Authorizations for the U.S. Navy\u2019s current taking or harassment of marine mammals in the \u201cMarinas Island Range Complex\u201d will expire in August.<\/p>\n
This as the final environmental impact statement for the Marianas Islands Training and Testing, or MITT, area was released over the weekend.<\/p>\n
The MITT renews and expands training already established in impact documents for the \u201cMarianas Island Range Complex.\u201d<\/p>\n
Incidental to Navy activity would be the harassment of thousands of marine mammals. The National Marine Fisheries Service, or NMFS, would have to approve this.<\/p>\n
Joint Region Marians public affairs officer Lt. Timothy Gorman told Saipan Tribune that the NMFS MMPA Final Rule and Letter of Authorizations will expire Aug. 3.<\/p>\n
Gorman clarified that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service\u2019s biological opinion for these previous studies do not have expiration.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, with the recent release of the MITT, a \u201crecord of decision\u201d signed by the Secretary of the Navy \u201ccan come any time after the 30-day period\u201d following last Saturday\u2019s release, according to Gorman.<\/p>\n
An authorization of marine mammal taking is expected after this.<\/p>\n
The MITT EIS covers, among others, sonar, deep-sea, \u201curban warfare,\u201d and ordnance training on the islands of Guam, Rota, Saipan, Tinian, and Farallon de Medinilla.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Authorizations for the U.S. Navy\u2019s current taking or harassment of marine mammals in the \u201cMarinas…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[4845,3236,4772,4846],"class_list":["post-202601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-joint-region-marians","tag-mitt","tag-nmfs","tag-timothy-gorman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202601\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}