MONTPELIER - In a quiet little office on a quiet little street ina quiet little city in a quiet little state, Les Blomberg sits at hiscomputer, driven to distraction by noise.
Sometimes, it's the roar of jet engines over East Boston or therattle of motorcycles at a biker bar in Jerome, N.M. Last weekend, itwas the rumble of the raceway in Loudon, N.H., which officials atShaker Village in Canterbury said is disturbing their historic calm.
Other times, it might be nothing more than a chirping pager in amovie house, a street sweeper in the predawn hours, or a thumpingstereo in a passing convertible.
No matter; it's all noise to Blomberg. As executive director ofthe not-for-profit Noise Pollution Clearinghouse, he has spent fouryears helping people across the country and the world to defeat whathe calls the forgotten child of the environmental movement.
"There's no question that the world is getting noisier," saidBlomberg, 38, who has a master's degree in environmental philosophyfrom Colorado State University and who works for the Ski Patrol inNew Hampshire when winter snows quiet the air. "All the old sourcesof noise, the cars, trucks, airplanes, they're all getting morenumerous. And we're inventing new noise all the time. Jet Skis,pagers, cellular telephones, car alarms. This all adds up to one bigracket that degrades the commons of the air for everybody."
Blomberg describes himself as a combination of Miss Manners andRachel Carson. Carson's book "Silent Spring" is credited by many ashaving inspired the modern environmental movement.
Blomberg and his five staff members field an average of 150 callsand e-mail messages a week from the frazzled and sleep-deprived. Theycome from all over - neighborhoods wealthy and poor, urban and rural.
Another 700 a week tap into the Noise Pollution Clearinghouse Website, which houses a massive library, as well as links to othergroups. Because his group does not advertise, Blomberg suspects theInternet has been responsible for the organization's busy schedule.
"Everyone is annoyed by some noise," Blomberg said as he fidgetedwith his ponytail. "They're just not the same ones."
Sometimes, Blomberg taps the organization's $150,000 annualoperating budget, funded by private grants and donations, to sendpeople a sound meter to measure a noise source. He sends samplemunicipal noise ordinances for people to bring to town or cityofficials. And now, with a donated $8,000 sound meter and digitalrecording device, Blomberg makes occasional house calls, such as hisrecent fieldwork at the Loudon raceway, recording the noise andcutting a CD that can be played for officials.
"If played correctly using the proper amplification, you canreally make people understand what hell you're living through,"Blomberg said, raising his voice above the din of a CD titled "RaceTrack Noise," which he recorded last week.
Of course, some see noise as the chief complaint of underworked,oversensitive, antimodernist fuddy-duddies - a fact made more thanevident by the wall of critical e-mail messages that Blomberg'sorganization has received from across the country in recent years.
Blomberg tends to attract critics only when he raises a ruckusabout certain issues. That happened this year when his group releaseda study on Jet Skis showing that their engine sounds constitute noisepollution.
After the report was made public, the Personal WatercraftManufacturer's Association told reporters that the study wasunscientific, biased, and backward.
But most of the time, critics tend to voice their opinions in theform of e-mail messages.
"Why don't you liberal whackos get a life?" an e-mail from BillStryker read. "I guess you folks feel that any recreational vehicle .. . that you don't use should be banned because it makes noise. Whydon't you move to a desert area so that nobody bothers you?"
Another e-mail message, this one anonymous, read: "Why don't youtry and prevent real pollution? At least then you can have meaning inyour life?"
But Blomberg sees his work as a matter of justice. Although hisoffice fields complaints from a wide demographic spectrum, mostemanate from poorer neighborhoods, often inhabited by minoritieswithout the means to pack up and escape, he said.
Data collected at the US Census Bureau's Annual Housing Surveyappear to support what Blomberg sees. From 1973 to 1993, mostAmericans pointed to noise - more than crime, litter, traffic, ormunicipal services - as the biggest problem afflicting theirneighborhoods. Renters were twice as likely as those who own homes tocomplain, and the demographic groups most likely to cite noise wereblack and Hispanic, the elderly, and those below the poverty line.
"I think it's an overlooked fact that one reason Americans fledthe city is because it's also a loud, hectic place where you can'tget any peace," Blomberg said. "But I think the reason ourorganization exists at all is because there's a growing belief thatwe have nowhere else to go. The suburbs are loud now, thanks to leafblowers, SUVs, and mega shopping centers. We have to fix theproblem."
Blomberg knows from experience. About six years ago, not longafter moving to Montpelier, the Minnesota native received a rudeawakening from the city street sweeper, which made its run around thehistoric downtown around 4 a.m.
"There was absolutely no reason for that in this town," Blombergsaid. "We only have two streets in the downtown. They could run thatthing at noon and it wouldn't be any different."
Noise was not always high on Blomberg's list of concerns. As achild growing up in suburban Minneapolis, Blomberg went to bed eachevening in a home beside a busy highway.
"I had a basement room, so the traffic didn't really bug me," hesaid.
It was in his 20s that Blomberg first heard the sweet sound ofsilence, while backpacking his way across the globe. At the top ofMount Kilimanjaro, and in the jungles of Central America, he foundwhat he now calls "natural quiet" - what the world sounds likewithout human-made noise.
"It's beautiful when you find that," Blomberg said.
Finding natural quiet has become pretty difficult, however, andstatistics from the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics bear thatout. Between 1960 and 1995, annual air passenger miles increased 538percent, air cargo miles increased 2,256 percent, and truck trafficwent up 583 percent.
Transportation noise, Blomberg said, accounts for about one-quarter of the complaints his office fields. That was a surprise, hesaid.
"When I first began this job, I thought I'd be getting a lot of`neighbor from hell' calls," Blomberg said, walking down aMontpelier street as a dump truck rumbled by. He paused to note thatthe truck would probably register about 90 decibels, or enough tocause hearing loss over a sustained period.
"It turns out that the neighbor from hell is usually thegovernment or businesses. When people are anonymous, they can beobnoxious. That's why we don't hear a lot from people about theirnext-door neighbor."
Blomberg sees some invariable, objective truths to noise.
"When humans did their evolving, noise was always a signal of abad thing, like a baby crying, or a lion's roar, or a storm,"Blomberg said. "Now, we have noise everywhere, but our bodies arestill hard-wired for the fight-or-flight response, so what happensis, noise gives us a shot of adrenaline and increases our stresshormones. Basically, noise is unhealthy."
His only regret, he says, is that he believes he has grown overlysensitive to the din around him.
"I'm too aware of it now," Blomberg said, eating a plate offettucine at one of Montpelier's "loud" restaurants. "Once you startthis, there's kind of no way to stop."
No comments:
Post a Comment