Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) is poised to conduct seismic testing in a grid pattern over a large area off the Central Coast of California, from Cambria to the Santa Maria River. Tests could begin as early as November 2012, and last until the end of the year.
The research ship would emit blasts of very loud noise into the ocean. Streamers a mile or more long would be towed behind the vessel, to pick up the sound waves as they penetrate several miles into the Earth’s crust, and reverberate back to the ocean’s surface.
Tests would last 24 hours a day, for forty days, and would kill or injure marine mammals, including whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals and otters. A deaf marine mammal is a dead one, as this is the sense they rely on to communicate, navigate and find food. Seabirds, fish, and other species such as endangered sea turtles, could be affected as well, with little or no way of mitigating the impacts. Great potential for harm is highly possible to the small populations of whales, dolphins, porpoises, sea lions, harbor seals and sea otters in the Morro Bay area. They are highly sensitive to loud man-made sounds, and vulnerable to forced habitat abandonment, and hearing loss...
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