A cacophony of complaints over all that racket

Detrimental health effects of noise pollution give rise to lawsuits, calls for action

NEW YORK — In a city whose cacophony can reach 95 decibels in Midtown Manhattan — far above the federal government’s recommended average of no more than 70 decibels — the commotion over all that racket involves irate residents, anti-noise advocates, bars, helicopter sightseeing companies, landscapers and construction companies, as well as City Hall.

The 311 nonemergency call service gets 50,000 calls a day, and the No. 1 complaint is noise.

New York University has a fiveyear study underway — funded by the National Science Foundation — to monitor noise in New York. The Sounds of New York City project aims to track sound across the city. But what policymakers will do with the information is not yet clear.

No studies have been done on the change in city noise over time, whether it is getting worse or by how much. But experts point to rising complaints, more lawsuits, more people with hearing problems, and studies showing that noise has negative health effects.

Noise is “the new secondhand-smoke issue,” said Bradley Vite, who pushed for regulations in Elkhart, Ind., that come with some of the nation’s steepest fines. “It took decades to educate people on the dangers of secondhand smoke. We may need decades to show the impact of secondhand noise.”

The Environmental Protection Agency has said that noise below an average of 70 decibels over 24 hours is safe and won’t cause hearing loss. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health says anything below an 85 won’t cause hearing loss for workers exposed to loud machinery.

But those levels are far above recommendations made by the European Union. In 2009, the E.U. set noise guidelines of 40 decibels at night to “protect human health.” And it said steady, continuous noise in the daytime — such as the noise on highways — should not exceed 50 decibels. “We’re in active denial” about the effects of noise, said Rick Neitzel, director of environmental health policy at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “We’re far, far behind what Europe is doing.”

When it mapped noise across the country last year, the Department of Transportation found that 97 percent of the population is subjected to man-made noise. A recent study of 290 national park sites found that 67 percent had significant human-caused noise, said Rachel Buxton of Colorado State University in Fort Collins.

Aircraft noise fell by 95 percent from 1970 to 2004 as plane engines got quieter, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. But local battles over airport and airplane noise continue for communities in flight paths. In the national parks, “the biggest culprit is aircraft — the planes overhead — and then road traffic and sounds from industrial sources like oil and natural gas drilling,” said Buxton, who participated in the study of national park noise. “We’ll be hiking in Rocky Mountain” National Park, she said, and the background noise “drives my husband absolutely loony.”

Noise doesn’t just affect hearing, noise activists say. A study by the University of Michigan showed an association with cardiovascular disease and heart attacks, according to Neitzel, who conducted the study. “The consensus is that if we can keep noise below 70 decibels on average, that would eliminate hearing loss,” Neitzel said. “But the problem is that if noise is more than 50 decibels, there’s an increased risk of heart attack and hypertension,” he said. “Noise at 70 decibels is not safe.”

According to the Earth Journalism Network, when you hear a jackhammer, that’s 130 decibels of noise; a chain saw, 110. At a rock concert standing near the speakers? 120. Getting passed by police with sirens blazing? 120. Behind a garbage truck? 100. At a noisy restaurant? 70. A few states and cities are beginning to do something — at least a little something — to quiet things down.

In Texas, new “quiet concrete” is being tested on two stretches of highway. The $12.4 million project is aimed at replacing concrete sound barriers that won’t be needed because highway traffic will be quieter.

“Most of the roaring noise from highways comes from the tires on the road, not the engine or exhaust noise,” said Robert Bernhard, vice president for research at the University of Notre Dame and an expert in noise-control engineering. Traditional concrete is raked with grooves that run across the road to drain water, he said.

Quieter concrete has grooves that go with traffic and drops highway sound levels 5.8 decibels, on average, a study in Texas found. That is equivalent to a roughly 70 percent reduction in traffic, according to Emily Black, spokeswoman for the Texas DOT.

In Phoenix, more than 200 miles of highway have been resurfaced with a concrete mix that uses pieces of old tires to dampen sound, said Doug Nintzel, spokesman for the Arizona Department of Transportation. More than 6,000 recycled tires are used in every mile of rubberized four-lane highway. “It means millions of tires have been recycled and kept out of landfills,” he said.