March 25, 2019 — The Atlantic Ocean is staring down the barrel of an air gun, and its blast could reverberate into the Chesapeake Bay.
Despite outcry from coastal communities and most East Coast states, the Trump administration is moving forward with allowing five companies to perform seismic surveys offshore from Delaware Bay to central Florida.
Environmental groups and many marine scientists fear that the tests’ loud, repeated blasts, which are used to detect oil and gas deposits deep beneath the ocean floor, could upend an underwater ecosystem that relies on sound for communication.
“The ocean is an acoustic world,” said Michael Jasny, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s marine mammal protection program. “Whales, fish and many other species depend on sound to survive. The extensive blasting that the Trump administration has authorized would undermine marine life on an enormous scale.”
The NRDC joined several environmental groups in a federal lawsuit filed in South Carolina in December, challenging the administration’s approval of the seismic surveys a month earlier. On Feb. 20, the conservation groups asked the judge in the case to block the seismic tests from going forward while the litigation is pending. The National Marine Fisheries Service decision allows the companies to “incidentally harass” marine mammals during the tests.