MassDEP Considers New Noise Regs
The MassDEP’s Wind and Noise Technical Advisory group met on 3/7/14 to review the committee’s work. Laurel Carlson, DEP Deputy Regional Director, presented her discussion document overview.
Presentation by Laurel Carlson, MassDEP, on possible changes to the MassDEP approved methods of noise testing.
Compliance Testing–DEP favors retaining 10 dBA. “Slow is out, fast (meter) is in.” Attended data collection is still in; have not settled on “when” or “where” of testing.
Alternatives that have been raised; pre-construction permitting & additional recommendations are reviewed
Laurel Carlson continues with additional recommendations, noting attended sampling is logistically challenged. Comments by Stephen Ambrose, Todd Drummey (about Falmouth), and Michael Bahtiarian. DEP’s Martin Suuberg responds.
Issues with Pre-construction background noise levels
Carlson and Suuberg both repeated the DEP’s interest in getting comments on the findings to date and especially on the unresolved concerns.
According to Stacie Smith of the Consensus Building Institute (CBI), the public can send comments through the end of March 2014 to WNTAG via jherlihy@cbuilding.org. CBI will compile and post the comments all on the WNTAG website, and notify the group that they are there.
Wind Wise ~ Massachusetts 
The WNTAG Acoustic Report included a graphic which shows very clearly that Leq and Lmax do not result in the same conclusions. The human ear responds to Lmax NOT Leq yet the wind industry WNTAG appointees are pushing for a change to Leq metrics to water down the regulatory framework thereby protecting wind developers from enforcement action needed to protect impacted neighbors/
I submitted comments I made verbally at the meeting that have not been published on the website.
Follow up inquiries have gone unanswered.
Carlson and Suuberg both repeated the DEP’s interest in getting comments on the findings to date and especially on the unresolved concerns. ~ please provide addresses so I may take advantage of Carlson/Suuberg invitation. Will my comment be distributed to the entire WNTAG panel?