Here’s an update to the Navy and sonar training fiasco.

A federal judge in Los Angeles on Monday rejected the Bush administration’s attempt to exempt Navy sonar training from key environmental laws, saying that there’s no real emergency to justify overruling court-ordered protections for whales and dolphins.

This is disaster in the making.

The January order requires the Navy to shut down sonar when whales or other marine mammals are within 2,200 yard of a vessel and forbids the use of submarine-detecting sonar in areas where whales are abundant.

The Navy maintains that the lives of its sailors depend on being properly trained to detect vessels operated by China, Iran, North Korea and other potentially hostile nations.