National Park Service Performs Major Disservice for Anti-Wind Power Activists

[kristopher]

National Park Service Performs Major Disservice for Anti-Wind Power Activists

The National Park Service just did a major disservice to anti-wind energy activists.

NPS recently published a new map showing the estimated sound levels for the entire country. NPS developed the map as part of its efforts to protect natural sounds for both ecosystem health, as well as visitor experience. Overall, NPS’s map shows that significant portions of the country fall within 40-45 decibel sound levels.




That’s bad news for anti-wind energy activists.

Local and even state-level wind energy regulations have been enacted regarding wind farm sound levels. Anti-wind energy activists have repeatedly used sound level regulations as a means to halt wind farm development. For example, a bill was introduced in North Carolina that would have prohibited wind farms that “create an ambient noise measurement exceeding 35 decibels”. That sound level is lower than the wind itself, or a bird chirping.

Thanks to NPS’s new sound level mapping, it is fairly clear that a 35 decibel sound limit isn’t just discriminatory to wind farms, it’s likely impossible to achieve under already-existing conditions in significant portions of the country. By enacting sound level regulations that are below existing, ambient sound levels, anti-wind energy activists are obviously attempting to ban wind farms.

In 1972, President Nixon gave the Environmental Protection Agency a...

http://blog.cleanenergy.org/2016/07/26/npssound/