September 14, 2010 deadline for written submissions!

Petition with all signatures (with names) was emailed to Commander-in-Chief U.S. Navy Barack Obama, The White House  ( president@whitehouse.gov ), and acknowledged as received by whitehouse.gov Mon Sep 13 19:28:14 PDT 2010.

Whoo Hoo! Never let it be said that a few committed and focused people can't make a difference in the world! After challenges of being unable to create a Custom Thank you letter to all those who signed the Petition, and a Care2.com-generated List of Signatures, I print-screened all the signatures, converted them to an .rtf document, and e-mailed them all to POTUS and Commander-in-Chief U.S. Navy. (Because it was an RTF document, nothing could stop it from winging its way through all the 0s and 1s!)

It couldn't have happened without all you folks! Thank you, everyone!

P.S. Remember that in the marketing world, one signature is the equivalent of approx. 1,000 'voices'. In this instance, the Petition was the equivalent of 245,000 signatures!!!

September 13, 2010 2000h PDT

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The petition to the U.S. Navy to stop deep-sea sonar and explosives training tests in the Southern Californian and Hawaiian waters is now officially closed. The petition will be delivered to the U.S. Navy Environmental Impact Study online site @ http://hstteis.com today. It's a proactive effort just in case the Navy site closes early or gets shut down for some unknown reason.
Everyone. Thank you so much, merci beaucoup, mahalo nui loa for taking the time to voice your opinion and making the effort to have your voice heard. The citizens of the oceans and seas, who have no voices, thank you, too.
We'll all meet again in the future, I'm sure.
~ @CaptainGigi on Twitter
September 13, 2010

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Save our whales, dolphins, seals, all sea life!

Please complete the online USNavy form: #USNavy wants input on sonar&explosives tests in #Hawaii   http://hstteis.com/

". . . [NOAA and US Navy] regulations allow approximately 11.7 million instances of harassment, injury, or even death (the legal term is 'take') to marine mammals by exposing them to high-intensity military sonar training in coastal waters around the United States. These estimates (the Navy's own) inlcude 9.7 million takes along the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf of Mexico, 630,000 off the coast of southern California, 650,000 along the coast of Washington and Oregon, 140,000 in Hawaii, and another 500,000 off the coast of Florida" (Jean-Michel Cousteau and Joel Reynolds, "Smarten up naval sonar to save the whales," CSMonitor.com, April 2, 2009 http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2009/0402/p09s02-coop.html accessed September 6, 2010).

Photo: US Navy deep-sea sonar tests cause (inconclusively, say officials) dolphins, whales, and other marine mammals to suffer from massive symptoms similar to the human 'bends' before dying (Sandy Dubpemel photo, March 13, 2003, Center for Whale Research http://www.orcanetwork.org/news/shoup.html accessed September 6, 2010).