noise pollution from private planes

I live in a relatively quiet city, until recently. A flight school opened up across the bay from me, and all day long, all I can hear outside are these private plane motor noises.

It is really awful. It is like having a gas powered lawn mower above me all day long. As one plane leaves, another one takes its place. I am grateful when the evening comes, or for a rainy day, so I wont hear them anymore.

It is impossible to work in my garden anymore without going crazy.

Reply to
glider94560
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Have you considered wearing ear plugs?

Reply to
Cereus-validus.....

Thanks for a great story!!

Toni South Florida USA Zone 10

Reply to
Toni

Seconded. Noise is a terrible thing, it knows no boundaries, and is incredibly powerful. Think of it, you'll watch a TV show if the picture is a bit scrubby, but if the sound is distorted and you can't understand it, you won't watch. You can't close the door on sound, it will permeate everything you do.

ant

Reply to
ant

We should close all the airports.

Reply to
Travis

Why?

ant

Reply to
ant

So we wouldn't have to listen to all that damn airplane noise.

Reply to
Travis

Perhaps we should all go back to an agrarian society, get rid of all modes of transport save the horse. Shut off the electricity, close down the hospitals and break out the leeches.

I'd rather listen to a small plane going over for 45 seconds than listen to the boom boom boom of hip-hop coming out of a honda civic with a

2foot subwoofer > ant wrote:
Reply to
Robert Chambers

The Office of Noise Abatement & Control which enforced the Noise Control Act was abolished by Ronald Reagon, & airports have run roughshod & out of control ever since. According to Noise Pollution Clearinghouse data, only thirteen states have regional regional noise restrictions for airports, & most of those have no method of enforcement. This is because of the political clout of big-business which the airline & airport industries are. Technology does exist to quieten airplanes, but nothing requires them to invest in noise abatement. If the government needs to get better at killing people they can build soundless stealth bombers & muted helocopters whose fup-fup-fup is barely detectable; but when it comes to peoples' health, peace, & well-being, no one can be bothered to use such technology.

The single largest source of harmful noise pollution in the United States is airports. Noise pollution is regulated for highways, construction, railroads, & even when & how long you can listen to your stereo, & your rattling air conditioner could be illegal if your neighbor can hear it. But airports invest in government clout in order to not invest in noise abating technology. The investment paid off: NCA regulations specifically prohibit state restrictions of interstate commerce such as state-to-state airlines, which is why states have had such a hard time even passing let alone enforcing noise abatement laws, while the FAA's noise policies are incompatible with human health. The marginal noise reduction of the newest airplanes is outpaced by increases in airline traffic, expected to be more than one-third greater within two years, by 2007.

If you live in an airplane routing pattern they come overhead one after another day in & day out from early morning to late at night. Increasing airport traffic needs has caused a relaxation of night-time noise pollution restrictions -- FedEx for instance sends all its planes out after midnight & before 5AM -- so in many places there is no time of the day or night when roaring jets overhead ever stop. The airplane patterns can extend to ten miles of "stacked" planes so that you'd have to live fifteen to twenty miles away before the jets were high enough to not be ROARING overhead so loudly that normal conversations might occur inside houses. No one living in such an environment even knows what it is like to listen to a three-minute pop-tune all the way through before an airplane drowns it out, as the jets follow one after another at 45-second intervals.

Airplane traffic tends to be routed over poorer neighborhoods because of the greater political clout of rich people.

Here are some of the health repurcussions:

1) A Cornell University study headed by Gary Evans looked at the effects on 3rd & 4rth grade students who had grown up up under airplane noises. In comparison to children not exposed to airplane noise pollution every day, these children had higher blood pressure, higher amounts of the stress hormones epinephrine, norepinephrine & cortisol associated with heart disease, lowered immune-cell counts, & higher cholesterol. The children also suffered from a greater number of mental health problems compared to children attending the same school, at the same economic level, but not under airplane traffic.

2) A 1990 study by the National Institutes of Health established that residential neighborhoods with airplane traffic have residents with substantial hearing loss. Industrial workers have better noise level protections than do neighborhoods near airports.

3) The threshold of pain caused by sound is 120 to 130 decibals. Rock & roll concerts average 120 decibals. Airplane noise pollution over many neighborhoods is 130-150 decibles. At two miles from airports, noise levels are typically around 100 decibals, the equivalent of a locomotive roaring by the house. There IS an FAA policy that PURPORTS to restrict airplane noise to an average of 65 decibals, but this is an "average" which eradicates the need to actually keep the decibals at or below 65, since the "average" of the noise includes before it is overhead & after it has passed on. When "averaged" out over an hour, peaks may be 150, but if lulls between overflights are low, it averages out as "no problem." If the average WERE ever brought down to the reputed 65 decibals, that would mean airports could still make the equivalent noise of starting a lawnmower or running a food blender every two minutes without relent, & would be sufficient to maintain the majority the negative health impacts.

5) Airplane noise has stopped some species of birds from nesting or to abandon their nests with young partially raised.

6) People living inside a fifteen mile radius of an airport suffer sleep deprivation & illnesses associated with sleep deprivation. A typical international airport will have more than 100 take-offs & landings during the night, fewer than during the day but enough to guarantee nobody gets a healthy night's sleep, never experiences sufficient REM sleep, the inevitable outcome being chronic fatigue, decreased efficiency, anxiety, & moodiness.

7) People living near airports have a higher incidence of job-related industrial accidents, gastrointestinal disease, & loss of concentration.

8) Families living under airplane noise have increased incidents of domestic violence & child abuse & neglect. Aggression levels rise in people living in airplane corridors, & the impulse to help others in need lowers. The whole social fabric becomes frayed.

9) Communities in airplane corridors have increased use of sleeping pills & tranquilizers & abuse of prescription drugs, also:

10) Increased rates of alcoholism & a 100% increase in the rate of cirrhosis of the liver for people living under airplane noise;

11) Increased rate of admission to psychiatric hospitals.

12) Infants born to mothers living under flight patterns have lower birth weights, & higher rate of prematurity, & increased rates of spinal bifida & anencephaly.

13) One study showed a 15% increase of strokes for people living near LA International Airport compared to people in quiet neighborhoods. Not all studies show quite that dramatic an increase, but strokes & heart disease, increased blood pressure, & increased cholesterol, are well proven to be significantly higher. An Amsterdam study of 6,000 individuals showed that the very shape of the heart is different for people living with airplane noise.

14) People living in airplane patterns have increased rates of duodenal & stomach ulceration & other severe gastrointestinal diseases.

15) A study of 6,000 students in Highline schools found that students living in areas impacted by SeaTac Airport noise have a higher rate of learning disabilities. Several schools are in the airplane patterns, & the Breysse study at the University of Washington establisehd that academic performance was worse where noise pollution was highest. The most afflicted Highline School District's math scores remain the third-lowest in the state.

16) People living in airport patterns have altered speech patterns probably associated with their sleep deprivation & loss of concentration.

Join the RIGHT TO QUIET SOCIETY:

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Against Airport Pollution:
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health effects of airports:
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Reply to
paghat

Ahmen!

Reply to
Travis

So don't buy a house near an airport. OTOH, if an airport tries to start up near where you already live, I assume you'd do something?

ant

Reply to
ant

It is not only homes near airports that are affected.

The airplane noise has increased substantially over my neighborhood in the past year, and I am at least 15 miles from Fort Lauderdale International Airport. In the winter months (when doors and windows are open) you can't watch a movie without having to pause several times while a plane roars overhead.

Between that and the goldarned ice cream man I could scream.

Toni South Florida USA Zone 10

Reply to
Toni

My problem is that by the time I hear the ice cream man, I never seem to make it out of the house fast enough to stop him.

Reply to
Mark Anderson

snipped-for-privacy@netscape.net (paghat) in news: snipped-for-privacy@soggy72.drizzle.com:

then driven insane enough to join the krishnas.

Reply to
Gardñ

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