The U.S. Navy said Monday that the final decision had been made regarding the location of a new undersea warfare test site.
The site will be located off the coast of Jacksonville, according to Navy officials. That site would put it within the operational sphere of two significant bases, one of them in south Georgia.
About 300 underwater acoustic devices would help ships and submarines using sonar practice for undersea war. The devices would send and receive signals that training managers could use to quickly critique a crew’s performance. Helicopters would also practice there.
The Navy said that the range represents a critical upgrade in training that crews need for foreign deployments. The range would help simulate situations crews could face overseas and could be operational by 2014.
Meanwhile, environmentalists continue to express their concern as regards the impact on the right whales, a species numbering only about 300-350.  There are so few remaining whales that scientists worry too, about the impact of the undersea warfare test site and possible collisions with ships or sonar bursts affecting the whales’ hearing.
Navy officials have countered by saying that, given the distance of the facility from the migration lanes, the whales would not be affected.
But between the range and Jacksonville’s Navy bases lie waters where right whales, a species numbering only about 300 to 350 animals, nurture their newborns every winter. Once hunted almost to death, there are so few remaining whales that scientists worry about the impact of any new challenge, such as collisions with ships or sonar bursts hurting the animals’ hearing.
