New Mexico in Focus; 335; Noise Pollution

You You You You

Major funding for in focus is provided by the McEwen Charitable Foundation in reaching the cultural life, health, education, environment, and spiritual life of the citizens of New Mexico. Urban noise is their hope for those that seek the sound of silence. Are we doomed to a life of unrelenting noise? Find out how citizens are fighting back and what the city is doing about this growing problem. Next, on in focus. Hello and welcome to in focus.

I'm R.C. Chapa. Tonight our topic is noise pollution. In most cities, a trend has been that urban noise doubles every six years. And the problem has accelerated with the removal of funds to the Office of Noise Abatement and Control in the Environmental Protection Agency. With the loss of those funds, there has been no federal oversight of noise pollution. The burden of controlling noise has fallen on local communities. Our city leaders are willing to accept this burden and work toward making their communities a quieter and more pleasant place to live. Albuquerque Mayor Jim Baca is here to answer that question. And with another perspective, is Marion Dickinson, president of the airport neighbor's alliance, and Dave Menacucci, board member of the citizens for a quiet environment? Thank you everyone for being here today. Mayor, I want to go ahead and start with you and ask you, is it a real burden not to have that federal oversight?

Are you feeling the weight of your shoulders? No, I don't think it's a burden. And I think the city is going to be able to pick up pretty easily when I ran for office two and a half years ago. One of the main concerns was noise. Noise pollution from the airport primarily. But also any number of other things. We have since the administration has since put in a noise ordinance that it's being considered by the city council now after public hearings out with the public. And I'm hopeful after the hearing process that this thing will come out pretty much intact. It's a great step forward. It's a quality of life issue. And I just joke with everybody, if we just get the boom boxes off the streets will have gone a long way towards making life a lot more pleasant. The city ordinance is about 20 years old, is that correct? Yeah, it's an old ordinance. And it was really ready to be updated. I find I have a hearing loss myself. And we'll be next week getting my new hearing aids. And I found that this background noise becomes much more intrusive

as you start losing your hearing. You just can't hear people. And especially in a city that's growing this vibrant, it seems to be doing pretty good. And a lot of things that are bothering you are really not necessary. We can do a lot of things that are going to make the quality of life a lot better from a standpoint of noise. A lot of it really has to do with being civil to your neighbors. You know, don't start your lawnmower at five in the morning. Barking dogs. That's another thing that's under another ordinance that's going to be considered. It's not part of the noise ordinance. It's under the animal control ordinance. And airport noise, which I'm sure Mary Ann will want to talk about a little bit. We're making strides on that in another way. But all the rest of these things will fall under the noise ordinance. Everything from loudspeakers at carlots, new carlots that are bothering neighborhoods down to those horrible boom boxes that you hear on the streets. Well, it's great to hear about a new city ordinance. But one of the things I want to talk to you about in a moment is enforcement of this. But I want to get to Dave right now.

And Dave, tell me about your organization and what are your concerns? Our organization is made up of citizens who are equally concerned as the mayor is pointed out with the increasing amount of noise in the city. And our main focus right now is to look at the work with the city and look at this new ordinance and make sure that the ordinance really does address all of the major problem areas. And from what we've seen so far, it looks like it does address it. We think that there's a few little nuances that need to be addressed. And we're working with the city, very cooperative relationship. And we're also working with the council. So this is a very important event for us right now. And then, of course, once this gets passed, then our focus will be starting to concentrate on the enforcement activity and how we enforce it. We're starting to think about that little bit right now. I've had several discussions with Bob Kirkpatrick about some of the technical details. And he is.

He's with the Environmental Health Department. And he's one of the technical individuals got an engineering degree. So we're addressing, because of my background, we're addressing more of those technical issues. And how would you go about enforcing this after it's in? And how can we make this defensible? He's tying in with city legal staff and making sure that what we're coming up with is going to be defensible once we get this in place. The worst thing that I think could happen is that we get a code in place. And then we find that the first couple of court cases essentially negate big sections of it. And so that would be the worst case. And we're really looking at that to make sure that that doesn't happen. Now, the boom box is really bother the mayor. What bothers you? Well, the boom box is probably the main thing. Barking dogs is another thing. Aircraft traffic is another thing. And we're having, of course, I live in the old country club area. And we've had a lot of trouble with the helicopters nearby the area.

And I think the council just took some action to try and resolve that. We're also having some trouble with nighttime aircraft from the police. And we're trying to work out some kind of resolution with the police on. And I just might add, just so you'll know. And I didn't tell you this before the show day. But I actually looked at some quieter helicopters that the city might be able to purchase. And some of them are really quiet, almost scary, how quiet they are. We'll take a major investment. We've got two police helicopters now that are, we're built in 1972 or anything but state of the art. They don't have quiet rotors or tail rotors. And we can do a lot better, but it's going to take some money. Yeah, and I was out there also when they were demonstrating the quieter helicopter. And Bob was there and we were looking at some noise reading. So I think that that's part of the solution. And I think also what we want to do is come up with some kind of rules of engagement regarding the neighborhoods with the police. And the police have been very cooperative.

This is not an adversarial relationship at all. Well, I have to admit that moving out here to Albuquerque, that was to me the biggest offender were the police choppers. One night I had to say, they started at nine o'clock and the crews I think they'll four in the morning. About four hours shift is what they do usually. And I didn't, at the time I didn't know they were police helicopters. I thought it was a military exercise from Kirkland Air Force Base, because I thought it was one helicopter coming in after another and it turns out it was one that was just going around. So I hope that Dave, you can talk about some of the things that you want to... Well, I want to emphasize too that what we're not trying to do is to ask the police not to use the best tools at their disposal. I think what we're trying to do is get a mutual understanding of the impact on the neighborhood and in fact on the city. And come up with some kind of operational strategy that's good for everyone. Flying neighborly in other words. Flying neighborly is one we think that if we can keep these low flyovers from happening except in emergencies.

There's an emergency, houses on fire, craze gunmen in the neighborhood. Bring the helicopters, bring the sirens, we want to be awakened. Stopping cars on central or routine breaking up of parties. We might want to have some rules about how we define emergencies. I think that a new helicopter, more quieter one, is going to help. But I also think we want to help the police understand what the noise limits are in the neighborhoods. And what impact the helicopters have and give them some guidance on how far you have to stay away from residents and so forth. These are complex technical issues. And this is not straightforward. The whole decibel rating system and so forth is not something that's easy to understand. So we're... You have to... Easy Davis, when something's too noisy. You just know. You just know it. The bomb is that you can't put that on paper. Somebody can say, I think this is too noisy and then you get a noise meter and you can say, yeah, I think we agree with that. Right. Well, I'm sure it has been noisy because you have a log.

You've been logging some of the police helicopter noise since January. Yeah. And I want to make clear here that what I'm doing here is not to indict the police. What I'm doing here is to have a record. And actually, I want to sit down with Lieutenant Callahan and go over these and discuss them and say, what were you doing at this time? How could we maybe have done this differently? Here's the impact on the neighborhood. So that's really what the log is intended to do. I want to ask Maryann now. Tell me about your group and what it is you're concerned about. Well, we actually did work with the citizens for quite a long time. Quite an environment, early on. Yeah, but we were part of the advisory group that initially looked at the ordinance. And of course, airport noise is what created our organization in 1992. There were great many flyovers of the southeast tights and near northeast tights from a runway that had been used only in very slightly in emergency situations. And construction made it the main runway.

And it aroused a lot of concern about this neighbor, the airport, and how the airport was growing, what was the impact, how the airport was growing into the neighborhoods is really the concern, and how much traffic was increasing. And I think that we keep hearing from many other neighborhoods now that the traffic pattern has gone back to the primary east, west, and a new runway. The Northeast Southwest alignment is a newly enlarged runway so that there are new neighborhoods being impacted by commercial traffic. And as every seven years or so, the airport's traffic doubles. We have no matter what you do technically, and we will see in the next two years the maximum benefit from quieter technology, then what happens? There's just no way to compensate for the increase in numbers of flights through quieter engines at this point.

Mary, you had suggested shifting, I guess, the flights instead of going northeast that they would fly south. Where is that at this point? Well, actually, what's going on is that we announced just this week a new master plan update for the airport. Our passenger count now is at like 6.2 million a year. The airport was designed for 8 million. Once you get to that point, of 8 million is going to be like Thanksgiving day every day. You just don't want to be there. So we have to make plans for how we're going to have this airport cope. One of the things that will come out of the master plan almost certainly, and finally, Mary Ann, is the closure of the North South runway. And the problem with that runway is that it ties up all the other runways, whenever anybody uses it, it crosses all other runways at the airport. So you can be pretty well assured that that's going to be history after the master plan is completed. And I think Mary Ann's right up to a certain extent on technology on quieter engines on the aircraft. Stage three engines will be required, I guess.

They're now required. Now required. And what they've done on a lot of the old 727s, like MD-80s, airliners, is that they've put hushkits on them to try and bring them in compliance. They're still just not as quiet as they should be. I think it's just a matter of time before those older aircraft or the hushkits are sold off and sent elsewhere to other countries that don't have these noise requirements. So I think overall the technology will get us part of the way. But one of the most important things that we have to do, and it's something I've been working on with the neighborhoods and all the people that Mary Ann works with, is getting the FAA to understand that this is a big city now, and that they can change their flight patterns. They can have flight patterns that are not going to cause the disruption that they do. And we're working closely with them. We sometimes complain about the city of bureaucracy. Let me tell you, when you go up against the FAA, you're really getting into bureaucratic nightmare because they have... Well, their goal is to promote transportation. Yeah, it is. But they don't have to do it with a 727 over the Northeast Heights at 705 in the morning. They just don't.

And there's plenty of other ways that they can bring these patterns in now, the curky. We're working with them. I think they're trying now to start being cooperative. And there's a lot of things involved in this. The airlines are involved because they don't want to taxi longways and all this sort of stuff. But you know, for a quality of life reasons, for making Albuquerque a good place to live, we simply have to change those traffic patterns. You simply have to, because you were just telling me earlier that you are getting a lot of complaints. We get a lot of complaints on aircraft. The most complaints we get, frankly, are barking dogs and boom boxes. Barking dogs, once again, is another ordinance that we're going to have to work on. And so, but, you know, I think that we can tackle this thing. And I think we can get it enforced. We're not going to go out and hire a large force of noise enforcement officers. And you're not going to have a Gestapo out there or anything like that. But we have to enforce it. So we've asked for money to be included in the budget for enforcement. If we don't do that, then we shouldn't do this at all.

Too often, the City Councils and other legislative bodies will pass an ordinance and give no money to enforce it. We need money to enforce this. And it's not going to take a large amount of money. But I think most people will comply in the long run. And I think that it can be a successful effort. One thing that is going on is the City Council is currently in hearings on the noise ordinance. And as I understand it, these hearings, as I learned this week, will probably go on for three to four weeks, maybe into August. This will be the most heard ordinance that I've ever heard of. And it's an always ordinance, so that's good. So anybody who wants to complain about this or address an issue has the opportunity to get with three or four? Yeah, and I really urge people to get out. There was a lot of public hearings held before. The turnouts weren't real good. But now the City Council is hearing it. We really have to get people out because I can tell you that there are special interest groups out there who all see their ox being gourd by noise ordinance. For one reason or another. And they're going to be there giving their side, so we should have the citizens there too.

It just takes a little effort to get out and go down and make a comment. It's not that hard. Dave, I know you wanted to. Or you can submit those comments and writing. You don't have to actually go down in ten minutes. I'll tell you though, I think it's really effective to have people go down and talk to them. You get a pile, the counsellors and all of us, we get piles of paper like this. And I sometimes will get a petition with 500 names on it. Before people come in and talk to me, somehow that's much more personal and much more convincing. And it's the way democracy works. You got to put some effort out. And let's just get up, go down the city council and say, those car lots are too noisy. Turn those PA systems off. Let's do it. And I think they'll listen. Dave, earlier you said you wanted to talk about enforcement. Or you wanted to address that. And did you want to ask a mayor a question about that? Really. I think the question we want to ask is, and he's answered is, are we planning for some kind of enforcement activity? And indeed we are. And actually we've talked with Hess, Antiman, and he agrees that some kind of additional support

is needed for some kind of enforcement. Now this is all undefined at the exact limits. But the council is getting the message that it's one thing to have a code. It's quite another thing to enforce the code. So we want an enforceable code, and we want enforcement once it's in place. So it's an important activity. And I think the mayor understands that. And hopefully the council is starting to understand that. Well, we've talked a lot about noise so far. Who can address the health effects, the psychological effects of noise? If we do not do something, what kind of a society are we going to have? I don't know. Dave or mayor? Or Mary Ann? It creates stress. And it creates. It can lead to violence. There's been studies that show that it leads to violence. And of course hearing losses is a very big problem. You can have hearing loss that occurs when you have a loud noise for a short period of time. You can also have hearing loss that occurs from smaller amounts of noise over a longer period of time.

So that's what we're really looking at. Here's the combination of loud noises periodically and then lesser noise over a longer period of time. And the incidence of hearing losses is growing. There's some debate about whether that was from the baby boomers listening to the rock and roll music in the early days or how much of that is environmentally created. But nonetheless, there is an increase now in the amount of recognized hearing loss. So it's a concern across the board. There's another consideration. We looked at the flight tracks over schools. And there were quite a lot of them. And we've noticed that the schools that have a lot of heavy airport traffic over them are also the ones that are not doing as well. And we looked into national studies or international studies. And there is a definite correlation between learning and noise. And the problem of actually the interruptions of noise such as traffic or air traffic creates a problem

where students have trouble with comprehension. And just the interruption itself creates a long term problem. They found it in mid-school as well as in elementary school. So I would say that's something that Albuquerque wants to be very concerned about. Well, it sounds like there's a lot of people who are very concerned about noise. I have two organizations represented here. But there are a lot more. Is that correct? Well, there are coalitions. There are neighborhoods. I mean, the noise issue reaches into a lot of different communities, different types of noise. Specifically neighborhoods. Each neighborhood seems to have their own set of problems. How does the loud parties, you know, we get a lot of those complaints. And what you're going to see, and this is going to get more serious. And I think you both understand it. But my administration's big push has been for infill. That this city simply must stop sprawling because it's using up our resources, water and air resources. The infill noise is going to become much more of an ongoing issue.

If you're going to become a denser city, probably you're going to become a little bit noisier, just because you're going to have more buses running down the streets, hopefully carrying more people, keeping them out of their cars, with our centers and corridors concept, where you have centers of community connected by mass transit. It's just generally going to be noisier. What we're trying to do here, at least what I'm trying to do, is make sure that we have a noise ordinance that gets rid of unnecessary noise. You know, I would love to see a bus become quieter, and I'm sure it will someday. I'm not sure when. 18 wheel trucks, these big trucks, that make a lot of noise, that are garbage trucks, are some of the noisiest inventions ever made. We've just got to do a better job, and be always cognizant of the fact that if we're going to have a good quality of life, and if we infill, and do what we should to protect our resources, then we have to pay a lot of attention to this. This may be just the first step. The city's going to have to invest in new technology

for some of its equipment, and others will too. So the city recognizes it as a serious problem. It's not. These organizations aren't just screaming in the dark, and nobody's listening. No, well, they may be listening, but they can't hear right now. No, this is really serious, and it's a quality of life issue. We have a great city to live in here, and I'll go back to New York for a bond signing, or something like that. After two days, it's about all it can take, because I don't know what they're doing about noise in some of those places, but here we can do something. If it weren't for groups like these groups, there would be no real push to get it done. This stuff really comes from grassroots organizations on up, and that's the way it should work. There's one other issue that outside of the ordinance, and then enforcement, and that's mitigation. There are some existing areas that are subjected to very high noise levels because of traffic, or airline traffic, but also just standard traffic, street traffic. And the third issue that we're going to want to address

is how do we mitigate the noise impact in those areas? San Mateo is one area. I think there's a fair hide, so I believe it is. It's been fighting this issue for sometimes trying to get a noise wall and running into all kinds of complications, not necessarily with the city, but even with some of the neighbors. But that's another issue that we're going to want to address is after this noise ordinance gets in place. But the most fundamental objective here is to get a good quality noise ordinance in place, and that's what we're moving toward. Marianne, there's another technology that's, in fact, there are some people pushing for use of rubberized asphalt. In fact, we would have loved to have seen that in the big eye reconstruction because it's a proven technology. It's been done for years in Arizona, a similar climate. And it uses up old tires and gives us somewhat quieter streets, at least a three decibel reduction, which isn't a barrel. It is noticeable and would help with some of this traffic noise. And they've used that in some areas of city.

I think they've used it on the Paseo Bridge. Finally, they repaved over there with some of this. And it made a difference for them. They're starting to use that, especially on an experimental basis, where they have a large enough area that they can measure the difference and it's looking very effective. I think one of the concerns is the durability of this, but it's been proven in other areas. Absolutely. And once again, I want to reiterate the point that what we're trying to do here is, I guess we're trying to legislate being civil, but there's lots of things that we can do in our everyday lives. They'll make it a quieter place, and that really is the lawnmowers, the leafblowers, all these sorts of things, limiting to the certain times of the day, which this ordinance will require, but also just sort of being cognizant that, you know, you'd like to be treated well by your neighbor and they'd probably like the same back. It's just sort of being neighborly. I understand you're going to be putting also the bill where we require bars and movie theaters and other business to post hazardous noise signs. Right. Yeah, if you go into one of these places with one of these loud bands,

I just don't know how people can do that. I've never figured out, but they do it. It ought to at least be a warning for these young people that are going into these places that, you know, you're going in there and risking your health because you really are. I mean, I wouldn't go out and stand next to a jet engine anymore. I used to do it in the Air Force, where I lost my hearing. If somebody just told me better back in those days, it was macho not to wear your earphones and all that stuff, but people ought to lace be warned. They really ought to be. What decibel is it that you start losing your hearing at 90? It's the OSHA standard. It actually could be a little lower, but it was set at 90 for an 8-hour day. And it depends because they're looking at even lower decibel levels over an extended period. A tiny time can cause some harm. Those studies are not, it's conclusive, but there's indications that even lower levels can be harmful. So, Mayor, we've got about 30 seconds. And I'd like for you to at least tell us that there is hope that the city is going to be okay.

You know, we're not at the end of the world yet. We would be if we didn't enact an ordinance like this. And I hope everybody will go down to the City Council and voice their support of it and give their comments. I think it's that important, and we're going to have a good quality of life here. Does that make it easier for you? Yeah, it makes it a lot easier for me, because I don't have to go down to the City Council by myself. So you are saying that this is something that is being taken seriously? It's being taken seriously, and I think the Council will pass this thing. I don't really do. I don't think they're going to do too much to it. I agree. Unless we have some major uprising by some group, but I think that we can work through that and come up with some compromises. And you're pleased to with this, Mayor? Yes, yes. I think it's a very big step in the right direction. Okay, great. Well, thank you everyone for being here today. That's our program for this week. Join us for the latest on the Big Eye Construction Project. Until then, from all of us at Canemey, MRC Chopper. Have a good evening.

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