went and checked. And yes, both my diver and I would have entered the water much nearer had our safety code permitted it.

It is interesting to ask why this large divergence of perception exists. Using the figures that Mr White and others have quoted for the gun intensity and fall off in sound with distance, the sound level at 3.6km is calculated as about 180 dB assuming spherical spreading. Adjusting to the equivalent noise level in air, around 120 dB, leads one to expect noise comparable to a jet engine at 10 meters! Not surprising therefore, based on this comparison, that people think it unacceptable - imagine trying to carry on a conversation with that much noise going on! And yet it was not noticeable! There are two possibilities to explain this discrepancy, either the sound doesn' t propagate in shallow water (most authorities think it should propagate much better), or the numbers cannot be compared directly to anything we are familiar with, i.e they are effectively meaningless. It is difficult to believe the propagation losses are so marked, especially at only 3.6 km and 190 meters, so it looks as if the second explanation holds.

It might be worth trying an alternative way of looking at seismic shooting. Each time the guns go off they release a total energy equivalent to heating the water in a very small bathtub up to comfortable bath temperature from cold, and some (lets assume all) of this energy goes into the water as sound and spreads out. At a distance of 100 meters from the airguns the energy has spread so much that if a typical fish swimming broadside on absorbed all the sound energy that hit it, it would only receive energy equivalent to raising its temperature by about one ten millionth of a degree! That is at a mere 100 meters, remember. This leads on to a major difference between water borne sound and air borne sound - in air, bodies are very different acoustically from the air and absorb much of the incident sound energy, whereas in water living things have pretty much the same properties as water, and thus only absorb at most a tiny fraction of the incedent sound energy.

Only air sacs and swim bladders present any acoustic contrast and reflect and scatter sound energy, although not much at seismic frequencies. Animals without air sacs, for example eggs and octupus, are more or less acoustically transparent so there is very little energy transfer. As far as I can see this effectively rules out any physical (as distinct from physiological) damage at ranges of more than a few meters. Physiolsogical damage is presumably restricted to species that sense and use sound and pressure and is a more complex question on which the evidence is necessarily scant and indirect, but if divers can't hear it, and fish don't react, major effects seem unlikely. This (grossly simplified for brevity) model may just give a better intuitive picture of what happens than the current scary and, I believe, grossly misleading sound intensity model.

Since we have seen no direct evidence of the predicted ecological disaster, what are the chances of detecting it from a fall-off in catches as Mr White suggests? Let's assume a worst case Ben White doomsday scenario - everthing within 185 meters of the guns (i.e. just out of sight of my camera!) gets wiped out completely.

Given the 10km average line spacing, the Ben White effect would wipe out less than 4% of the total populations. Assuming Mr White's figure of a 50% fall off in catch off Yucatan from other causes in the last two years, there would be no hope of detecting it! Remember though - the 4% Ben White effect is pure fiction, the 50% decline is for real and ought to dwarf the seismic issue in terms of ecological impact for Ben, the AWI and the Yucatecans; in fact it elicited no concern in his diaries.

To answer his other questions;- I'm not sure what active sonar Mr White meant - Ewing was using a couple of echosounders, but the swath bathymetry doesn't work at all in shallow water, and so all but the downward looking sounder element were off. The energy levels are low, pulsed, and well directed downwards, and from my previous observation don't seem to deter whales and dolphins from approaching other research ships using them. Usually in shallow water lower power pulses are used as otherwise multiple echoes confuse the receivers. I cannot think of any physics or physiology that would suggest an effect greater than the sum of the parts. Total energy levels are small compared with the airguns, although the frequency is much higher, so no, not a very loud noise as I understand the words.

Mr White asks why no-one is studying the effects on marine mammals before and after;- they are. I understand there is a Yucatan Institute that has been engaged in just such a study of marine mammals as markers for ocean health for the past two years. I am sure it will report fully in due course.

I don't know about the startle response in deep diving whales, but I was told of an experiment by a group of sea mammal scientists recently in which a whale slept on while an airgun was fired near it. Not a very strong startle response there! In any event I don't quite see how a whale could get itself into a position to be startled, that's what the standard ramp-up of the guns is designed to avoid.

One last little request, one of the marine mammal observers on the Ewing had a dead chicken and a load of fish dumped on their doorstep by Mexican anti-Ewing fanatics! The person asked me to thank Ben for his (no doubt small) part in firing up this hysteria, and could he have a word with his Mexican friends and ask them politely to stop it now, the joke is wearing thin?

If Ben really wants to advance the cause of sea life, rather than pursue a vendetta against Lamont (where was he when Pemex shot the adjacent area last year?), then I'd be happy to work with him to study the effects of seismic shooting - but that depends upon cooperation with ALL parties, which means postponing protest until you know what you're protesting about! And a healthy measure of objectivity. Are you up to the challenge, Ben? I'm not holding my breath!

Hasta luego,

George Snyder.

Dear Editor,

posted 03/10/05
I can’t pass up the lure of rising to respond to George Snyder once again, at the risk of torally boring our readers. I will understand if the worthy editors of the Islander decide to pull the plug on our tete a tete at some point. Thanks for your forebearance.

Ms. Snyder (I am amazed that you have identified yourself as a female George)-

First, let’s at least try to get past the snarky stuff that seems to fit poorly on either of us.

Let’s, just for argument sake, assume that both of us are being honest, me in my belief that active seismic and sonar devicees present real threats, and you in your apparent belief that they are harmless. I accept your offer to work side by side defending the world’s ocean life. I truly believe it will take all approaches to save the oceans. As far as your method being "more constructive" than mine, well, then, congratulations. I am happy for you. I did my damnedest with the information that is available, and make no apologies except for human frailty.

Let me try to disabuse you of an errant concept: people do not offer themselves up as human shields either off the Yucatan or on the West Bank because they are in it for the fund raising. They do it because they believe to their core that something bad is imminent, they see a possibility of stopping it, and care enough to offer up themselves to get between the harm and the harmed. You have apparently bought into the latest Michael Crichton fantasy that its them sneaky environmentalists that are trying to scare us out of our dollars rather than genuinely trying to wake us up.

I would be very happy to learn that the injection of massive amounts of sound into the ocean is harmless, but that is not what many studies show, it is not the concensus of international scientists studying the problem, and it is not my perception. It is not the conclusion of Dr. Arthur Popper in his study of the effect of airguns on red snappers where he found little regeneration in torn ear tissue even after 58 days (Popper and McCauley, et al 2002), or that of Pearson and Skalski in 1992 when they recorded a 50% catch-per-unit-effort decline in the California hook and line rockfish fishery in the vicinity of 223 decibel airguns, or of Dr. Engas (et al) who found in 1993 that airgun pulses of 200 decibels severely effected fish distribution, local abundance and catch rates of cod and haddock over the entire 40X 40 mile investigation area, with trawl catches and longline catches declining an average of 50%, and not recovering to pre-shooting levels for five days after the shooting.

It was not the judgement of the dozens of marine mammal scientists who came to a rare concensus at last year’s International Whaling Commission who cited both active sonar and seismic devices as very real threats to marine mammals. It is not the judgement of Drs. Taylor, Barlow, Pitman, Ballance, Klinger, DeMaster, Hildebrand, Urban, Pallacios, and Mead, some of them among the most esteemed marine mammal scientists in the United States, who authored "A call for research to assess risk of accoustic impact on beaked whale populations." Six of the authors actually found the bodies of the beaked whales that washed up in Baja California during the last Maurice Ewing cruise in Mexico and wrote "Sound intensity levels consistent with those documented to produce harmful effects in the Bahamas incident were estimated to extend to 15 km from the R/V Ewing airguns, assuming simple spherical spreading of energy."

Ms. Snyder tells us that "the issue of short and long term damage caused by seismic shooting is understood well enough to set the present very stringent controls on seismic shooting."

Very stringent controls? The National Marine Fisheries Service and the Minerals Management Service act as virtual rubber stamps on any permit requested for seismic shooting. As far as I know, they have not only allowed every permit requested by either oil and gas, research, or the Navy, but allowed them under an Incidental Harassment Authorization (an IHA) which is a quicky form that bypasses much public scrutiny. The US government even cast a blind eye to the Ewing wanting to blast away at night until the Mexican government insisted otherwise. Allowing the Ewing to produce 255 db in another country’s waters every twenty seconds for every day of a month- this is conservative? Ms. Snyder, yes or no, is this a very loud sound? Would you want to be right next to it? If not, how can you countenance it?

Well understood? What is the effect of the airguns on octopus eggs? Baby Mero? Coral? Plankton? What studies are being conducted quantifying life before, during and after the Ewing cruise? What are the synergistic effects between the use of the two active sonars on board with the airgun array of the Ewing? At what point does seismic trigger a startle effect in deep diving whales? If Ms. Snyder can point me to research looking into these things, I would be grateful. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t exist.

By decrying the arrogance and the imperialism of the scientists envolved on the Ewing, I was trying to reach through to the reasons why we (Americans) seem to keep doing harm, even when we don’t mean to or want to. Maybe you can explain to us why this experiment was so all fired important for human knowledge, and whether you hold active sonar devices in equal regard as the seismic ones. Do your really take the position that these are harmless or that the damage is so little, it doesn’t matter?

Thanks for giving me something to push against, while I wait for the big bucks to flow.

For life,

Ben White

Dear Editor,

posted 03/04/05
I'm sorry that Ben White thinks my letter consisted of decoy, obfuscation and arrogance. It was an attempt to illuminate an issue that had seemed so far to generate more heat than light. I therefore beg space to reply.

The issue of the short and long term damage caused by seismic shooting is understood well enough to confidently set the present very stringent controls on seismic shooting - they factor in the limits of uncertainty. Further knowledge will almost certainly allow the limits to be eased considerably. Mr White is able to capitalise on the professional integrity of scientists who admit that they cannot exactly quantify all possible effects, however small.

If the destruction of marine life were as widespread as his alarmist predictions suggested, its effects would have been observed in more than the same couple of old incidents repeatedly claimed. Presumably the light aircraft that overflew the Ewing shooting area every two days looking for strandings might just have seen something too - he must have seen it flying along the beaches?

Does he think that the scientists involved would be prepared to countenance the sort of damage he attributes to their activites, or that, being in the middle of the claimed devastation, they could fail to be aware of it? Even the Director of the Fisheries Lab in Yucalpaten and the fishermens' leader told me that they did not think the airguns would have any significant effect on marine mammals or fish!

Under the terms of the Ewing's permit, independent mammal observers were on watch at all times while shooting was taking place, and saw mammals on only half a dozen occasions in five weeks. Shooting was suspended when a mammal was spotted as near to the ship as we dived.

I do not work on the Ewing, I was out legally in a small boat trying to find out what effects the shooting was having on the sea bed and marine life in the vicinity of the ship for the benefit of the fishermen and inhabitants of the Yucatan, perhaps a more constructive approach than his?. Of course the Captain of the Ewing and the Port Captain knew what I was doing for safety and organisational reasons. Incidentally nearby fishing boats - there were plenty of them - were in fact only requested to move for a short time if in a small safety zone in the path of the Ewing and its gun booms and 6 km long streamer - hardly 'seizing a big area of the ocean from them'. It wasn't an invading army - there was full and enthusiastic Mexian involvement from inception.

Mr White ignored the main point of MY letter - that I had direct observations of the effect that the airguns were having, or rather were not having! The Yucatecan fisherman diver with me spent twenty minutes in the water about 4 km from the Ewing while it was firing, and was surprised that he was unable to hear the guns, so I confirmed with the Ewing by radio that they were firing at full power. He had to leave the water when the ship was at a range of 3.6km to comply with our own safety regulations and still could not hear the guns! So much for blasting the whole ocean with sound at intense levels. What was even more startling about our observation was that the water depth was only 20m and the bottom was dead flat and a hard limestone pavement, the perfect conditions for sideways sound propogation.

I also put a video camera on the sea bed in the path of the ship and left it recording while the ship passed. Thus I have exactly what Mr White claims we don't have - direct evidence of the effect on marine life. I'm sure he will be delighted to know that fish swim unconcernedly while the ship passes with guns firing, and there was no rain of dead fish. Perhaps he would like to show my video at his Friday Harbour presentation, which he will presumably change to include this new evidence. I would love to come if the AWI or anyone else would care to fund my trip. Please let me know when it will happen.

It is true that the Ewing ran aground on a rock outcrop on which there was some soft coral growing, but fortunately not until the work had almost been completed. The rock outcrop it hit was incorrectly charted on all charts of the area, the Ewing struck about 1400m from the charted position of the reef. The last Mexican fishing boat to ground there was heavily fined, so quite possibly the Ewing will be. In the event the grounding was a direct consequence of the need to transfer a visiting party of inspectors and a Mexican Green Party Senator from the Ewing encumbered with a six kilometer streamer to a small boat, a dangerous manouver at the best of times, and even more difficult in the dark.

I'm sorry that Mr White thinks I dodged the crux issues of his diary entries. Silly me, I thought the main issue WAS the damage the Ewing was supposed to be doing to the sealife and fishermens' livelihood off the Yucatan! I didn't realise the crux was to fight arrogance and imperialism in the name of ordinary people.

I understand from those involved that this has been a hugely successful experiment done under what might charitably be called difficult conditions. When the enormous data set from 86 land instruments, 31 seabed instruments and the towed streamer are analysed it will provide a fascinating insight into a very significant event in the earth's history. That it succeeded is a tribute to the Mexican, American and British scientists and support teams, and particularly to the many Yucatecans who gave them so much help and warm hopitality.

It is a pity the project doesn't excite Mr White as much as it seems to excite the Yucatecans I talked to, but I can't believe, judging from his general distain for scientists, that he has much regard for any science.

In conclusion, perhaps Mr White owes the readers of his diaries and those who funded his activities some hard evidence in support of his thesis that the Ewing would devastate marine life and to justify his expenses, especially if he expects them to fund his activities next time.

On second thoughts, perhaps we should stop squabbling and cooperate - White and Snyder, knights in the fight for the sea life of the world! White with his boundless energy, lyrical prose, flair for publicity and support from AWI, and Snyder with her pathetic obsession with evidence and tedious drive to achieve her objectives. No, that won't work, since White tells us he is now more interested in fighting people than in protecting marine life. Ah well, many a good idea has foundered on the rocks of truth........

George Snyder

Dear Editor,

posted 02/28/05
Thanks again to the Islander and now letter-writer George Snyder for keeping the public forum alive concerning the activities of the seismic vessel Maurice Ewing in Mexico. Sorry for the delay in my answering Mr. Snyder.

It appears that Mr. Snyder works on the Ewing if he legally took a small boat out to the ship. I also recognize the exact pattern of decoy, obfuscation and arrogance he uses that I have found in dealing with scientists.

Take Mr. Snyder’s first assertion, that after talking to folks in Progreso, he can assure us that the Ewing is "taking the utmost precautions to avoid any damage to wildlife" he omits "while going ahead with the long time use of high intensity sound." No one knows how much damage the Ewing has done because no study was made of populations before, during or after the sound bombing of the ocean floor. It will become clearer once we see what the catch is over the next year.

Whether the Port Captain started allowing other fishermen’s boats to come anywhere near the Ewing, after forbidding two captains from taking me out, I do not know. But Mr. Snyder tells us that, sort of like the fish and marine mammals that "just move away," the fishermen are "politely shepherded out of the way by a guard boat"- that is from their own fishing grounds. What gives American scientists the right to just seize a big area of the ocean from the fishermen and creatures that depend on it? Just move on, bub, the important people are here now!

Mr. Snyder says, essentially, that the seismic airgun devices are harmless, and well understood. Understood by whom? How? Certainly not by the National Marine Fisheries Service or the Marine Mammal Commission or any of the international scientists studying this. I know because I have been attending all of their meetings. What happens to the creatures directly below the seismic pulses that cannot just "move away?"

By attacking my complete ignorance in logic and scientific thought, Mr. Snyder dodges dealing with the crux issues of my diary entries:

The institutional arrogance of scientists using the living world as their private lab
The imperialistic nature of forcing this study down the throats of the Yucatecans
The responsibility of the ordinary person to object to the doing of harm

Even if I am as stupid, illogical and misguided as Mr. Snyder says (which is certainly a possibility), it pales to how the operators of the Ewing must feel since running aground on Madagascar Reef last week off Sisal with a government observation team on board, taking four hours to get off, only to find that they wrecked a swath of coral. Last I heard, the Ewing was essentially under house arrest at the end of the dock in Progreso until they pay a big fine, with their permit suspended and movement in the Mexican Senate to permanently evict them from Mexican waters. Apparently the Ewing only got off about two weeks of seismic banging while fighting high winds and other problems, missing the other two weeks of planned study. It looks like this experiment, now referred to by the Associated Press as the "ill-fated" Ewing Cruise, was a complete loss, as was all of our tax dollars poured into it.

For those interested, at the courteous request of the Whale Museum, I will be making a presentation concerning the Ewing and other sound threats in the near future in Friday Harbor. If Mr. Snyder or anyone else would like to take part of the time debating this issue with me, I would be delighted.

I am so stupid, it should be a slam dunk.

Love and Revolution

Ben White

Dear Editor,

posted 02/22/05
Having just returned from Progresso, I can confirm that Ben White is extemely misguided in his assesment of the impact of the Ewing on fish and marine mamals off the coast of Yucatan. Having talked to the Port Captain at Progresso, the Director of the Yucatan Fisheries Research Lab. fisheries leaders and most of the other people concerned I can assure you that the Ewing and everyone else involved are taking the utmost precautions to avoid any damage to wildlife.

Having been out in a small boat in the vicinity of the Ewing I can assure you that there are plenty of small fishing boats working within hundreds of metres of the vessel, which were being politely shepherded out of the way by a guard boat.

I can also confirm that a diver in the water at 3.5km from the Ewing was unable to hear the sound of the airguns while they were fired at full power, and I have direct evidence that fish swam undisturbed with 100m of the airguns.

Ben White has done no service to the inhabitants of Yucatan - he has insulted them in his newsletters, and demonstrated his compete ignorance of logical and scientific thought. His heart may be in the right place, but that is not really the point! The environmental impact of this sort of seismic noise is reasonably well understood - marine mammals have good hearing and a very acute sense of sound direction, albeit centered at a different frequency range. If they experience discomfort as the ship approaches they will move away, as will fish.

I suspect Ben White caused more damage to sea life in Yucatan with a knife and fork than the Ewing did with airguns, I certainly did!

George Snyder

Response to Yucatan Diary - Merida, Yucatan-by Ben White

Dear Editor,

posted 02/08/05
As a fellow environmentalist, I believe Ben White's heart is in the right place. Unfortunately his "facts" about the ship the Maurice Ewing and the work is does is full of misinformation.

For instance, he portrays them as an arrogant outfit with no concern for the sea life and operating with the assistance of the Mexican Navy to give them a 40 square mile exclusive zone. Try telling this to the ship's crew who are repeatedly dodging fisherman's boats every day! They are not being protected by the Navy in any way and no one knows where Ben White came up with this idea.

He is not finding mass kills because there aren't any. The Maurice Ewing has been studying this issue and is doing their best to monitor their effects on the surrounding environment.

It would behoove Ben White to check out more of his facts before whipping everyone up into a frenzy. It's bad enough that our current administration is turning the world against our country. We don't need the environmental movement further fracturing our forces with bad information.

Bernice Nadler, CPA

Response to Nadler's letter

Dear Editor,

posted 02/08/05
First, thanks very much for carrying my diary entries from the Yucatan while I was down fighting the blasting of the coast by the Research Seismic Vessel Maurice Ewing.

Second, I wanted to reply to the letter posted today from Bernice Nadler in response to my diary entries.

Having just returned from six weeks working with Mexican fishing families, environmental groups and Yucatan politicians, I wonder where Ms. Nadler is getting her information when she accuses me of misinforming people through my diaries.

My statement that the Navy is enforcing a forty by forty mile exclusion zone to keep me and other opponents away from the Ewing comes directly from the office of the Port Captain of Progreso (and the entire Yucatan). His name is Captain Luis Isauro Contreras Garcia and his phone number in Progreso is 969-935-00-90 if anyone would like to check.

As far as the Ewing having to constantly dodge fishing boats, I doubt it. The ship has so much equipment on cables trailing for miles out the back that it impossible to dodge anyone- that is the excuse they have for keeping everyone away.

I understand that the Ewing crew, who Ms Nadler is apparently talking to, say that there is no exclusion zone. Try telling that to the tourist boat operators I hired from Holbox who were ordered by the Port Captain not only to not take me out but to take out no other tourist until the Ewing leaves on the twentieth. They are shut down from pursuing their livelihood.

As far as there being no mass kills, and the Ewing being oh- so-careful to monitor their effects I would ask this: What is the population of turtles, fish, or whales in the area before or after the test? They don't know because they are doing no studies to find out. What is the effect on the small creatures that cannot move out of the way of the seismic pulses? The Ewing has no idea and does not want to pursue the question. Why doesn't the Ewing, or the National Science Foundation have a team looking for bodies floating away on the tide? Because they don't want to find them. Why isn't there anyone who can perform necropsies on hand on the coast to see if any (for example of the turtles that have washed up) of the mortalities are accoustic related? To say that the Ewing has been studying the issue and is doing their best is nonsense. There is no argument whatsoever that the level of sound being employed (255 decibels) is loud enough to kill anything that comes close. They just argue that it is alright using the same specious points that other polluters use- that it becomes more dilute as it spreads from the source. They don't really even argue anymore that there is damage from their sound, they just say they will minimize it. What is the acceptable level of death? The oceans are in severe crises from a whole host of problems. The last thing we need is to pump this level of sound into a living ocean over the wishes of the local people who rely on that ocean. It is careless and irresponsible and if the Ewing crew really cared about the oceans they would immediately stop the blasting. Attacking the person blowing a whistle on their malfeisance does not absolve them.

As far it behooving me to check my facts, believe me, I have exhaustively. I have read everything in the public record about the Ewing, their record of killing whales in Baja California and the Galapagos, the history of the use of seismic airguns and the effect they have on whales, turtles, fish and fish larvae. You can fairly disagree with my approach but not on my preparation.

Ms Nadler apparently wants to have it both ways, to defend her friends working on the Ewing and to claim to being an environmentalist. Not sure what that last word means to her if it allows scientists to pump almost unbelievably loud amounts of sound into the living ocean in order to satisfy their curiosity about the angle of entry of the meteorite that caused the Chicxulub Crater and then just sail away without even a mention of compensation to the fishermen.

Before Ms Nadler accuses me of lying or hyperbole to whip people up she should personally check my facts that she says are wrong. Like with most environmental disasters going on, the facts are bad enough. I don't need to exaggerate.

Ben White

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Related Pages

Response to Yucatan Diary - Merida, Yucatan-by Ben White

Response to Nadler's letter