http://truth-out.org/news/item/25145-white-house-oks-underwater-torture-chamber

Air gun array on a research vessel, used for reflection seismic profiles in the ocean (Photo: Hannes Grobe / CC)

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) just recently approved the use of seismic airguns to explore the seabed from Cape May to Cape Canaveral for oil and gas.

These sonic cannons are compressed airguns that get towed behind ships, using dynamite-like blasts to produce sound waves 100,000 times louder than a jet engine underwater every ten seconds. The waves travel through the water and through the ocean floor, bouncing back up at different rates to provide prospective drillers and researchers a better sense of where oil, gas, minerals, and sand lie beneath the waves.

It’s not a surprise that this is dangerous: even BOEM estimates that this practice will disrupt, injure, or kill millions of marine animals including the most endangered whale species on the planet.