The 8-1 vote places restrictions on how the Navy conducts the training, including moving the exercises away from areas with high concentrations of marine mammals and lowering sonar levels if they are present.
Although the Navy has been using sonar in Californian waters for decades, this is the first time it has sought approval for the practice from the California Coastal Commission, as a result of new internal guidelines requiring major exercises to be environmentally compliant.
According to Seattle-based KOMO News, the sonar exercises have been responsible for at least six cases of mass death and unusual behaviour among whales in the past decade, a US Congressional Research Service report found last year.
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