“Woe
to those who decree unjust statutes and
to those who continually record unjust
decisions, to deprive the needy of justice,
and to rob the poor of My people of their
rights . . .”
Isaiah
10:1,2
|
. . . But not in my Backyard
Thursday,
12 August 2004 - Throwing your garbage,
when you are through with the container, onto someone
else's property shows very little respect for the person
who owns the land but even less for the man who
threw it. Also shows how much disdain they have
for the companies they work for, T and K Construction
and Drinkard Development.
|
Leftover coke can from today's lunch.
|
Putting
It All Together The
past several days have been the worst in that
the combination of the constant beeping of many
vehicles becomes quite annoying, several large
vehicles were actually vibrating the dirt to
compact it which also effected everything around
it including our homes, the loud banging of dump
trucks slamming their rear gates against the
container to clear the clinging dirt, and the
large bulldozers and tractors pushing and pulling
the dirt added to the unwanted aggravation.
If
you were to measure the sound the trucks were
making when slamming their gates, you could easily
measure it above 125 decibels. It is so loud
that you can even feel it if you were
in our backyard. The study of noise as a stressor
is a very complex bioecological factor and has
a strong psychosocial component as well as being
biological. Noise can produce a stress response
in one or more of the following ways:
- By
causing physiological reaction, that is, by stimulating
the sympathetic nervous system.
- By
being annoying and subjectively displeasing.
- By
disrupting ongoing activities. 1
Research
has demonstrated that the frequency and amplitude
of noise can have a harmful physiological effect
upon a person's hearing mechanisms. This physiological
discomfort, which may occur anywhere in excess
of 85 dB, will also result in a generalized stress
response throughout the body. If the noise level
exceeds 120 dB, which it easily does here, it
is considered acute and actual tissue damage
may occur.
In
recognition of the stressful effects of noise
upon human behavior, the U.S. Department of Labor
has stated that government employees should not
be exposed to steady noise levels in excess of
90 decibels per 8-hour day. The equipment in
our backyard has been running constantly from
7:00a to after 6:00p most days and sometimes
as much as 14 hours in a day.
It
All Adds Up If
you were to take the 125 dB times the number
of hours (10 conservatively) exposed, this comes
to a value of 1,250 and then add 10 minutes each
time the noise annoys you (8 times per hour *
10 = 800) through the day, you come up with 2,050.
Divide this by 8 to get the average hourly noise
level of 254. At 65, your sympathetic nervous
system arousal threshold kicks in, over 120 causes
tissue damage from repeated acute exposure while
130 is your pain threshold. 2 We
came up with 254 which is almost twice the pain
threshold. I don't think this is acceptable behavior
in a neighborhood that was not forewarned of
what was to come or how to prepare for it. Do
you? Oh, I forgot, it's not in your neighborhood
so why should we expect anyone else to care.
That was a bit sarcastic but
typifies
the response we have been getting lately.
It
is quite clear that prolonged exposure to noise
can have physiologically and psychologically
deleterious effects on people.
1 Controlling
Stress and Tension: A Holistic Approach, Girdano,
et al, pp100-101.
2 ibid,
p99.
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