Protecting National Park Soundscapes (2013) / Chapter Skim
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2 Noise in the National Parks
2 Noise in the National Parks
Pages 7-21
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From page 7... ...
. It is also the only federal land management agency with a mandate to protect the acoustic environment, said Karen Trevino, chief of the Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division, one of eight divisions of the Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Directorate in the Park Service.
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From page 8... ...
Orleans Jazz National Historical Park and military sounds at national battlefield parks. The mandate extends to all sounds in and adjacent to the national parks, so sounds outside official boundaries are still of concern.
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From page 9... ...
Conversely, the sounds of motor vehicle traffic, an electric generator, or loud music can greatly diminish the serenity of a visit to a national memorial, the effectiveness of a park interpretive program, or the ability of a visitor to hear a bird singing its territorial song." NOISE GENERATED IN THE NATIONAL PARKS Park-generated noise can be broadly divided into the three categories of transportation, facilities and maintenance, and construction discussed by the breakout groups, explained Frank Turina, program manager for policy, planning, and compliance in the NPS Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division. The survey of park superintendents that prompted interest in holding the workshop revealed that many sources of noise in parks are associated with park operations and maintenance.
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From page 10... ...
prevent or mitigate the noise that they are creating just doing their normal day-to-day operations." Turina showed slides of spectrograms from acoustic monitoring equipment depicting acoustic data from several national parks. Spikes
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From page 11... ...
Ambient noise levels in the national parks, measured in decibels, can be in the teens or low 20s, levels that approach the hreshold of human hearing. The topography and the season also t influence how far noise carries, as several workshop participants pointed out.
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From page 12... ...
BOX 2-3 Examples of Noise Challenges During the opening plenary session, Trevino invited the workshop participants to list the biggest noise challenges they have encoun tered in the national parks. They mentioned the following: • Construction noises • Overflights by helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft • Other kinds of flights (e.g., search and rescue, maintenance)
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From page 13... ...
But chronic noise is also an issue, and Fristrup has advocated for research into the ecology around roadways to determine what the impact might be. Some animals have hearing thresholds at or below the quietest measured levels, and increases in chronic noise of just a few decibels could have a significant adverse effect.
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From page 14... ...
Lower noise levels also help visitors hear wildlife such as wolves, which are more likely to be heard than seen. Survey data further indicate that visitors are willing to help keep park areas quiet.
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From page 15... ...
He also observed that the metric used to assess environmental noise depends on the source; for example, aircraft noise is assessed differently from highway noise. For the types of sources discussed at the workshop, the noise metrics will differ but have generally been defined for various noise sources.
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From page 16... ...
NASA assigned emission noise level targets for each module, and a noise emission target was suballocated to each piece of equipment in the module, based on an overall noise emission budget. Payload developers were asked to comply with those levels.
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From page 17... ...
Every three years, internal NASA site audits check for policy compliance. Many professional associations, including the National Hearing Conservation Association,9 have been promoting similar standards for many years because OSHA's more liberal noise emission limit of 90 dBA time-weighted average (TWA)
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From page 18... ...
under the auspices of NASA's Office of the Chief Health and Medical Officer. Triennial audits of each center by a headquarters team provide periodic program reviews and identify opportunities for improvement, which are the responsibility of the center's management.
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From page 19... ...
If the purchase must go through the complete tradeoff process, a tradeoff analysis worksheet can be used to evaluate the net long-term cost of candidate products, enabling the contracting officer to make a selection based on all the relevant information. Using the worksheet to record the noise-level c riterion, the number of employees exposed, the quoted sound power level for each item, and environmental characteristics, it is possible to compute the net cost of additional noise for up to three products at a time.
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From page 20... ...
The bottom line, Cooper said, is that programs differ based on operations, culture, size, and the number and diversity of purchases as well as the number of potential vendors. Cooper pointed out that not all aspects of the NASA Buy-Quiet program may be relevant for Park Service purposes.
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From page 21... ...
At Glacier National Park, for example, large amounts of snow need to be removed from roadways each year, requiring the use of heavy equipment. And the lightweight chainsaws used by the Park Service (because they need to be carried long distances into the backcountry)
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