Friday, March 8, 2013

Measuring background noise with an attended, mobile survey during nights with stable atmospheric conditions


    August 23, 2009 by Clifford P. Schneider
Summary:
In response to sound studies from commercial wind developers, a series of background noise surveys were conducted in Cape Vincent, NY between May and July 2008.
 The survey approach included sampling at night under stable atmospheric conditions and systematically selecting monitoring stations at 1.6 km intervals. Stable conditions occurred in 67% of nights and in 30% of those nights, wind velocities represented worse-case conditions where ground level winds were less than 2 m/s and hub-height winds were greater than wind turbine cut-in speed, 4 m/s. The median A-weighted L90a,9hr sound pressure level was 25.7 and 26.7 dBA. C-weighted SPLs from the two mobile surveys were 40.0 dBC and 43.9 dBC. Assuming 45 dBA background noise, developers of the St. Lawrence Wind Farm predicted noise impacts would not exceed local and New York guidelines. However, assuming worse-case conditions using 25.6 dBA background noise, nearly all residences within range of the St Lawrence Wind Farm exceeded New York guidelines and more than half would have noise levels considered "objectionable" to "intolerable".


This paper was presented at the Inter-Noise 2009 conference held in Ottawa, Canada, August 22 and 23, 2009. Access the full paper by clicking on the link at the bottom of this page.



3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You might want to take a few minutes to post a comment on the NYS Siting Board web page for this case.

You might want to register the point that you are not interested in living amidst "objectionable to intolerable" noise levels. You think that might be worth a couple minutes of your time?

http://documents.dps.ny.gov/public/MatterManagement/CaseMaster.aspx?MatterSeq=40867

Anonymous said...

Cliff was a retired biologist for the NY State fish hatcheries. Now what does he know about wind speed except to get his information from the internet or other articles done by people who knew what they were doing. Cliff is no expert on wind speed. He be more knowledgeable today then he was then, but it still doesn't make him an expert.

Anonymous said...

Anon 5:46 If Schneider is a fish dummy as you suggest, then how is it he gave an "invited paper" at Inter Noise 2009, the International Conference of Noise Control Engineers?

If Schneider is a fraud don't you think noise control engineers would have refused his paper long before the conference got underway?

Furthermore, don't you think George Hessler of Hessler Associates, who chaired the session where Schneider gave his paper, would have criticized Schneider and his work instead of praising him?

Sorry Anon: 5:46, you better stick to trying to trash the work, which you haven't a clue, instead of trying to smear the messenger.