What is the Most Annoying Noise?
OLD OAK TRAIL
by Joe Reynolds
AH Environmental Commission Member
joe@ahherald.com

When I briefly lived in New York City during the early 1990s, I loathed hearing the many earsplitting sounds of urban life, such as the clanging of jackhammers, the blare of car alarms and car radios, and the screech of subway cars coming to a stop. Those obnoxious noises were enough to drive me crazy. They were a constant assault on the quality of my life and regularly raised stress levels for a long time after.

Yet, today I reside in the calm and quiet suburbs of New Jersey. Yeah, right! The suburbs nowadays are anything but calm and quiet.

Some of the most annoying sounds that Bayshore residents routinely hear are the perpetual rude buzzing of leaf blowers (especially in autumn and spring), the sonic booms from jet planes passing overhead, blaring music from passing cars, and the incessant barking of pets late into the night.

These sounds are upsetting enough for many people to become overly stressed. Whatever happened to life, liberty, and the pursuit of peace and quiet.

While noise is not a form a pollution that people usually rank as being high on their list of environmental issues, it really should be since most people who live in the Bayshore region are assaulted everyday by a variety of loud noises. All through the day, we are forced to hear the reverberation of motorcycles and car engines, the blare of car horns and stereos, the roar of commercial machinery, and the growling of pet dogs. There are enough persistent, nagging, unnatural sounds in our local environment to drive anyone mad.

Believe it or not, there have been times when I have heard people using loud leaf blowers on Sunday mornings, around 7am. I mean give me a break!

Studies done by the National Academy of Sciences have also illustrated that noise pollution produces in humans high levels of stress, raises blood pressure levels, and (from long-term exposure) can induce greater antisocial behavior and various health problems, such as migraine headaches, ulcers, and hypertension.

Some other negative effects to our environment due to noise pollution is an increase in hearing loss that can occur when people are exposed to modern, everyday sounds for a few hours everyday. For example, chronic hearing impairment can be caused by a variety of noises including the constant buzz of leaf blowers, or the continual playing of loud music from a stereo system, or the frequent roar of motorcycle engines.

Exposure to noise pollution can also produce a variety of physiological reactions in animals. Unnatural noise adds to an already stressful life to local wildlife, especially to those animals with acute sense of hearing, such as foxes and deer.

In 1978, the United States Congress took noise pollution so seriously that it passed the Quiet Communities Act. This act mandated that the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would help state and local communities draft noise control programs. Unfortunately, President Regan in 1981 cancelled the program.

So, what can you do to decrease noise pollution? For starters, we can simply just lower the volume on our car radios and reduce the need to use loud, obnoxious machines, such as leaf blowers. We can also make sure our vehicles are working appropriately to discontinue faulty parts from making excessive noise.

In addition, some towns in the Bayshore region already have noise ordinances. We need to make sure that local police officers enforce these laws. If you hear someone that is being overly boisterous during the day, or late at night or early in the morning, call the police and make sure they enforce your local anti-noise law. If your town does not have an antinoise ordinance, then start urging your political leaders to create one.

On a broader level, we also need to write to our federal political leaders and urge the national government to take the issue of noise pollution seriously. Now is the time to start thinking about passing a law that creates noise emission standards on all machinery, include lawn mowers, automobiles, motorcycles, and leaf blowers. I believe there needs to be a criterion to how much noise a single piece of machinery can produce. Otherwise, with our growing reliance on gadgets and machines, the future looks very clamorous (what did you say????)

We need to ask ourselves why our local, state, and federal government leaders are not taking noise pollution seriously. Please do not be silent on this issue.