Backstreet Boy Fights Noise Pollution
Source: msnbc.com
Nick Carter turns his boating blunder into an opportunity to
try to save the whales
By Jayne Keedle
TEEN NEWSWEEK
July 10 — Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys loves the sea so much that last January he created a special charity campaign to benefit various oceanic causes. So imagine how embarrassed he must have been in June when, while sailing his 45-foot yacht down the wrong channel off the Florida coast, he ran aground. He compounded the problem when he abandoned ship and left the vessel stranded for 24 hours until a charter company could tow it into deeper waters. The 21-year-old singer also raised the hackles of a number of local sailors in the Florida Keys, who say his boat caused a couple of other boats to run aground.
“This was an accident and I feel really bad about it, and I’ll do what I can to repair any damage,” Carter says. “But I think there are a lot scarier things going on in our oceans than my boat accident.”
Perhaps to put his boating blunder in perspective, Carter is using the opportunity provided by the bad publicity to draw attention to the United States Navy’s plan to deploy a low-frequency active sonar system. The plan, which Carter learned of only recently, would hit up to 80 percent of the world’s oceans with sound waves millions of times more intense than would be considered safe for humans. The Navy uses sonar pings to detect other vessels, including very quiet running submarines, in the ocean.
“Imagine standing next to the Space Shuttle as it blasts off—think that might hurt your ears?” says Carter. “That’s pretty much what they want to blow through the oceans.” While it seems a little ironic that a member of the Backstreet Boys, whose concerts are hardly quiet affairs, would be concerned about noise pollution, Carter is trying to raise awareness about the problems presented with this sonar device. Whales rely on their hearing to navigate and communicate with each other. The Navy’s use of mid-frequency sonar in the Bahamas and off the coast of Hawaii is believed to have caused a mass beaching of whales. Examinations of the dead whales found in the Bahamas concluded they bled to death. The sonar tests are believed to have caused mass hemorrhages in the whales’ ears.
Before it can operate this new sonar system, the Navy needs a waiver of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which prohibits the harassment, injury or killing of marine mammals. The National Marine Fisheries Service is reviewing the request and will probably issue a decision this fall. Environmentalists have been fighting the Navy’s active sonar testing since the late 1990s, even taking their case to court. But so far, they have not had much luck in stopping the testing.
“It seems like the only people who even know about this are marine biologists, environmentalists and the Navy,” Carter says. “This testing could have a huge impact on whale populations all over the world, and it may not even be necessary. People have a right to know what’s going on and have a right to have input on it before a decision is made.”
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