SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) – The Navy can build a $100 million offshore range for submarine warfare training, despite environmentalists’ fears that war games would threaten endangered right whales, a federal judge ruled.
U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood ruled the Navy took a “hard look” before concluding risks to the rare whales would be minimal at the proposed training site 50 miles off the coast of south Georgia and north Florida. Environmentalists sued to block the project in 2010, saying it’s too close to the waters where right whales give birth to their calves each winter.
