The Spring 2010 issue of Currents, the quarterly magazine published by N45, the Navy’s environmental readiness division, features a long article on recent research by Ted Cranford of San Diego State University, which is revealing new details about the anatomy of beaked whales.  Cranford has developed an innovative technique to use x-ray CAT scanners designed to scan rocket motors, and with the data garnered there, is working with an expert in Finite Element Modeling (FEM) to model the ways that sound moves through and around the jaws of beaked whales before reaching their ears.

The results are not all that surprising, in a big-picture way: indications are that the whales’ auditory system filters sounds so that frequencies used in communication and echolocation are accentuated, with other frequencies dampened.  The frequencies used by mid-frequency active sonar, which are near the low end of beaked whales’ auditory range, are filtered by the sound transmission path, so that they impinge on the ear at levels 6dB or more lower than they arrived at the whale’s jaw.

The article doesn’t specify the sound levels used in the tests, to help us compare these results to what animals experience at sea. However, the captions and text repeatedly frame the results to mean that mid-frequency sonar is “largely filtered out before reaching the ear.”  The implication that a 6dB, or even greater, dampening largely removes the signal seems quite misleading; rather, only near the very faintest received levels that would be heard will the dampening render them inaudible.  It’s unsurprising that these frequencies are not of inherent interest to the whales, and it’s reassuring that their anatomy may help protect them from direct physiological damage by such sounds.  But clear behavioral responses to mid-frequency active sonar signals tell us that they clearly hear them, and respond more dramatically than most others to these sounds.  Perhaps these test results could also suggest that beaked whales are especially sensitive to sound in general, or to these sounds at the low end of their audible frequency range; for example, harbor porpoises are well-known to react to quieter sounds than many other species, and recent research has shown that they experience temporary hearing loss (TTS) at lower levels as well.  We may be simply learning that when beaked whales are exposed to, say, 160dB sonar signals, their bodies reduce the sound levels to 150dB by the time it reaches their ear–but they still react, even to this reduced sound.

While the new research is fascinating in its own right (and will be even more compelling if ongoing current research validates the modeling being used), it seems that the Navy needs to be careful in how they present the implications.  To imply that beaked whales are “largely filtering out” sonar sounds is no more helpful in fostering informed public and scientific dialogue than the perception that mid-frequency sonar is a “death-ray” for whales.

Currents is well worth following.  Each issue has a column by the Director or Assistant Director of N45, and about twice a year they run extensive features on various ocean noise topics:
Currents main web site
Spring 2010 feature on Ted Cranford’s research
Winter 2010 feature on Dave Moretti and the Navy’s Marine Mammal Monitoring program, including various tagging programs (Dave raised the “death ray” perception in his interview)
Winter 2009 feature on the Navy’s Marine Mammal Science program

England’s primary environmental agency, the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), has commissioned a study to improve techniques for assessing wind farm noise.  “There is a possibility that local authorities are not currently investigating complaints about noise from wind farms due to the absence of any formal technical guidance,” an internal document reads. “Defra wishes to let a contract to provide local authorities with a methodology by which to investigate noise from wind farms, to support local authority enforcement of statutory nuisance legislation.”  According to the Telegraph, the report is due out later this year, and should make it easier for local councils to respond to noise complaints.  A recent survey suggests that about one in seven UK wind farms have spurred noise complaints; noise campaigners contend that many people who are bothered do not file formal complaints, since they are rarely acted upon.

(UPDATE, 8/2/10): Apparently, the news report cited above was about a call for proposals, or plans to let the contract; in August, Energy Minister Charles Hendry announced that the consulting firm Hayes McKenzie had been hired to conduct this review of noise assessment techniques.  The firm will begin work in September and is expected to complete its report by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, also in the UK, the Bradford Planning Inspector upheld a ruling by the city Council to deny a permit for building a single large turbine at a factory in town.  The applicant had appealed the denial, since its noise studies showed that that the turbine would be in compliance with the federal noise code ETSU-R-97, which is the only code named in the statutes.  However, the investigating Bradford Council Environmental Health officer used several other noise level methodologies when he visited a similar turbine in Norfolk. Using World Health Organisation and British Standard guidelines and codes of practice, as well as ETSU-R-97, he came to the conclusion that the Princes Soft Drinks turbine would cause a noise nuisance for nearby residents. The Planning ruling noted that even according to the company’s modeling, “for some dwellings under certain conditions, the emitted turbine noise is likely to lead to complaints. Furthermore, according to WHO standards, there would be times when this noise could result in sleep disturbance, or prove to be a serious annoyance to residents. I find this to be unacceptable.”

Councillor John Ruding said: “I am delighted that the inspector agreed with the local community and their voices have been heard. “These proposals were an experiment on people’s lives which was not acceptable.”  Earlier, at the time that the company appealed the initial denial, another Councillor, James Cairns, had noted, “The Council has done its best. Its officers didn’t believe it was feasible in the area. Bradford is not against wind turbines – if you go up onto the moors, you will see them. But turbines of this size have not been tried and tested in urban areas.”

The Center for Biological Diversity has filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue the Department of Interior, claiming that the Minerals Management Service (MMS) has been approving oil and gas exploration and development for years without making the companies obtain the “incidental harassment permits” required by the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act.  While the CBD’s press release focuses on the 100 seismic surveys and 300 drilling operations approved since the Obama administration came into office (and uses some pretty inflammatory language aimed at Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar), the Gulf has been one of the world’s most industrialized ocean regions for many decades, and the practices described are long-standing.  According to the CBD press release, the primary impact that has not been addressed is the effects of industry noise on whales and other sea life; CBD point out that some of the sounds are loud enough to damage whale hearing (though fails to note that this occurs only at very close range) as well as disrupt important behaviors (which can occur many miles away). The North Sea is the only other ocean region that’s been so widely impacted for so long by oil and gas development, with West Africa, Brazil, Indonesia, and the South China Sea all working hard to join the party in recent years.

The CBD stresses that the many oil and gas activities in the Gulf must be more thoroughly examined, especially since in some conditions noise can reverberate and become nearly continuous.  While the National Marine Fisheries Service was consulted by the MMS, with NMFS issuing a Biological Opinion that included the assessment that whales would be affected, no harassment  or  permits were issued or required by MMS. (Ed. note: I haven’t read the Biological Opinion, but there’s a good chance that NMFS considered the effects to be negligible; this is a common bottom line in agency consideration of noise impacts, and is the grounds used to issue the harassment permits.  It is likely that while CBD’s suit is based on the procedural question of missing permits, the root of their challenge is a disagreement that the effects are negligible.) The notice of intent concludes by saying: “An appropriate remedy that would prevent litigation would be for the Secretary to initiate the process to authorize the take of marine mammals in the Gulf of Mexico pursuant to Section 101(a)(5) of the MMPA by a date certain. Meanwhile, the Secretary must stop approving lease sales, exploration and development plans, and seismic exploration permits in the Gulf of Mexico until and unless it obtains the required authorizations under the MMPA and ESA.”

UPDATE: According to a Reuters report, the Interior Department and the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) announced on Friday the 15th that they would initiate a review of MMS’s NEPA procedures, especially their obligations under the MMPA and ESA.  Earlier in the week, Secretary Salazar had announced a plan to split the MMS into two parts, one of which would collect royalties, with the other overseeing regulatory enforcement.

When the town-owned wind turbine began operating at the Falmouth, MA wastewater treatment facility in March, most townspeople saw it as the most striking example of the town’s far-reaching commitment to sustainability.  Since then, it’s generated about a third of the town’s electricity needs, and a second turbine is being readied for installation nearby this summer.  As noted at a forum on the town’s many energy-savings initiatives, in discussing the second turbine: “The special thing about the site is it’s remote. The nearest home is about 1/3 mile away, which is important in terms of noise and appearance.” (This is just under 1800 feet, or 600 yards.)

But over the few weeks since the first turbine began operating, residents are finding the noise much more disruptive than they’d imagined.  According to the Cape Cod Times, some neighbors who live in the sparsely populated, wooded area around the treatment facility were horrified when they heard the noise. “It’s destroyed our capacity to enjoy our homes,” Kathy Elder said. Elder said the noise surrounds her residence, alternating between a jet’s whine, thunder and a thumping that sometimes can be felt.

The town has received formal complaints from six residents, one of whome, Annie Hart Cool, has gathered over 40 names of people within a mile or so who say they are affected.  She notes that her husband enjoys working in their yard after work, “but when he comes back inside and his head is hurting, you know something’s wrong.”

Assistant Town Manager Heather Harper says that the town has asked Vestas, the turbine manufacturer, to come check whether there are any mechanical issues that may be causing elevated noise levels, and is asking residents to compile records of when the sound is worst, to help the town figure out how to respond. “This has been a community project from the beginning,” Harper said. “We’re genuinely concerned and we take the complaints very seriously.”  At the same time, Harper noted that “We didn’t expect no sound, but it should meet all governmental standards.”  This is, indeed, often the issue: governmental noise standards, which tend to range from 40-50dB, are not always sufficient to avoid negative impacts on the nearest neighbors.

UPDATE: Another local newspaper covers the brewing controversy.

An excellent 3-part series on wind farm development ran this week in the Bismark Tribune. It has a good balance of the excitement and economic benefits that attract farmers to the industry, and well-stated concerns from those who want larger setbacks in order to protect neighbors from noise.  The grey area around health impacts is navigated quite well, with a well-grounded emphasis on sleep disruption; and most strikingly, the piece includes acknowledgement that there is individual variability in how easily people can adapt to a new and potentially intrusive noise source.

Interestingly, there are repeated indications that in this community, as in others, a half mile setback was seen as the “sweet spot” that could accommodate both industry and neighbors; in initial community meetings, there was significant support for a one-mile setback, while a general consensus emerged that a half mile would be tolerable to most people.  Nonetheless, the county decided to go with a third of a mile (1750-foot) setback, which has some community members concerned that the turbines will be audible enough to be disruptive at times.

Wyoming has been at the center of the storm over how much wind farm developers should be subject to limits on development in the name of protecting wildlife habitat, thanks to the hot-button issue of the sage grouse, which has been dancing on the edge of federal endangered species listing for several years. In general, with the exception of bird and bat deaths caused by flying into or near whirling turbine blades, wind farms have been assumed to be benign in relation to wildlife habitat.  The noise made by turbines is considered to be moderate enough to have minimal impact on nearby wildlife (though recent National Park Service research that quantifies the dramatic reductions in listening area caused by small increases in background noise may eventually change this thinking).

This week, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department approved a set of recommendations that will guide the Wyoming Industrial Siting Council on permit applications for major projects in the state, including wind farms numbering at least 30 turbines. Under the guidelines, construction activity will be halted within two miles of an active grouse lek during the mating season each spring, though turbines will be allowed to operate in any location more than a quarter mile from a lek (increased to six tenths of a mile for one species). Restrictions on wind farms within two miles of wildlife refuges were softened in the final draft, which requires simply that developers coordinate with the Game and Fish Department and US Fish and Wildlife Service when building near refuges or state wildlife management areas.  Developers are urged to avoid big game wintering and birthing ranges, but if siting in these areas “cannot be avoided,” then construction activity must cease during the relevant times of year; again, construction is assumed to be a disturbance, while operations are assumed to be benign.

Many ranchers opposed the new rules, citing private property rights, while environmental advocates urged larger buffers, including six-tenths of a mile for all species. “You’ve got one set of concerns saying we don’t have enough restriction, and the other side saying we’ve got way too much,” WGFD deputy director John Emmerich said. “I think we’ve done a credible job of trying to address the needs for wildlife and still accommodate reasonable levels of development.”

Read more at the San Francisco Examiner and Casper Tribune, and download the recommendations here.

So, you enjoy delving deeply into listening to the natural world.  You may have begun doing some recording; you may be a radio journalist or an artist for whom sound is an important tangential interest.  Or you may be a composer/recordist who’s been working with sound for years.  For any and all of you who fit these bills, I wanted to clue you in about two upcoming workshops you might find enticing:

In June, the Nature Sounds Society hosts its 25th Annual Field Workshop, at the San Francisco State University Field Station at Yuba Pass in the Sierra.  This year, in addition to the traditional fare of dawn chorus recording/listening trips and afternoon and evening talks (this year with Gordon Hempton, John Muir Laws, and Gina Farr), they’re offering an overnight excursion far enough away from roads to assure a mechanical-noise-free experience.  For more on this trip, which I’ve done twice, see the NSS website.

For the more adventurous, Francisco Lopez’ Mamori Sound Project is hosting its 6th Annual Workshop/Residency for sound artists and composers, taking place as always at Mamori Lake in the Brazilian Amazon in November.  This two-week residency  involves theoretical/discussion presentations, field work and studio work, with a special focus on creative approaches to the work with field recordings, through an extensive exploration of natural sound environments.  Individual and collaborative project will result.  To hear more about this unique program, see the Mamori Sound Project web page, which includes a video and many photos and comments from previous participants.

A small item in the Marine Technology Reporter just clued me in to what looks to be an interesting new line of acoustic imaging products that could have potential to augment, or perhaps reduce the need for, repeated seismic surveys of active oil and gas fields. PanGeo Subsea has announced new financing to develop their Acoustic Zoom, which they compare to a “deep earth telescope” capable of providing detailed imagery of subsea geology down to 6000m below the sea bed.  Current information does not clarify any details about the products’ acoustic output.

Most companies now utilize repeated seismic surveys in order to track the depletion of offshore oil fields; doing repeated 3D seismic surveys over time is termed “4D” surveying.   According to a recent PanGeo press release and backgrounder, one of the major limitations of current marine 4D surveys is that the resolution at reservoir depths is often too coarse to be able to focus the seismic attributes to a specific compartment or feature of the reservoir. Their Acoustic Zoom is pitched as a novel high resolution method which uses steered beams on reception and on transmission to produce images with higher definition than can be attained with conventional seismic techniques. They project that it will “reduce the cost, scheduling and logistics involved with 4D seismic imaging, including reductions in the amount of equipment, data acquisition time, as well as the time to compute and interpret seismic results. We expect our technology to become an important tool for permanent reservoir monitoring applications.”  To , read more about the Acoustic Zoom, see the these two press releases, announcing private funding received in July, and Canadian government funds received in February.

PanGeo Acoustic Corer: the arms turn to image a full circle below

There is no information on the company’s website about the source levels or frequencies of the acoustic pulses used by any of their innovative systems.  In addition to the Acoustic Zoom, which is still under development, PanGeo has previously brought to market two related products, the Acoustic Corer and the Sub-Bottom Imager.  The Acoustic Corer provides high-resolution images that can be manipulated in great detail; each scan covers an area 14m in diameter and 30-80m deep.  See this page for three videos of the Acoustic Corer and its data.  The Sub-Bottom Imager is an ROV that moves along the seabottom, making images 5m wide and 5m deep.  Both of these products are more oriented toward pre-construction surveys to help avoid surprises as infrastructure is being placed on or into the seafloor.

“As goes Maine, so goes the Nation?”  While this old political truism has faded in recent decades, the State of Maine is currently blazing trails in carefully considered wind power development.  At the local level, small towns continue to pass moratoriums and strict setback standards.  Most recently, Thorndike became the third town to set a one-mile setback, with the neighboring town of Dixmont taking up a similar ordinance at this week’s town meeting.  Meanwhile, two more towns, Avon and New Vineyard, joined four others who have hit the pause button on any wind farm developments by adopting moratoriums on any permits.  These actions come in the wake of three projects that have generated significant noise issues for neighbors out to as far as 3000-3500 feet; thus, half-mile setbacks are being seen as not enough to avoid risk of disrupting rural lifestyles.

While these towns see the state as being overly aggressive in supporting ridgetop wind farms (abetted by the fact that a former Governor is one of the state’s leading wind developers), when it comes to offshore wind development, the state’s goals will be much more welcome for most coastal communities.  Instead of opening Maine state waters to windfarm leasing, the legislature’s Committee on Utilities and Energy is redrafting controversial ocean windfarm bill LD 1810 to do the very opposite. Under changes to be finalized today at the committee’s 2nd worksession on the bill, “An Act To Implement the Recommendations of the Governor’s Ocean Energy Task Force” will focus Maine instead on constructing floating deepwater windmills on land, and then deploying them at locations ten miles offshore and further, where wind speeds and higher and more consistent and fisheries are less impacted.

The plan received an enthusiastic response from the Maine Lobstermens Association, which has been very concerned about the impacts of any traditional bottom-mounted wind turbines on their activities near shore.  Habib Dagher, who leads the University of Maine’s offshore wind project, offered a timeline for getting deepwater wind energy going off Maine. “Our goal is build our first demonstration floating turbine – a third-scale turbine about 120 feet above the water – next year, and place it in the water the year after in the Monhegan site,” Dagher said. “In 2013 we would build the first 4 or 5 megawatt unit, In 2014 and 2015, a 25 megawatt farm.” He predicted that offshore wind would keep growing: “The next phase is development of a large scale 500 to 1,000 megawatt farm. We have at least one developer interested to do that and have it operational in 2020”

UPDATE: The offshore Maine project will not have its first scale model test unit in the water until 2013.

A whale surveying team enjoyed a rare sight yesterday, as a right whale gave birth as they watched from a small plane.  It was only the second time that a birth had been observed in this species, but the excitement was tempered a bit by the fact that it took place about ten miles from the border of the contentious Undersea Warfare Training Range (USWTR) being planned by the Navy off the Florida coast.  Navy planners have assumed that most whales would be in the designated critical habitat closer to shore, and about 30 miles from the USWTR–still close enough to hear sonar, and perhaps slightly affect behavior, but far enough that relatively few whales would likely react.  The Navy knew that some whales could be closer or even in the range at times, but this is the first dramatic encounter so close to the range.  An article in the Florida Times-Union provides a good sense of the excitement, and the concerns:

The Florida-Georgia coast is the only known calving ground for right whales, which gather each winter after traveling from New England and Canada. From a total population of about 450, more than 100 whales migrated to the area this winter. Environmental advocates, who have warned that ship traffic and sonar use at the training range could imperil the whales, said the discovery reinforces their concerns. “The Navy needs to go back to square one and reconsider,” said Sharon Young, marine issues field director for the Humane Society of the United States. The group is one of several that sued in January to challenge the training range plans.

Although whales are usually reported in shallow waters closer to shore, the Navy’s range project manager said some were expected to be in and around the training area. “The fact that there’s a birth was something a little unexpected. We all agree it’s a good thing,” said Jene Nissen, the project manager. He said the discovery would become part of a body of research that will factor into decisions about use of the range that is planned about 50 nautical miles – 58 miles – east of Jacksonville.

As outlined in preliminary plans issued last year, the Navy has agreed to slow its ships during the months that right whales are in the region, in order to minimize the risk of ship strikes, but so far it has rebuffed options that include setting the annual sonar training schedule so as to also avoid those months.   Up to 480 anti-submarine mid-frequency active sonar exercises are planned per year, including 100 ship-based events (2/week on average, lasting 3-4 hours each).  See these earlier posts for more details.

UPDATE 3/25: In response to a quick wave of outrage on editorial pages and some Park Service lobbying, Senator McCain has withdrawn his proposed amendment.  It remains to be seen whether he will let the NPS EIS process set the final rules, or seek to have the Senate write rules if the process lags or heads toward a resolution that differs from his sense of the proper balance.

That John McCain can sure be a puzzle.  Or is it a case of the old maverick’s bait and switch, staking the high moral ground while pursuing a typically old-guard agenda?  Whatever he’s up to, let’s hope the rest of his Senate colleagues don’t buy into it.  Way back in 1987 McCain led the push to enact the National Parks Overflights Act, which called for the FAA and NPS to come up with a plan to reduce the aircraft noise experienced by Grand Canyon visitors.  This was a truly welcome and indeed, maverick move.  In the 23 years since then,  as noted by the Arizona Republic this week, “the process of adopting a noise-management plan often seemed to move at the same geological pace as the forces shaping the Canyon. ”  This has frustrated advocates for natural quiet, and it has frustrated Senator McCain.  So when the Senator introduced an amendment last week to codify air tour rules, saying that  the amendment reduces excessive aircraft noise “without waiting another 23 years for progress,” it might appear that he’s still taking the high road, standing up to the ridiculous bureaucracy.

But wait: what the good Senator neglected to mention is that the NPS Environmental Impact Statement governing overflights is due out sometime in April.  Yes, the 23-year wait is at its end, after years of collaborative dialogue and NPS research, and within a few weeks, we’ll see what the NPS has proposed.  Yet for some reason, the great champion of the process wants to undercut that work and impose his own version of what would be right and good.  According to the National Parks Conservation Association, the plan McCain is putting forward would allow more air tours than are currently permitted, and otherwise constrain the Park Service’s ability to manage air tours in order to fulfill the original 1987 Act’s stated purpose of “substantial restoration of natural quiet.”  While most of McCain’s amendment seems to mimic what the NPS has indicated it’s aiming for, an FAA-convened working group fell apart over some of the NPS ideas, seasonal limits on certain popular air-tour corridors.  Air tour managers were upset at some NPS provisions, and in the wake of the group’s failure, the FAA’s role is diminished as the NPS moves ahead.  While the EIS is due in April, comment period will follow, and of course, lawsuits by air tour groups or environmentalists looking for more quiet could also delay implementation.  All this may well fuel McCain’s efforts to get something closer to the FAA or air tour groups’ sense of a fair balance into law, rather than wait through the likely challenges.

The Senate is likely to vote on McCain’s amendment this week; the measure may well slip through, as it is co-sponsored by both Arizona and both Nevada Senators (yes, Harry Reid); many air tours originate in Las Vegas.  The NPCA is urging members to call their Senators, and the Arizona Republic also weighed in against short-circuiting the nearly completed EIS.  (Ironically, the NPCA honored McCain in 2001 for his leadership on the overflight issue.)  See also Senator McCain’s floor statement, and the text of his amendment.  If you do call your Senator, this is Amendment 3528, being attached to the Senate’s consideration of HR 1586, which proposes a tax on bonuses paid by some recipients of TARP funds.

Natural England, a recently-established “statutory consultee” charged with advising the UK government on projects that may affect wildlife or the English countryside experience, has published a document that outlines its approach to providing guidance on wind farm siting.  The guidance considers both established parks and other unprotected wild lands and geo-diversity sites, as well as areas of deep peat, and areas of hightened bird sensitivity.  It also mentions previously-mapped areas of the greatest tranquility, though it is not clear just how much weight each of these various designations will carry as it balances the many factors that go into its recommendations.

Read more about the guidance on this post at New Energy Focus, or read Natural England’s press release here.  You can download the guidance document from this web page.

Paul Spong and Helena Symonds are legends in the field of whale research; since the early 1970’s they’ve dedicated themselves to studying orcas from their independent lab on an island between Vancouver Island and the mainland.  Over those many years, they’ve accumulated 20,000 hours of tapes, which are now being digitized and cleaned up (to remove hiss and other noise and make the orca calls more prominent) by George Tzanetakis of the University of Victoria.  A recent article in the Toronto Globe and Mail focuses on Tzanetakis’ work, which is being posted online for researchers and curious listeners as the Orchive.  The entire collection isn’t online yet, but there’s plenty!

Those of us  who know the pleasures of cueing up Newport Jazz or good ol’ Grateful Dead shows from online taper archives like Archive.org and Bill Graham’s Wolfgang’s Vault will be familiar with the scope of this project: right now I’m nearly half-way through a 45-minute “set” from 9/1/05 known on the Orchive as Tape 449A.  As with jam band and jazz taper archives, the quality is decent though not crystal clear, creating a great background stream of pleasurable audio, ebbing and flowing from quiet and calm to more active, interspersed with moments of truly exciting interplay and melodic joy.  The audio is presented with a basic spectrogram, and even field notes (the scientific version of Dick Latvala’s show notes):

A sweet set from 9/1/05

Visit the Orchive!

The Acoustic Ecology Institute has published Ocean Noise 2009, the fourth in its annual series of reports reviewing new research and regulatory developments in ocean noise. AEI’s annual recaps are widely anticipated and circulated among ocean noise scientists and regulators, as well as within NGO and journalist communities.

The report can be viewed or downloaded as a 45-page PDF, or viewed in the SlideShare plug-in, below.

This year’s report includes coverage of two ongoing issues, seismic surveys and Naval active sonars, with particular focus on the Navy’s continuing roll-out of Environmental Impact Statements for its offshore training ranges and the targeting of Columbia University’s seismic research vessel by environmental activists.

This year’s report introduces a new feature that will be of special interest to journalists: AEI Resource Collections on two topics that will be central to ocean acoustics policy and research in the coming years.

More details below the fold Read the rest of this entry »

A key research paper from National Park Service and Colorado State scientists has been published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution.  The paper, which got a lot of press when it was first made available online in the fall, introduces two key new metrics for measuring the effects of noise on animals.  The first, “alerting distance,” is the distance at which sounds can be heard: these may be sounds made by a species to alert others to danger, or sounds made by predators (which prey animals want to hear, so as to take cover).  The second, is “listening area,” the full area around an animal in which it can hear other animals’ calls, footsteps, and wingbeats.  A key insight offered by this approach is that even moderate increases in background noise (from nearby roads, airplanes, or wind farms) can drastically reduce an animal’s listening area.  The paper, which was free while in pre-press, is now available only to subscribers to the journal or other academic journal services; an article published in Park Science magazine and free to view online introduces much of the same material (be sure to click on the links to the figures, as they illustrate the concepts very well): see the article here, and check out the entire special soundscapes issue of Park Science here.

A very good article in the Aspen Times introduces the research, and includes many extremely insightful quotes from the researchers.  Go read the whole article! Three bits that are especially worth keeping mind are:

• “The male sage grouse, in its mating displays, produces high-frequency popping sounds and swishing sounds,” Fristrup said. “It also uses a low-pitch hooting sound, which carries the farthest from the display area as a long-distance advertisement. The danger is, it doesn’t take a lot of noise to substantially reduce the range at which females or other males could hear that low-frequency hoot. So the attraction radius of the display ground could contract substantially with the inability to hear a hoot.” The authors note that some species can reduce the effects of masking by shifting their vocalizations. This is especially true when members of a species are communicating with each other. However, when the sounds a species depends on emanate from another species (such as a mouse burrowing under the snow, which an owl needs to hear as it hunts), there is less room for compensation.
• Carnivores like lynx, who sit at the top of the food chain, can be particularly sensitive to habitat degradation of any type — including auditory — since each individual requires a huge hunting territory. “If one part of the range of a top-level predator is compromised, it may not take much to squeeze it out,” Fristrup said.
• Contrary to what one might expect, noise is not always more disruptive when it’s louder. Snowmobiles or cars, for example, might be less disruptive to elk or deer than a hiker or cross county skier would be. “There’s pretty good evidence that so-called quiet use can disturb wildlife. If it’s a noisy source, the animal perceives it a long way off and can track its progress. There are no surprises, and it can go on feeding or doing whatever else. A quiet sound, like a snowshoer’s footstep, is only perceptible when it is very close, potentially startling the animal,” Fristrup said.

To read AEI’s detailed lay summary of the research paper, published here in December, see this link.

A radical new approach to offshore wind turbines is being developed by UK researchers could solve one of the major challenges of offshore wind development.  The Novel Offshore Vertical Axis (NOVA) Demonstrator puts the moving parts at the bottom of the unit, greatly simplifying maintenance. (How they will deal with corrosive factors will be interesting to see!)  The units are 100m tall, and are planned to generate 5-10MW; however, they are some years away, with the initial test model planned for deployment in 2015.

Aerogenerator NOVA concept

For more on this new design, see this article in the Guardian and the NOVA website.

Zion National Park is gearing up to begin incorporating soundscape planning into their management priorities.  Park Superintendent Jock Whitworth has announced two open houses in March on the topic, and public comments are being accepted until April 9 as part of an initial information-gathering stage.  This will inform the drafting of a Soundscape Management Plan Environmental Assessment, which will aim to to link soundscape management to the existing park management direction, and “ensure that natural soundscapes are protected for present and future generations.”

Zion NP. Photo: David Iliff

To participate in the public comment process, see this National Park planning page.

You can also learn more about the Park Service’s efforts to protect natural soundscapes by visiting the NPS Natural Sounds Program website, and by reading this 2007 review of Park Service soundscape management by sound consultant Nick Miller.

The Hawaiian Islands Humback Whale National Marine Sanctuary is beginning a review of its management plan, and ocean noise activists are pushing for sanctuary managers to bring noise issues to the forefront.  The Sanctuary was established in 1992 to help protect the humpback whale winter nursery grounds in shallow waters around several of the islands.

Beginning this month, and continuing through the spring, Sanctuary managers are hosting a series of pre-scoping “working group” meetings on several islands, which are designed to gather input from various interest groups, especially those who have not been involved in Sanctuary planning in the past.  Some time this summer, a formal scoping period is expected to initiate the process of assessing and likely revising the current management plan. See the Sanctuary Management Plan Newsletter for more on this process.

The Maui Weekly ran an article this week in which several ocean noise campaigners expressed their hopes that this process might lead to more formal protection from noise pollution sources, including boats and Navy sonar training. Dr. Marcia Green of the Ocean Mammal Institute and International Ocean Noise Coalition said it’s “imperative” that the Sanctuary follow Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a bit of news that might be spun either way, depending on your predilection.  Jane Davis, who was driven from her home by wind farm noise, has been compiling information on English wind farms and noise complaints; she has found that 37 wind farms have spurred some sort of noise complaints nationwide.  This amounts to about 1 in 7 UK wind farms, in contrast to an oft-repeated mantra that “only four” UK wind farms had noise issues, and they’d been “resolved.”  The new numbers could support those cautioning that wind farm noise issues are more widespread than generally acknowledged, AND those who claim that noise issues are the exception rather than the rule; it certainly reinforces AEI’s theme that we need to acknowledge that a minority of people are affected by noise around wind farms, and that we must come to grips with how to address this.

This article in the Telegraph details some of the information shared at a gathering of wind farm noise campaigners, WindCon2010.  Gillian Haythornthwaite, who lives near the wind farm in Askam with her partner Barry Moon, said it has been a “devastating” experience. “It is a dreadfully irritating whoosh, whoosh noise,” she said. “It is unbearable to be outside in the garden when there is the noise.”

Read the rest of this entry »

This one slipped past me when it happened last June, but it’s well worth noting now.  Complicating assessments of the risks of bird deaths at wind farms is the fact that two-thirds of migrating bird species migrate mainly at night; Cornell’s Bioacoustics Research Program, which has already done groundbreaking work in elephant communication and underwater listening systems, has proposed that combining their autonomous recording devices with radar data could provide the missing information on exactly when and where concentrations of migrating birds may exist near proposed wind farms.

A compelling animation highlights the large-scale patterns: The color-coded radar map illustrates areas of precipitation over the coasts as well as vast movements of tens of millions of birds, bats and insects across the entire country. In the densest areas, the color-scales indicate movement of 2,000 birds per cubic kilometer. “You’re talking about a massive movement of birds overnight,” said post-doctoral fellow Andrew Farnsworth.

Radar imagery of night-migrating birds, bats, and insects

Although radar data can show the magnitude, location, timing, speed and direction of migration patterns and provide information on key stopover sites, they do not identify types of birds or accurate flight altitudes, Farnsworth said. But combining radar data with data from flight call recordings and tracking tags on birds could allow researchers to identify many species in key areas. Bioacoustics program director Chris Clark added that recorders are cost effective, can be automated for many months at remote sites, provide data on many species simultaneously, increase the probability of tracking secretive and endangered species, and could allow regulatory agencies to develop computer models to assess risks to birds from wind turbines. He acknowledged, however, that using such acoustic technology could produce a massive “data crunch”; a single microphone over a three-to-four-month period can record 120 to 140 gigabytes of data, so data from several hundred microphones would be too much to process without advanced software. Also, researchers would need to better recognize the wide variety of flight calls and learn to integrate data from radar with those from acoustics and tracking tags, he added. More research is needed, Clark stressed, to determine at what altitudes species tend to fly and whether birds sense turbine blades and avoid them.  Read full account of the presentation in the Cornell Chronicle, with link to the radar map animation.

A topic that’s been a recurring tangent for AEI over the years has been excessive noise in hospitals; it’s always surprised us that places theoretically designed for healing and recuperation would be so full of noisy machines and reverberant hallways.  Well, that is about to change: New design and construction guidelines from the Facilities Guidelines Institute,  published in conjunction with the American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE) of the American Hospital Association (AHA), include new standards for quieting hospitals, and are fast being adopted by state building codes.  The new guidelines are the culmination of over five years of collaborative work by researchers, architects, engineers, and acoustical consultants to solve the problems of speech privacy and excessive noise in hospitals; the guidelines apply to new construction, so may not change the experience in existing facilities.

Read all about it at the excellent Acoustics by Design blog!

In the most promising development yet in using acoustics to deal with the spread of bark beetles in the American and Canadian west, researchers at Northern Arizona University have found that some beetles can be disrupted by playback of other beetle sounds. The tiny insects make squeaking noises as they tunnel through trees; the researchers have been manipulating the beetle sounds, which are above human hearing, and playing them back to the insects. The results drive them buggy: They attack each other, scamper in circles rather than straight lines and have tried to gnaw their way through Plexiglas covering a cross section of a tree in a lab in Flagstaff, Ariz.

A great article in The Missoulan included these tidbits from NAU researchers Richard Hofstetter and Reagan McGuire, Skye Stephens, an entomologist with the Colorado State Forest Service, and David Dunn, a sound artist who discovered and first recorded the beetle sounds:

“One of the questions is if we could effectively remove them from a particular tree or set of trees, where do they go, what happens to them?” Stephens said. “I’m very excited to see what happens next” with the research. Hofstetter and McGuire are eager to run tests on the ground to answer questions like that. Working with Dunn, they have applied for a patent on a device that pumps in noise to throw off the beetles’ destructive course. Hofstetter said the sounds are at a frequency that shouldn’t bother other species. The work has been a side project for the professor, who has struggled to scrape together funding for the research. McGuire is volunteering his time. “We’re hoping it’s going to lead to a whole new field,” Hofstetter said.

David Dunn, who has traveled the world collecting sounds of nature for his compositions, first started recording the inner life of trees in 2004. He took the kind of small microphone used in greeting cards to record and play, fastened it to a recycled meat thermometer and inserted it into the tree. While concerned about the dying trees and what they signal about climate change, Dunn has become intrigued by the beetles, “an absolutely fascinating form of life. I fell in love with them,” Dunn said. “But then we’re watching them cannibalize each other. I always think, ‘How bad is this karma?’

“But if something really positive about forest health comes of it, perhaps it’s worth the price.”

Dunn’s CD, The Sound of Light in Trees, was released by EarthEar; 100% of all sales revenues are donated by Dunn and EarthEar to support the Acoustic Ecology Institute.  See more on the CD and beetle project on AEI’s website.

Electrical engineer Siva Sivoththaman has been named to the newly-created Ontario provincial Research Chair in Renewable Energy Technologies and Health.  Local activist groups that have raised concerns about the effects of wind farm noise on neighbors had hoped that this position, created as part of Ontario’s new Green Energy Act, would take the lead in formally investigating the negative health effects some neighbors of wind farms have reported.  However, the choice appears to be more oriented toward the technology aspect of the Chair’s responsibilities.  As noted in the request for proposals: “The Chair in Renewable Energy Technologies and Health will focus first on emerging science and technology related to wind turbines, and then will explore the potential health effects from renewable energy.”

According to a news release, “Dr. Sivoththaman will bring focus to multi-disciplinary activities in renewable energy technologies and health, ensuring that health and safety are top priorities in the induction of new technologies. His research program will develop new technical approaches and will provide guidelines in setting standards to ensure health and safety in the manufacturing, use, and end-of-life phases of renewable energy technologies.” Sivoththaman’s research centres on silicon-based crystalline and thin-film photovoltaic devices, and he serves as director of the Centre for Photovoltaic Systems and Devices, which occupies much of the photovoltaic research building beside Matthews Hall. His interest extends to nanocrystalline semiconductors, and he was the first director of the University of Waterloo’s nanotechnology engineering program when it was launched in 2004.

Two leading Ontario wind activist groups expressed their disappointment with the choice; Wind Concerns Ontario said “We have no faith in any meaningful body of evidence being produced on health effects from wind turbines by this government-funded non expert and Ontarians will suffer for it,” while the Society for Wind Vigilance chair Dr. Robert McMurtry said the choice missed the mark in that “the lead and expertise of this Research Chair would more appropriately have been a clinician scientist. We strongly encourage the new Chair to seek the appropriate collaborators as the research program is established.”

It is as yet unclear what the Chair’s timeline will be in addressing the dual (and quite distinct) topics he is charged with overseeing.  Given the widespread concern about health effects, and the role this concern is playing in the wind development process in Ontario and elsewhere, we hope that the two topics will be pursued simultaneously.  And indeed, as McMurtry suggests, it is clear that the Chair will need to bring in some experts in health and acoustics to effectively address the health aspects; in the spirit of collaboration and inclusiveness, we can also hope that his research/investigative team draws from qualified experts who have expressed concerns about wind noise, as well as those who have previously worked on reports that found few health effects.

Ongoing research in Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary is providing ever more compelling visualizations of shipping noise and the much quieter calls of whales in the area. Scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, NMFS, and Cornell have deployed networks of sound recorders, which allow them to track individual whales and ships and see how their sounds interact.  The Sanctuary, which contains the shipping lanes into Boston harbor, is one of the more urbanized ocean environments to be closely studied thus far.  Here, we see four panels; the top left is wind noise, bottom left is right whales, and the right hand ones show that two ships completely drown out the whales as they pass through the area. “Every day, five to six large ships move into and out of Boston, and their acoustic footprint can last for hours.” says Cornell’s Chris Clark. “As a result, the Right whales trying to make a living off Boston are losing about 80 percent of their opportunities to keep in contact every day, day after day, month after month, year after year.”

From Sciencemag.com; click to read source article

“Right whales are long-lived animals. When they were kids and teenagers, their world was normal,” Clark says. “Acoustic habitat loss is a stressor and there are multiple stressors on a species.” His team has found that the whales often no longer bother answering calls from their peers. In this world of constant noise, they wouldn’t be heard anyway. “Their social network is constantly ripped apart,” says Clark. “In one area, noise levels are now 105 decibel where they should be 75.” Other researchers from the Right Whale Consortium found that the animals show dramatic loss in vital body fat: In some individuals, the blubber layer is thinner than normal, hinting at the possibility that they no longer find enough food due to the noise.

At conferences over the past year, project scientists have shared compelling animated sequences showing similar patterns; so far, only still images are available online. UPDATE! A recent article on this work in the journal Science (from which the Clark quotes above were drawn) has a link to a good video (note: the video has minimal interpretation. I find the upper left graph most compelling: it shows the whale call (in blue), loud near the whale and fainter as the cone spreads out; the red disc is the noise from the ship, gradually getting louder than the whale calls, until it drowns out the whale everywhere except very nearby). For more on this important research, see this recent article which contains two stills from a different animation, this section of the Stellwagen website on the passive acoustic monitoring program,  this movie which visualizes the movements and sounds of two nearby and some more distant humpback whales, and hear this local radio piece on the Stellwagen research.

The most recent issue of the Marine Ecosystem and Management newsletter (download here) has several features that offer a good sense of current efforts to adopt Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) and its related management principle, Ecosystem Based Management (ESB).  The lead article centers on reports from Massachusetts, Norway, and Germany, each oriented toward the relationship between MSP and ESB.  Shorter pieces include interrviews on related topics and direct readers to recent management plans, proposals, and reports by the US Federal Government, the State of Massachusetts, and Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in Hawaii.  For more on MEAM programs and publications, see the MEAM website.