The U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service has issued an Incidental Harassment Authorization to the United States Geological Survey, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, and National Science Foundation to take marine mammals, by Level B harassment, incidental to conducting a marine geophysical (seismic) survey in the Atlantic Ocean off the Eastern Seaboard, August to September 2014 and April to August 2015.
NMFS’ Federal Register notice of this IHA includes NMFS’ responses to many lengthy comments on the proposed IHA. These comments were filed by Clean Ocean Action; by Natural Resources Defense Council, Humane Society of the United States, Oceana, and Center for Biological Diversity (combined comments); and by the Marine Mammal Commission. The comments are posted online at: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/permits/incidental.htm.
These comments and NMFS’ responses to them are important because this is one of the first seismic permits for the U.S. Atlantic.
Click here to read NMFS’ Federal Register notice containing these comments and responses.
