The Hawaiian Islands Humback Whale National Marine Sanctuary is beginning a review of its management plan, and ocean noise activists are pushing for sanctuary managers to bring noise issues to the forefront.  The Sanctuary was established in 1992 to help protect the humpback whale winter nursery grounds in shallow waters around several of the islands.

Beginning this month, and continuing through the spring, Sanctuary managers are hosting a series of pre-scoping “working group” meetings on several islands, which are designed to gather input from various interest groups, especially those who have not been involved in Sanctuary planning in the past.  Some time this summer, a formal scoping period is expected to initiate the process of assessing and likely revising the current management plan. See the Sanctuary Management Plan Newsletter for more on this process.

The Maui Weekly ran an article this week in which several ocean noise campaigners expressed their hopes that this process might lead to more formal protection from noise pollution sources, including boats and Navy sonar training. Dr. Marcia Green of the Ocean Mammal Institute and International Ocean Noise Coalition said it’s “imperative” that the Sanctuary follow Read the rest of this entry »

A topic that’s been a recurring tangent for AEI over the years has been excessive noise in hospitals; it’s always surprised us that places theoretically designed for healing and recuperation would be so full of noisy machines and reverberant hallways.  Well, that is about to change: New design and construction guidelines from the Facilities Guidelines Institute,  published in conjunction with the American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE) of the American Hospital Association (AHA), include new standards for quieting hospitals, and are fast being adopted by state building codes.  The new guidelines are the culmination of over five years of collaborative work by researchers, architects, engineers, and acoustical consultants to solve the problems of speech privacy and excessive noise in hospitals; the guidelines apply to new construction, so may not change the experience in existing facilities.

Read all about it at the excellent Acoustics by Design blog!

As the Obama administration moves toward completion of its ocean policy and planning blueprint, it’s becoming clear that the new kid on the block has grown into a dynamic young adult, ready to change the shape of ocean planning forever.  Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) is taking a central role in the ocean task force’s work, and a recent symposium on MSP put together by NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries offers a great introduction to the power of this approach. At its root is a simple idea, one we’re very familiar with after decades of zoning on land: let’s identify which areas offer the best opportunities for fulfilling each of our goals and needs in the sea, then use this information to focus each activity in areas where it will have the least cumulative impact on other priorities.  Where are the regions most important for each species’ reproduction and feeding?  Which areas have the best possibilities for wind energy?  Where is shipping concentrated?  How about recreational diving and near-shore boating?  Navy training, underwater cables, key fishing grounds, and all other ocean uses are mapped into layers, from which we can make informed choices about where to focus each activity.

The link above will take you to a page from which you can see the full agenda and topics considered at the symposium; I found the following three presentations to be especially useful in getting a sense of this new field:

Steven Murawski, Ecosystem Goal Team Leader for NOAA, offered a good overview of the science and planning elements that are being developed.  Of special note is the inter-relation between MSP and new “Integrated Ecosystem Assessments,” which can provide much of the data needed to make good choices about how to use each area in MSP.

Charlie Wahl of NOAA’s Marine Protected Areas Center introduced work developing a regional Ocean Uses Atlas for the west coast.  Drawing on both scientific data and workshops at which key stakeholders (fishermen, kayakers, etc.) identify areas most important to them, the Ocean Uses Atlas culminate in maps showing, for example, how many other uses co-exist in areas where offshore wind farms may be built.  The maps show that in some places, up to 17 other uses are trying to co-exist, while there are other places where only one or two other uses target the same area. When combined with wind resources data, wind farms can be targeted for the “holes” in the conflicting uses maps.

Finally, Sally Yozell, Director of Marine Conservation for The Nature Conservancy, presents a national picture, with some extra focus on the east coast. The TNC has taken the initiative of compiling a slew of existing data on biologically rich areas, wind, wave, and tidal energy, and other ocean uses to create first drafts of maps similar to those that the MPA center has developed for the west coast.  (TNC is also actively working on a similar approach to alternative energy siting on land, especially with wind in the midwest.)

A lawsuit in Ontario, an EIS in Wisconsin, and a gauntlet thrown down at an industry confab in England are the latest fronts in a global debate over the noise impacts of wind farms sited close to residences.  Most dramatic was the opening plenary at the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) annual conference, where John Prescott, a key player in crafting the Kyoto Protocols, attacked NIMBY opponents and local councils for dramatically slowing the build-out of wind farms in Britain, culminating with the rallying cry, “They’ve had it their way for far too long. So let me tell them loud and clear - it’s not your back yard any more, it’s ours.” Prescott bemoaned the fact that 75% of wind farm applications are being denied, putting the blame as much on local authorities as on vocal opponents; he called for mandates compelling localities to designate some areas as suitable for wind development as a way to break the logjam.  Local authorities shot back that federal renewable energy goals can be met in other ways, and that land protection in local areas is warranted.  Prescott’s attack was cast in class terms, suggesting “squires” were fighting to save their “chocolate box views,” though in many areas it is noise impacts, rather than changing views, that drive the opposition.  In those areas, the issue is not whether to build wind farms, but rather how much buffer to require around homes.  An EIS for the Glacier Hills Wind Park, released in Wisconsin this month, acknowledges that noise is in fact an issue for some wind farm neighbors: “The studies done to date…support the concern that some people do react negatively to wind turbine noise, primarily through annoyance and sleep disturbance.  It is widely accepted that disruption of sleep can lead to other physiological and psychological problems…Although specific sound levels or distances from turbines cannot be directly correlated with these disturbance or annoyance problems, project design and siting should take potential impactcs of turbine noise into account.”  In Ontario, a wind farm plan has been challenged in court by a resident who says that five turbines within 900m (a bit over a half mile) is too many, too close.  ”As a father, as a husband, I became very concerned about the welfare of my family,” he told CBC News. “We’re very worried about the possibilities of having industrial wind turbines located so close to our home that it will be harmful.” He wants construction stopped until studies “rule out concerns” about impacts on health, an end-point that is surely not within sight, if even possible within the context of the scientific method. Dr. Robert McMurtry, former dean of medicine at the University of Western Ontario, who appeared at a media conference yesterday launching the court action, said there are now more than 100 people in Ontario who report suffering health problems due to wind turbine noise. ”There’s no authoritative guidelines for the siting of wind turbines because there’s no good evidence as to when they will be safe or not,” McMurtry said, ”This is not an acceptable state of affairs when we’re planning to plunge ahead on such a large scale, a tenfold increase in Ontario.”

The debate over wind farm siting is becoming exceedingly tangled, with visual, noise, and health impacts all on the table, and too often blurred by both proponents decrying NIMBYism and opponents with varying degrees of clarity about their fears and concerns.  Prescott makes a potentially valid point when he suggests that in this age of climate crisis, resistance to visual impacts should give way to the greater public good, as it has with cell phone towers and power lines.  Yet the noise impacts are real, and increasingly well-documented within a half mile to a mile—see this fascinating summary of the disconnect between  1.5-2km (a mile-plus) setback guidelines suggested by researchers and health officials responding to noise issues and the much closer setbacks (1000 feet to 550m/1800 feet) actually being implemented by local, state or provincial, and national standards. When concerns about health effects extend beyond just sleep disruption from audible noise, to include effects of inaudible, but still physiologically significant, low frequency noise, things get more nebulous and difficult to either quantify or protect against, since susceptibility to LF noise is more variable from person to person, and LF noise levels are much harder to predict in the landscape.

AEI will soon be focusing more intently on the slew of reports and studies that have come out in recent months, with a goal of organizing the mass of information into something useful for planners, citizens, and those in industry who want to work with residents more constructively.

Like many others, I’m a little late to this party: in June, the Obama administration kick-started a rapid process of developing a coherent ocean policy.  An “Ocean Policy Task Force” has been charged with making recommendations to the administration in two phases: by mid-September, they are expected to offer a framework for ocean policy as well as a “an implementation strategy that identifies and prioritizes a set of objectives the United States should pursue to meet the objectives of a national policy for the oceans, our coasts, and the Great Lakes.”  Then, by mid-December, the Task Force is asked to recommended a “framework for effective coastal and marine spatial planning.  This framework should be a comprehensive, integrated, ecosystem-based approach that addresses conservation, economic activity, user conflict, and sustainable use” of the oceans and Great Lakes.  Public comments are being welcomed here.

AEI has just submitted brief comments on the latter goal, an area in which ocean noise should play a central role. Marine Spatial Planning is agency-speak for ocean zoning, along with an ocean version of ecosystem-based management. Read the rest of this entry »

Cliff Feigenbaum just pointed me toward a corporate consulting business has been up and running since 2004 in the UK: The Sound Agency will help any corporation or small business to tune into the sonic messages that their brand and daily operations are engaged in, and to fine-tune their sonic image.   They’ve got some top-flight sound artists working with them, too: ambient/electronic wiz David Toop and Harmonic Choir founder David Hykes for starters, along with sound healing expert Joshua Leeds, and, perhaps for more of an edge, Barry Adamson, late of Magazine and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.  Their work ranges from assessing the company’s phone, office, and advertising sound choices, to creating a “sonic logo.”  One of their featured products is generative soundscapes for use in offices and phone lines; these sound loops are layered with several tracks that create never-repeating mood music tuned to the place they are being used, or to “brand voice” of the company.  Founder Julian Treasure, himself a drummer in several post-punk bands in the 70s and 80s, wrote the book Sound Business in 2007.

NOAA has proposed a doubling of the limit governing how close whalewatching boats may approach endangered orcas in the waters of Puget sound.  Current voluntary guidelines ask boats to remain at least 100 yards from the endangered killer whales, while the proposed new mandatory limit would be 200 yards in most areas, with a half-mile wide “no go” zone in one area heavily used by orcas.  The Seattle Post-Intelligencer notes that orcas depend on their sonar to navigate and find food - chiefly salmon. Underwater noise from vessel that are too close interferes with that sonar.  ”Vessel noise is going to decrease their ability to seek prey,” said Joe Gaydos, regional director of the SeaDoc Society in the San Juan Islands. ”This is the right thing to do at the right time. … I think (the proposed rules) are tenable. I think people will support them. I think they are good for the whales,” Gaydos said.  The Bellingham Times spoke toThe owner of one of the longest-operating whale watching outfits responded to the proposal with relative acceptance. ”They’re not horrible, they’re not great,” said Drew Schmidt, owner of Victoria San Juan Cruises, “They’re not going to put us out of business.” While Schmidt said he believes whale watch operators are being unfairly singled out, noting that toxins and limited salmon are likely damaging whales more than boat noise, he also observed that whales are attracting a lot more attention today than in years past. Twenty years ago, Schmidt said, he was one of three whale cruise operators. Now there are about 30, with about 50 vessels. The rules include exceptions for working commercial fishery vessels, cargo ships in shipping lanes, residents going to shoreline homes, and research vessels.  Public comments on the new rules are being accepted through October 27, with the hope that they will go into effect next year.

UPDATE: NOAA extended the comment period through Jan 15, and has announced that analysis of the comments will take too long for the new rules to go into effect for the summer 2010 season.  Salmon fishermen have objected to the “no go” zone proposed for the west side of San Juan Island, and tour operators also are urging reconsideration of the 200 yard limit and no go zone.

The Navy is facing some push-back from the states of Georgia and Florida in the initial stages of gaining the necessary approvals for proceeding with their plans for a 500 square mile training range offshore from Jacksonville.  The Navy had hoped to have the states’ comments in hand by this week, but Florida expects to take several more weeks to assess the Navy’s plan, and the head of Georgia’s Coastal Resources Division submitted comments with fairly strongly worded notes of skepticism regarding the Navy’s just-released Final Environmental Impact Statement:  the letter says that the Navy’s forecasts “require considerable speculation and are insufficient to assess the anticipated impacts.”  Sonar travels differently depending on water conditions, and the Navy hasn’t done real-world measurements off Jacksonville to see whether its models of what will happen are right, said Clay George, a Natural Resources biologist. George also noted that while the designated critical habitat for wintering right whales extends to just 20 miles offshore, biologists have not done much surveying further offshore, and so the whales may well inhabit waters closer to the range.  Because of such shortcomings in the Navy’s analysis,  Georgia’s Department of Natural Resources wants long-term monitoring of how the range affects endangered right whales that raise their calves offshore from the two states each winter.  If the whales were harmed by sonar that would be used in submarine exercises, training at the range should change, the state told Navy officials in a letter last week. (Ed note: the Navy’s analysis does take account of uncertainty about the area inhabited by grey whales in winter by assuming that some will occur even within the training range; however, they also assume that virtually no whales will be affected by sounds traveling into the critical habitat, and they explicitly reject the option of doing less training in winter months when the whales are present. For more on the key question of distant effects of sonar sounds, scroll down to the July 24 post below, or click here to read the earlier post.)

In related news, the Florida Times-Union also reported that the Navy will separate its permit applications for construction and operation of the range.  The Navy expects NOAA approval for construction this week, but does not plan to apply for permits to operate the range until 2012 or 2013.  Likewise, the State of Florida this week announced that it will follow the Navy’s suggestion to similarly  follow a “phased” approach to issuing the necessary permits. In addition to sonar issues, Florida officials agreed to put off final judgments about how fast ships should travel in the training range, whether low-flying helicopters using the range will disturb right whales and how much debris from the training exercises will affect coral and other protected species on the ocean floor.  This may trigger legal challenges, though, as Catherine Wannamaker, an attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center responded to the news by saying that the phased approach “artificially separates the impacts to endangered species … that will result from both construction and operations.” According to Wannamaker, the Endangered Species Act doesn’t let the Navy spend money on the range without the National Marine Fisheries Service agreeing the project won’t jeopardize endangered species. (Ed. note: It appears from AEI’s admittedly naive legal perspective that the question of exactly what operational and mitigation measures are appropriate for the site can best be addressed at the time of the later permitting.  At this stage, there is little doubt that the Navy’s need for a littoral instrumented range is real and that the USWTR will proceed; the questions will include how much limitation on sonar activities should be imposed on the range while right whales are nearby.  There is no reason this cannot be addressed later, and indeed, there is likely to be better information at that time, including a revised Risk Assessment curve, which could well lead to more caution being imposed.)

The US Navy has released a Final EIS for its long-planned Undersea Warfare Training Range (USWTR), and has settled on an area off Jacksonville as its preferred location.  This was one of three areas under consideration, and marks a shift from earlier plans to locate the range off North Carolina, which met widespread resistance from state officials and environmental advocates.  The new range will host fairly intensive (average of 4x/month) active sonar training and other Navy training programs.  The USWTR will be about 50 miles offshore,  which the Navy feels is far enough to avoid acoustic impacts on wintering Right whales close to shore.  Environmental groups and the State of Florida continue to question the site’s appropriateness, largely due to concerns about impacts on this vulnerable whale population.  The range will be “instrumented,” meaning that there are permanently deployed acoustic (and many other) monitors on the seabed, allowing more comprehensive monitoring of animals within the range than is normally possible at sea.  However, concerns remain that the Navy’s mitigation plan is designed to prevent only physical injury, and that whales (especially young ones) may be behaviorally disrupted by much lower levels of sound at much greater distances.  The Navy has adopted several measures to minimize risk to Right whales while ships are transiting the near-shore critical habitat, but has rejected options that would minimize activity during the Dec-Mar season when whales are present.  Further mitigation may be imposed by NMFS when it publishes the final “Rule” after assessing the Navy’s EIS; NMFS has worked closely with the Navy as it developed the EIS, but with the advent of the new administration, is reassessing its own sonar-mitigation standards.  Note: AEI will offer further analysis of the Navy’s EIS in the coming weeks (and, sorry for being a bit slow getting this news up!).

Bay Area Sound Ecology has been hosting evening talks by great recordists from all over in recent months, and the evenings are all available for streaming or downloading on their website.  Go there and hear tales and stellar recordings from Chris Watson, Andrew Roth, James LeBrecht, and Gordon Hempton.

Music, ambiences, and stories from N'orleans!

Yet another ear-opener in the recent surge of online soundmaps, and by gorey, this one might just be my favorite of them all! Could be due to a bit more personal connection to the city in question (visits, friends who’ve lived there), could be the quality of the sounds presented, or could be just that N’orleans is one of the more interesting urban communities out there.   Visit Open Sound New Orleans here, and hear an NPR story on the project here.

It seems like every time I turn around, there’s a new global sound mapping site popping up in my browser!  If you want to take a listen to the everyday sounds of this aural adventure called Planet Earth, here are three quite varied options–a click on each image below will take you to the site.  All of these sites accept any sound file you care to upload.

Radio Aporee

http://aporee.org/maps/

By far the most ambitious and creative of the bunch, this site is beautiful, if a bit opaque to navigate.  Clicking into the site will land you smack-dab into a fairly close up view of a city streetscape, with a few red dots denoting sound files uploaded from particular locations. Zoom out and you’ll see this neighborhood shrink down, while the red dots proliferate across the country, continent, and planet.  Click on any dot to listen in.  One of the cooler features is soundwalks, in which the “red dot soundfiles” fade out and in as you wander down the street!

Save Our Sounds BBC project

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specialreports/saveoursounds/index.shtml

The newcomer to the block, this BBC soundmapping project just launched in June, and is rapidly gathering sound files from around the world.  In addition to the sound map, the main site features radio features from the concurrent series on BBC radio and a Desperately Seeking Sounds feature, in which visitors ask the global recording community to help them find sounds that they miss from their past or need for a current project.  Despite the big sponsor, this site’s sounds load more sluggishly than many other grassroots soundmaps out there, but there are some nice clips being sent in.

Uboo.tv

http://uboo.tv/

A map interface to track sounds submitted via AudioBoo, an iPhone app that lets users record sounds on their iPhone and upload it for the world to share.  Not surprisingly, this format leads to more random sounds (parties and moments that may not really “deserve” global attention) and more than a few oral ramblings on new projects or, whatever…

All of the maps end up being somewhat Euro/NorthAmerica-centric (especially Uboo), but each has some reach into Asia, Africa, and South America.  The sounds tend toward urban ambiences (that’s where the people with recording equipment do tend to live!), with a few natural settings as well.

Call me naive, but I never imagined that the Fish and Wildlife Service would make it nearly to the conclusion of its process of developing Siting Recommendations for wind farms without any consideration of the acoustic footprint of these sprawling industrial installations.  Of all the possible impacts that large wind farms may have, their acoustic presence is likely to be second only to the raw habitat changes in its localized biological significance.  The Federal Advisory Committee charged with drafting FWS recommendations and procedures for assessing impacts on wildlife has been working since 2007, and has just released the 3rd Draft of its recommendations, which contain not one single occurance of the words noise, acoustics, or ambient.  Acoustic appears only in  references to acoustic monitoring to identify the presence of bats or birds.  Sound appears three times, each one in the phrase “scientifically sound,”  which may in fact be related to the lack of attention to any acoustic impacts or effects in the rest of the document.  In correspondence with a committee member, I learned that they had briefly discussed noise impacts of turbines, but had quickly concluded that there was insufficient science on which to base any recommendations.  

I have no idea what the members were aware of in the bioacoustics and anthropogenic sound literature, but there is a long (if not always broad) body of research into the effects that road noise, ocean noise, aircraft and military noise, and more have on wildlife–looking at avoidance, stress hormones, disruption of mating, and acoustic masking.  The nature of wind turbine noise is not so different than some of the noise sources that are well studied.  In addition, bioacousticians are constantly adding to our understanding of the hearing ranges and acoustic communication/behaviors of an increasingly wide range of species.  And, in order to pass muster with local or state permitting standards, wind farm developers must produce sound modeling maps showing their predicted sound levels at various distances from turbines. Surely there is enough here for FWS to address the simple need to assess potential wind farm sites to be sure that any especially acoustically sensitive species will either not be significantly affected, or have suitable nearby habitat to relocate to.  

The National Park Service Natural Sounds Office is but one (and the most experienced) agency office that is always ready to share its expertise with other agencies; one of the more intriguing recent NPS research efforts has been looking precisely at the sort of noise impacts that could be caused by wind farms: modest increases in background ambient noise, and how that may make it more difficult for predators to hear and find prey (e.g., mice in leaves), or make it harder for prey to hear predators in time (e.g., owl wings or stalking bobcat).  The US Forest Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, BLM, and National Science Foundation all consider noise impacts as a matter of routine; why does FWS consider the topic too complex or too little understood to be relevant to this foundational document?

The committee may feel that existing assessments of habitat impacts will protect animals from more subtle acoustic effects as well. In some wide-open spaces (such as ranch land), this may be the case, as the turbines and their infrastructure will create ongoing visual/presence impacts. On wooded ridges, however, acoustic impacts could well outstrip visual and road-related impacts: the small footprints of the turbine towers will be surrounded by forests where the increased noise will be a primary effect, and in some topography, lowlands beneath ridges may well be significantly noisier for at least a half mile, and in many cases, up to a mile from the edge of the wind farm, especially at night.  We can only hope that the committee reassesses their dismissal of this potentially significant siting factor, or that there will be an opportunity for scientists and other agencies to comment and amend the recommendations before they are finalized.

See the http://www.fws.gov/habitatconservation/windpower/wind_turbine_advisory_committee.html#mce_temp_url#, where you can download the latest draft, as well as a PDF version of the presentation to be made at a public meeting this week.

I’ve known Gordon Hempton for quite some time; this is a good peek into his quest to find and hopefully protect natural quiet.  He claims that several years ago he could only found two places in the lower 48 where human sound did not intrude on a regular basis…..

Defender of quiet places | csmonitor.com

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