§ 218.236 - Requirements for reporting.

§ 218.236 Requirements for reporting.

(a) The Navy must submit classified and unclassified annual training and testing activity reports to the Director, Office of Protected Resources, NMFS, no later than 90 days after the end of each year covered by the LOA beginning on the date of effectiveness of a LOA. Each annual training and testing activity report will include a summary of all active-mode training and testing activities completed during that year. At a minimum, each classified training and testing activity report must contain the following information:

(1) Dates, times, and location of each vessel during each training and testing activity;

(2) Information on sonar transmissions during each training and testing activity;

(3) Results of the marine mammal monitoring program specified in the LOA; and

(4) Estimates of the percentages of marine mammal species and stocks affected (both for the year and cumulatively for each successive year) covered by the LOA.

(b) The seventh annual report must be prepared as a final comprehensive report, which will include information for the final year as well as the prior six years of activities under the rule. This final comprehensive report must also contain an unclassified analysis of new passive sonar technologies and an assessment of whether such a system is feasible as an alternative to SURTASS LFA sonar, and be submitted to the Director, Office of Protected Resources, NMFS as described in this paragraph (b).

(c) The Navy will continue to assess the data collected by its undersea arrays and work toward making some portion of that data, after appropriate security reviews, available to scientists with appropriate clearances. Any portions of the analyses conducted by these scientists based on these data that are determined to be unclassified after appropriate security reviews will be made publically available.

(d) The Navy must consult the Notification and Reporting Plan, which sets out notification, reporting, and other requirements for when dead, injured, or live stranded marine mammals are reported in the Study Area. The Stranding and Notification Plan is available at: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/action/incidental-take-authorization-us-navy-operations-surveillance-towed-array-sensor-system-0.