A recent article in the UK newspaper The Independent has triggered an avalanche of commentary in the press and blogosphere about the possible health effects of living near wind farms; more is sure to come when Nina Pierpont’s Wind Turbine Syndrome book is finally published this fall. In the book, Pierpont posits a set of symptoms that can crop up in people exposed to wind turbine noise; she suspects that low frequency noise is the key factor, and that people with vestibular system imbalances may be especially prone to problems. UPDATE: The wind industry in the UK responded vehemently to the article, which was reprinted in several cities.

At its root, most of the hubbub centers around whether Dr. Pierpont’s research qualifies as science.  The fact that she’s publishing a book instead of journal articles is the first complaint, and relatively easy to understand from a scientific perspective.  But less valid are critiques that claim she used too small a number of people, or did not use “controls”; these complaints are based on a misunderstanding (or conscious misrepresentation) of her work. Much of the criticism is spurred by the perception that she is claiming that the health effects she cites are common, or are likely to occur near any and all wind farms.  As widely noted, wind farms are up and running around the world with little evidence of dire health effects.  However, just as anti-wind activists are clearly putting too much weight on her very preliminary research, so too are wind advocates being too quick to discount Pierpont’s study as hogwash.  More broadly, there is a risk that doubts about the validity of  a formal new “Wind Turbine Syndrome” or other low-frequency effects will distract both the public and policy-makers from the more concrete question of whether current wind farm setbacks adequately protect neighbors from sleeplessness, stress, and simpler, well-known effects of disturbances caused by audible noise.  I’ve been bouncing around the web in recent days, adding what I hope are thoughtful comments to newspaper and blog stories on the issue, and wanted to share some of my commentary here with you all as well: Read the rest of this entry »

During the 2004 RIMPAC multinational navy exercises in Hawaii, a pod of over 150 melon-headed whales appeared in a shallow bay, far from their normal offshore habitat.  Their agitation was obvious, and one young whale beached and died.  When it became apparent that sonar training was taking place offshore that day, the Navy initially said that the transmissions did not begin until later in the day, but later confirmed that some early-morning calibration of the sonar took place.  A NOAA investigation determined that sonar was the “likely, if not probable” cause for the stranding; this statement was clarified later by NMFS, to affirm that they were not sure of the link.  On the same day, another pod of melon-headed whales had appeared in a shallow bay on the western Pacific island of Rota, spurring speculation that the full moon may trigger this species to undertake feeding excursions into shallow bays, with the Hawaii pod subsequently getting disoriented and panicked (perhaps due to the sonar sounds offshore).  The similarity of the incidents led many observers (including AEI) to be less sure that the Hanalei event could be tied primarily to a reaction to Navy sonar.

A study in the July issue of Marine Mammal Science (and summarized here by ScienceNow), however, puts the lunar theory to rest.  NOAA researcher Robert Brownell examined the two incidents closely, along with 21 other mass strandings of melon-headed whales.  It turns out that the western Pacific population of melon-headed whales often retreat into shallow bays to rest; this trait is not shared by the whales around Hawaii. “That is their normal behavior,” says Brownell. In contrast, the whales’ actions in Hawaii were “identical to those that precede mass-strandings” of beaked whales, with pods swimming agitatedly in tight circles, spy-hopping (rising vertically out of the water), tail-slapping, and vocalizing.”  And, the timing of other strandings showed no correlation with full moons or any part of the lunar cycle.  Figuring out what caused the Kauai whales to strand is important, Brownell says, because so far only mass strandings of beaked whales have been conclusively linked to the Navy’s use of sonar. “It’s a big debate,” says Brownell. “Why are only beaked whales affected and not others? Well, other species are.” Brownell says that melon-headed whales probably aren’t affected as often by naval sonar exercises because, unlike beaked whales, they usually hang out far from shore. He thinks “it was purely a coincidence” that melon-headed whales were near Kauai the morning the Navy ran its sonar test. “If any other cetacean species had been going by that morning, the same thing would have happened,” he says. (Ed. Note: this statement is somewhat more speculative than scientists are usually willing to make…while sonar has induced agitated reactions in orcas who did not strand, beaked whales have not been observed prior to strandings.  And, the final statement is likely to drive other scientists crazy, thanks to its likely unwarrented certainty.  Still, the main point holds true: reactions to sonar are not limited to beaked whales, and this incident is becoming one of our clearest indications of this; other species have died in some multi-species strandings that are considered likely sonar-related by many non-Navy observers, and this summer Minke whales were seen racing away from sonar-emitting ships in the UK)

The U.S. Navy disputes Brownell’s paper. Chip Johnson, a Navy marine scientist, spun the news as well as can be expected, saying that the new study only “contributes more uncertainty” about what happened to the melon-headed whales that morning, presumably because it highlights previously unknown behavioral differences between different populations.  It does, however, seem to put to rest the idea that the two events that day, 6000 miles apart, represent a similar behavioral response to prey or the moon, since the whales in Rota were resting, and the ones in Hawaii were clearly agitated.  Spokesmen from various environmental organizations say this study helps move the Hanalei Bay event more clearly into the sonar-induced category; Michael Jasny of NRDC said of the uncertainty raised by the two events, “It’s really no longer an issue. The question is now, ‘What can be done to fix the problem?'”

A report commissioned by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), and submitted in July to the International Maritime Organization’s Marine Environmental Protection Committee, provides a detailed assessment of the prospects for using ship-quieting technologies to reduce the level of background noise in the world’s oceans.  According to the report, which cites a wide array of recent research, similar types of ships can vary in their sound emissions by 30-40dB; some engineering experts suggest that the noisiest of these could reduce the primary source of noise (propellor cavitation) by 10dB.  The report, Reducing Underwater Noise Pollution from Large Commercial Vessels, by Dr. Marin Retilson, is available for download on the IFAW website. “The noisiest 10% of ships account for between 50% and 90% of the noise pollution and it is these vessels that are most likely to benefit from relatively minor modifications to reduce propeller noise,” said Russell Leaper, an IFAW scientist.  The report summarizes technical approaches to reducing ship noise, with an emphasis on utilizing modern propeller design, along with fins and ducts to improve wake flow, which could reduce noise output from the noisiest ships and be cost effective. There is a relatively poor understanding of noise output from large commercial vessels and the next step is to  do more wide-reaching assessments of individual ship noise, in order to identify the vessels that could make the most difference in reducing ocean noise levels.

A target of a 3dB reduction (i.e. halving the acoustic energy) in 10 years in ocean noise was suggested at an International Workshop on Shipping Noise and Marine Mammals held in Hamburg in April 2008. This target has been endorsed by the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission. You can download the Hamburg workshop report here.

The World Wildlife Fund is working to build public pressure to force Exxon-Mobil to suspend development activities near the critically important summer feeding grounds of the dwindling Western gray whale near the Sakhalin oil and gas fields on Russia’s north Pacific coast.  This spring, other energy companies took to heart the advice of a special science advisory panel to suspend seismic surveys during this year’s grey whale season (July-October), but Exxon continues its activities, which apparently are centered on construction more than exploration at this point.  According to the Sakhalin consortium, noise monitoring takes place via buoys along the edge of the feeding grounds, and activities are suspended when whales are too close. However, the continued decline of this distinct population (now down to 130, with just 25 breeding females), along with apparent avoidance of the area in past years as noted by the science committee, has spurred calls for extreme caution about any noise-making during the feeding season.

After suspending the use of mid-frequency active sonar training activities in Puget Sound in the wake of an incident in 2003 in which sonar sounds appeared to agitate a group of orcas, the Navy confirmed this week that a new sonar training plan, with permits to be issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service, will keep future sonar training off the West Coast, and out of inland waterways. Chris Dunagan at the local Kitsap Sun gives the announcement his usual thorough coverage, including context from the past, as well as zeroing in on a key passage in the Navy’s public statement: “Any use of high- or mid-frequency active sonar for training purposes in Puget Sound would be beyond the scope of this permit,” the statement says. “However, outside of this permit, active sonar is used within Puget Sound for safety and navigation; testing; maintenance; and research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E).”  An incident in January of this year, during which mid-frequency active sonar was heard through a night, was part of RDT&E activities.  Dunagan explores the question of these multiple activities a bit more in an accompanying blog post.

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission has initiated a formal investigation of wind turbine setback requirements, after numerous complaints about noise.  Minnesota Public Radio has a long piece on the process (both audio and a transcript), and a local regulatory advocate points us to the right documents on the PUC website for more information.

A recently-released report by Dr. Christopher Hanning, a UK MD whose specialty is sleep disorders, takes a comprehensive look at factors affecting sleep disturbance caused by nearby wind farms, and is highly recommended reading for anyone working to develop regulations at the local or state level.  Hanning’s primary point is that external noise need not WAKE a sleeper to cause problems, and the repeated “arousals” can break the most restful periods of sleep.  He notes that “The sleep, because it is broken, is unrefreshing, resulting in sleepiness, fatigue, headaches and poor memory and concentration.”  These are precisely the symptoms often reported by people living near wind farms. He stresses that arousals are also associated with “physiological changes, an increase in heart rate and blood pressure, which are thought to be responsible for the increase in cardiovascular risk. Arousals occur naturally during sleep and increase with age (Boselli 1998) which may make the elderly more vulnerable to wind turbine noise. Arousals may be caused by sound events as low as 32 dBA and awakenings with events of 42dBA (Muzet and Miedema 2005), well within the measured noise levels of current wind farms” and the levels permitted by most jurisdictions.

The report also summarizes other studies suggesting that night-time noise levels are often higher than sound models predict, as well as one that suggests that wind farms cause high levels of annoyance at lower sound levels than other common noise sources.  He concludes that “While it may be possible to produce a reasonable acoustically based theoretical approach to calculating set back distances (Kamperman and James 2008b), it makes more sense to rely on recommendations from observations of the effects on real people at established wind farms.”

Download the full report here.

Thanks to Lynda Barry at National Wind Watch for the heads up.

Death Valley has become the sixth National Park to initiate a formal Air Tour Management Plan process since the 2000 passage of legislation mandating such plans in National Parks with commercial helicopter or plane overflights.  It’s the first new plan to begin since 2004, when similar planning began at Lake Mead, Mt. Rushmore, and Badlands National Park, and two Hawaii national parks.  The process, under the auspices of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)  has been shockingly slow; initial scoping (information gathering) for Environmental Assessments or EISs took place in 2004 and 2006 in these parks, but there have yet to be any draft EISs released.  Air tour management began at the Grand Canyon well before the 2000 legislation, and continues to move slowly toward final resolution.

At Death Valley, existing helicopter tours operators are hoping that the new process will not limit their activities, which have so far seemed to not cause significant visitor conflicts.  Death Valley also is home to a small airport at which up to 30 private planes land each day, mostly day trippers from Las Vegas or southern California.  The decision to proceed with an ATMP was made at a late June meeting of the National Parks Overflight Advisory Group (NPOAG) Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC). The ARC is hoping to expedite the process at Death Valley by having all stakeholders more directly involved from the beginning, in hopes of demonstrating a process that can complete ATMPs in a more timely fashion at other parks in the future.  Full minutes of that meeting are available here.

See FAA ATMP website

UPDATE 3/25/10: The Senate has passed legislation allowing the NPS to ban helicopter tours at Crater Lake without going through a lengthy inter-agency process with the FAA.  The measure still needs to be approved by a House-Senate conference committee.

A request from an air tour operator to begin helicopter flights in Crater Lake National Park has stirred considerable local opposition.  The Oregonian editorialized against the proposal, saying that the rim road already provides suitable access to those who can’t hike far.  The same rim road is used by Leading Edge Aviation in its pitch to allow the flights, as they claim that their ‘copters will not cause any more noise impact than RVs in the summer or snowmobiles in the winter cruising the rim.  Others are skeptical that the choppers are really that quiet. Erik Fernandez, wilderness coordinator for Oregon Wild, says, “It’s embarrassing enough that we have only one national park and so little protected wilderness in Oregon. Desecrating the experience at Crater Lake with helicopters buzzing around would be tragic.” Planned air tours range include a half-hour flight that just passes by the north rim and two longer options that skirt other Park landmarks, including Grouse Hill and The Pinnacles. See local press coverage here, and Leading Edge’s tour proposal here.

NOAA has proposed a doubling of the limit governing how close whalewatching boats may approach endangered orcas in the waters of Puget sound.  Current voluntary guidelines ask boats to remain at least 100 yards from the endangered killer whales, while the proposed new mandatory limit would be 200 yards in most areas, with a half-mile wide “no go” zone in one area heavily used by orcas.  The Seattle Post-Intelligencer notes that orcas depend on their sonar to navigate and find food – chiefly salmon. Underwater noise from vessel that are too close interferes with that sonar.  “Vessel noise is going to decrease their ability to seek prey,” said Joe Gaydos, regional director of the SeaDoc Society in the San Juan Islands. “This is the right thing to do at the right time. … I think (the proposed rules) are tenable. I think people will support them. I think they are good for the whales,” Gaydos said.  The Bellingham Times spoke toThe owner of one of the longest-operating whale watching outfits responded to the proposal with relative acceptance. “They’re not horrible, they’re not great,” said Drew Schmidt, owner of Victoria San Juan Cruises, “They’re not going to put us out of business.” While Schmidt said he believes whale watch operators are being unfairly singled out, noting that toxins and limited salmon are likely damaging whales more than boat noise, he also observed that whales are attracting a lot more attention today than in years past. Twenty years ago, Schmidt said, he was one of three whale cruise operators. Now there are about 30, with about 50 vessels. The rules include exceptions for working commercial fishery vessels, cargo ships in shipping lanes, residents going to shoreline homes, and research vessels.  Public comments on the new rules are being accepted through October 27, with the hope that they will go into effect next year.

UPDATE: NOAA extended the comment period through Jan 15, and has announced that analysis of the comments will take too long for the new rules to go into effect for the summer 2010 season.  Salmon fishermen have objected to the “no go” zone proposed for the west side of San Juan Island, and tour operators also are urging reconsideration of the 200 yard limit and no go zone.

The Navy is facing some push-back from the states of Georgia and Florida in the initial stages of gaining the necessary approvals for proceeding with their plans for a 500 square mile training range offshore from Jacksonville.  The Navy had hoped to have the states’ comments in hand by this week, but Florida expects to take several more weeks to assess the Navy’s plan, and the head of Georgia’s Coastal Resources Division submitted comments with fairly strongly worded notes of skepticism regarding the Navy’s just-released Final Environmental Impact Statement:  the letter says that the Navy’s forecasts “require considerable speculation and are insufficient to assess the anticipated impacts.”  Sonar travels differently depending on water conditions, and the Navy hasn’t done real-world measurements off Jacksonville to see whether its models of what will happen are right, said Clay George, a Natural Resources biologist. George also noted that while the designated critical habitat for wintering right whales extends to just 20 miles offshore, biologists have not done much surveying further offshore, and so the whales may well inhabit waters closer to the range.  Because of such shortcomings in the Navy’s analysis,  Georgia’s Department of Natural Resources wants long-term monitoring of how the range affects endangered right whales that raise their calves offshore from the two states each winter.  If the whales were harmed by sonar that would be used in submarine exercises, training at the range should change, the state told Navy officials in a letter last week. (Ed note: the Navy’s analysis does take account of uncertainty about the area inhabited by grey whales in winter by assuming that some will occur even within the training range; however, they also assume that virtually no whales will be affected by sounds traveling into the critical habitat, and they explicitly reject the option of doing less training in winter months when the whales are present. For more on the key question of distant effects of sonar sounds, scroll down to the July 24 post below, or click here to read the earlier post.)

In related news, the Florida Times-Union also reported that the Navy will separate its permit applications for construction and operation of the range.  The Navy expects NOAA approval for construction this week, but does not plan to apply for permits to operate the range until 2012 or 2013.  Likewise, the State of Florida this week announced that it will follow the Navy’s suggestion to similarly  follow a “phased” approach to issuing the necessary permits. In addition to sonar issues, Florida officials agreed to put off final judgments about how fast ships should travel in the training range, whether low-flying helicopters using the range will disturb right whales and how much debris from the training exercises will affect coral and other protected species on the ocean floor.  This may trigger legal challenges, though, as Catherine Wannamaker, an attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center responded to the news by saying that the phased approach “artificially separates the impacts to endangered species … that will result from both construction and operations.” According to Wannamaker, the Endangered Species Act doesn’t let the Navy spend money on the range without the National Marine Fisheries Service agreeing the project won’t jeopardize endangered species. (Ed. note: It appears from AEI’s admittedly naive legal perspective that the question of exactly what operational and mitigation measures are appropriate for the site can best be addressed at the time of the later permitting.  At this stage, there is little doubt that the Navy’s need for a littoral instrumented range is real and that the USWTR will proceed; the questions will include how much limitation on sonar activities should be imposed on the range while right whales are nearby.  There is no reason this cannot be addressed later, and indeed, there is likely to be better information at that time, including a revised Risk Assessment curve, which could well lead to more caution being imposed.)

In a startling and far-reaching decision, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled that counties cannot issue “blanket” standards for wind farm development, but must assess each project on a case-by-case basis.  The ruling invalidated one of the nation’s most precautionary local ordinances, passed in 2008 by Calumet County, but also undermines the logic behind any uniform standard for wind farm regulation.  The Calumet County ordinance adopted an “audible sound” standard as well as an 1800-foot setback (though the Supreme Court ruling would apparently not allow either approach).  The audible noise standard would, in most cases, have been the more stringent limit, as it allowed only a maximum of 5dB above the background ambient sound level at the quietest time of day or night; it is likely that night-time ambient noise is in the range of 25-35dB.  This sort of standard is designed to assure that the wind farms do not appreciably change the character of the local soundscape, and will not become the loudest sound at any neighboring houses. In practice, the audible noise standard used would likely create difficulties in siting turbines closer than about a mile from most homes.  By contrast, industry proponents generally favor a 1000 or 1500-foot setback, or a noise limit of 45-55dB. (Note: half-mile setbacks are becoming more common, and recently an Australian shire joined other localities around the world in adopting a 2km setback, which equates to just over a mile.) At the time the ordinance was issued, industry spokesman responded that it would trigger the “war to end all wars” over wind development regulations; the recent ruling comes as the Wisconsin state legislature is working to adopt state-wide standards for wind development.  For more info, you can read several articles covering the recent ruling, this article covering the adoption of the ordinance, or see the ordinance itself.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service has drawn a clear line in Wyoming, stating that designated Core Habitat for the Sage Grouse must remain free of wind turbines.  Even turbines built in order to conduct further research on effects on sage grouse would “negate the usefulness of the core area concept,” according to a response from the FWS to inquiries from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.  In addition, mitigation aimed at minimizing the impacts of wind farms is considered inappropriate in these core habitat areas.  The implication is that any research efforts should take place in less critical habitat.  Aaron Clark, an adviser on energy infrastructure to Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal, said the governor’s office supports the Fish and Wildlife Service’s hard line on wind farms in core areas. “We don’t want to close the door on everything for ever,” Clark said. “If somebody can bring in some really good science that shows that wind turbines don’t have an adverse effect on sage grouse, obviously then our position needs to change. But everything we’ve seen so far is pointing the exact opposite way.” For more info, see this AP story, read a Press Release from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, or read the letter from the FWS to the State GFD.

UPDATE 8/13/09: Horizon Wind has indefinitely suspended its planning for one of the two wind farms planned for the sage grouse core habitat, though a spokesman affirms that “the project is not dead.”  This New York Times article provides a clear recap of Wyoming’s initial plan to allow two wind farms in the core habitat, in order to study their impacts as several other wind farms await approval. The state, which is working hard to avoid having the FWS list the grouse as endangered, had requested guidance on their plan, and received a rebuke from FWS.

In October, 2005, the Navy released the first of their sonar-inclusive EIS’s, a Draft Environmental Impact Statement covering plans for a 500 square mile Undersea Warfare Training Range (USWTR), primarily for up to 480 anti-submarine mid-frequency active sonar exercises per year, including 100 ship-based events (2/week on average, lasting 3-4 hours each). This may serve to concentrate sonar training (i.e., less sonar training on other Navy ranges, since the USWTR will have installed instruments that improve assessment of the trainings and monitor for marine life), though planning continues for sonar training in all Navy ranges. The Navy considered USWTR sites off the coasts of North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, and Florida, and in June 2009, released a final EIS, proposing an area off Jacksonville as the site of the USWTR.

This site has raised some concerns from environmentalists and the State of Florida, as it lies offshore from critical habitat used by the Northern right whale as winter calving grounds; less than 400 whales remain and the health of every individual is important to population recovery.  The critical habitat extends to 15-20 miles from shore, with the USWTR beginning 50 miles from shore. The EIS includes several measures meant to minimize impacts on right whales; these protection measures mostly involve slowing ships and posting extra lookouts to avoid ship strikes. The Navy continues to refine its impacts modeling, incorporating new research including studies of population distribution and the effects of noise.  The bottom line for now is that the Navy expects that 100,000 dolphins and  over 2000 other whales will hear and change some behavior in response to sonar sounds each year (they suggest, with some justification, that these numbers–based on averaging population distributions–are likely to be over-estimates).

While most of the Navy’s assumptions and analyses are on fairly solid ground, a key one is more questionable: the assumption that few right whales will hear or react to sounds from the training ground.  The Navy’s own propagation estimates suggest noise levels within the critical habitat will reach levels that have often triggered behavioral disruption in whales.  It’s important that the Navy be pushed to do careful monitoring of the whales once the range is operational, and if they’ve underestimated impacts, they may need to minimize or avoid training in the winter, when the whales are nearby.   Read the rest of this entry »

The US Navy has released a Final EIS for its long-planned Undersea Warfare Training Range (USWTR), and has settled on an area off Jacksonville as its preferred location.  This was one of three areas under consideration, and marks a shift from earlier plans to locate the range off North Carolina, which met widespread resistance from state officials and environmental advocates.  The new range will host fairly intensive (average of 4x/month) active sonar training and other Navy training programs.  The USWTR will be about 50 miles offshore,  which the Navy feels is far enough to avoid acoustic impacts on wintering Right whales close to shore.  Environmental groups and the State of Florida continue to question the site’s appropriateness, largely due to concerns about impacts on this vulnerable whale population.  The range will be “instrumented,” meaning that there are permanently deployed acoustic (and many other) monitors on the seabed, allowing more comprehensive monitoring of animals within the range than is normally possible at sea.  However, concerns remain that the Navy’s mitigation plan is designed to prevent only physical injury, and that whales (especially young ones) may be behaviorally disrupted by much lower levels of sound at much greater distances.  The Navy has adopted several measures to minimize risk to Right whales while ships are transiting the near-shore critical habitat, but has rejected options that would minimize activity during the Dec-Mar season when whales are present.  Further mitigation may be imposed by NMFS when it publishes the final “Rule” after assessing the Navy’s EIS; NMFS has worked closely with the Navy as it developed the EIS, but with the advent of the new administration, is reassessing its own sonar-mitigation standards.  Note: AEI will offer further analysis of the Navy’s EIS in the coming weeks (and, sorry for being a bit slow getting this news up!).

Bay Area Sound Ecology has been hosting evening talks by great recordists from all over in recent months, and the evenings are all available for streaming or downloading on their website.  Go there and hear tales and stellar recordings from Chris Watson, Andrew Roth, James LeBrecht, and Gordon Hempton.

After a bit of a lull, I’ve spent much of the past couple days catching up on the folder full of research published in recent months, and summarizing key papers on the main Acoustic Ecology site.  Among the studies worthy of attention are:

• The first direct test of harbor porpoise sensitivity to seismic survey airguns confirms many observations from the field that this species is especially sensitive to noise; both temporary hearing loss and avoidance of sound occur at relatively low noise levels
• Orcas and dolphins seen to reduce foraging in the presence of boat noise
• Wind turbines don’t seem to replace most small wintering farm birds, but oil development noise can reduce forest bird abundance
• Right whales summer habitat is loud most of the time, suggesting a pressing need to identify their breeding grounds and assure they can hear each other there
• Two great overviews of fish hearing

See these and more at the AEI lay summaries of new research page.

From AEI’s lay summaries of key science and policy:

A comprehensive report on Mediterranean shipping from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources includes a long section in the early pages on noise impacts. Due to the concentration of shipping in the Mediterranean, ambient noise is 40dB higher than in relatively shipping-free regions such as the Sea of Cortez. Among the recommendations are that “Much effort should be devoted to developing a legal framework within which underwater noise is recognized and regulated as a threat,” and the advocacy of MPAs that are designed to provide acoustic protection to critical and productive habitats, where “noise levels should not be allowed to exceed ambient by more than a given value, including noise from sources located outside the MPA.” In addition, the report stresses the importance of moving rapidly to develop regional hydrophone networks with which to monitor noise and develop current “noise budgets,” as well as the need for expanded research using new non-invasive methods to examine hearing sensitivity and changes due to noise exposure in wild animals, and analysis of stress hormones in response to noise. The authors of the report forge important new ground as they summarize: “In addition to defining which impacts should be avoided or mitigated, we also need to draw up a model of ‘acoustic comfort’ that we should guarantee to animals, at least over sufficiently extensive protected areas. This is a novel concept. It means we should define the (near to) zero-impact noise level that a habitat should have for each type of marine life.”

Ameer Abdulla, Olof London (editors). 2008. Maritime traffic effects on biodiversity in the Mediterranean Sea: Review of impacts, priority areas and mitigation measures. Malaga, Spain: IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation. 184 pp. [DOWNLOAD(pdf)] [WEBSITE]

Music, ambiences, and stories from N'orleans!

Yet another ear-opener in the recent surge of online soundmaps, and by gorey, this one might just be my favorite of them all! Could be due to a bit more personal connection to the city in question (visits, friends who’ve lived there), could be the quality of the sounds presented, or could be just that N’orleans is one of the more interesting urban communities out there.   Visit Open Sound New Orleans here, and hear an NPR story on the project here.

For the first time, researchers have designed and initiated a broad-scale study that will provide enough data to begin to answer one of the key questions looming over wind energy development: do turbines close to residences create negative health effects?  The researchers sent health surveys to 1000 residents near a proposed wind farm; between 150 and 200 returned the survey, and received follow-up questionnaires as the wind farm completed construction.  Later rounds of study will seek to discover whether any reported changes in health are related to distance from the wind turbines, as well as correlating reported problems to individuals’ initial feelings about the new wind farm.   Read the rest of this entry »

Nice find of the day: A page on the Yosemite website describing the work they did over the past two summers to assess the soundscapes in the park.

http://www.nps.gov/yose/naturescience/soundscape.htm

And that’s not all!  There’s also a link to a half-hour MP3 file/podcast featuring the NPS Natural Sounds Program’s lead scientist, Kurt Fristrup, talking about his studies of the effect of noise on predator-prey relationships (a line of research that I tell people about more often than nearly any other), as well as noise effects on animal communications and human physiology. The audio feature also addresses the acoustic health of Yosemite as well as some interesting discoveries made possible through recordings made in the wilderness.  See the webpage here, and listen to the MP3 story here.

It seems like every time I turn around, there’s a new global sound mapping site popping up in my browser!  If you want to take a listen to the everyday sounds of this aural adventure called Planet Earth, here are three quite varied options–a click on each image below will take you to the site.  All of these sites accept any sound file you care to upload.

Radio Aporee

http://aporee.org/maps/

By far the most ambitious and creative of the bunch, this site is beautiful, if a bit opaque to navigate.  Clicking into the site will land you smack-dab into a fairly close up view of a city streetscape, with a few red dots denoting sound files uploaded from particular locations. Zoom out and you’ll see this neighborhood shrink down, while the red dots proliferate across the country, continent, and planet.  Click on any dot to listen in.  One of the cooler features is soundwalks, in which the “red dot soundfiles” fade out and in as you wander down the street!

Save Our Sounds BBC project

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specialreports/saveoursounds/index.shtml

The newcomer to the block, this BBC soundmapping project just launched in June, and is rapidly gathering sound files from around the world.  In addition to the sound map, the main site features radio features from the concurrent series on BBC radio and a Desperately Seeking Sounds feature, in which visitors ask the global recording community to help them find sounds that they miss from their past or need for a current project.  Despite the big sponsor, this site’s sounds load more sluggishly than many other grassroots soundmaps out there, but there are some nice clips being sent in.

Uboo.tv

http://uboo.tv/

A map interface to track sounds submitted via AudioBoo, an iPhone app that lets users record sounds on their iPhone and upload it for the world to share.  Not surprisingly, this format leads to more random sounds (parties and moments that may not really “deserve” global attention) and more than a few oral ramblings on new projects or, whatever…

All of the maps end up being somewhat Euro/NorthAmerica-centric (especially Uboo), but each has some reach into Asia, Africa, and South America.  The sounds tend toward urban ambiences (that’s where the people with recording equipment do tend to live!), with a few natural settings as well.

Conservationist fears that the end is neigh for the decades-long moratorium on oil and gas exploration off most of America’s coastlines were ratcheted up this month by the passage of the American Clean Energy Leadership Act in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.  While Senate Democrats highlight the alternative energy elements in the bill, the oil and gas industry is clearly focused on the openings for new offshore development that it contains. The bill now moves to the full Senate for consideration; floor action has not yet been scheduled. The bill contains lots of eco-good stuff (including a ban on US import of Canadian oil sands product), along with the long-dreaded “inventory” of the Outer Continental Shelf’s oil and gas potential.  For much of the US east coast, no modern seismic surveys have taken place; what data exists is largely from the 1970’s, at much lower resolution than is now possible.  There are many steps between this bill and any actual offshore oil development (even if it passes the House and Senate with the OCS survey provision in place, there is still a need for funding for the surveys, and a full Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement process that has yet to begin), but for an increasingly vocal contingent of activists, the proposed seismic surveys will be a line in the sand.  AEI certainly shares the concerns of many others about the effects of survey noise on wildlife (see this recent AEI presentation to a Canadian government advisory meeting, focusing on questions about surveys disrupting foraging activity).  Six different geophysical contractors have proposed seismic surveys off the Atlantic coast; the Minerals Management Service Atlantic Seismic PEIS website has links to maps of these proposals, which span most of the east coast and include a huge amount of overlap.  At the very least, data sharing should be required, in order to minimize duplication of this extremely noisy activity.

However, it is also worth noting that the OCS inventory that is called for in the current Senate bill includes not just oil and gas resources, but also an assessment of potential for wind, wave, and other alternative energy development, fisheries, habitat and conservation, and military use.  I am particularly struck by the provision to assess habitat and conservation values in the OCS: this is exactly the sort of regional overview that could provide the data needed to do real ecosystem-based management of all offshore activities.  Such a comprehensive assessment would identify key habitat (seasonal or permanent) that needs protection from military training activities and increased shipping, including LNG terminals.  The fisheries inventory could also serve to constrain the extent of seismic survey activity, especially for fisheries with depleted stocks and active fishermen associations (both of which are widespread on the east coast).  It may still be possible to strike the whole idea of further oil and gas development from the energy bill; we may be close to the societal tipping point where we are ready to acknowledge that new sources of CO2 simply cannot be tolerated.  The Chairman of the House Natural Resources committee, Nick Rahall, points out that “even the American Petroleum Institute’s most optimistic projections – a best-case scenario extrapolation, requiring that the entire OCS be made available – would, in 2030, provide no more than 5% of our total daily energy needs, and displace only 8% of our oil imports. These are large volumes of oil, to be sure, but they comprise less than half the impact of the increase in fuel efficiency standards that Congress passed just over a year ago.”  Rahall’s committee has held three hearings on oil development in the OCS, and is the gateway for House consideration of a companion to the bill now moving through the Senate. Still, it may not be politically feasible to preclude OCS development outright at this point.  The potential for a comprehensive inventory of offshore resources, including habitat, conservation, and fisheries, may turn out to be well worth the trade-off of allowing the idea of seismic surveys to stay alive for a bit longer.  It’s highly likely that the results of any such comprehensive inventory will constrain survey operations, perhaps even to the point that the industry itself finds the oil and gas horizons too limited to be worth pursuing.

On June 1, Thomas Berry died peacefully at his home in the Wellspring Community in Greensboro, NC.  While this may have no direct bearing on the issues covered by AEI, his writings and his inspiration have been central to my ever-developing sense of self and purpose on this planet in our time; this morning as I take in the news of his passing, I am both saddened to feel this earth without his presence, and immensely grateful for the huge generosity of spirit he shared, and which continues to live, grow, and find further articulation in so many environmental activists and thinkers.  I am heartened to hear that he completed two more books, both of which will be published on August: The Sacred Universe and The Christian Future and the Fate of Earth.

Thomas Berry inspired in me a dedication to infusing my (and our culture’s) emerging scientific understanding of life and the cosmos with the sense of primal wonder that has always been central to our human experience as part of the natural world.  The part of me that seeks transcendence and unity need not be at odds with my 21st-century scientific curiosity; indeed, they fuel each other at the deepest levels.  I was first dazzled by his writings with cosmologist Brian Swimme (The Universe is a Green Dragon and Universe Story), in which the grandness of our emerging understanding of cosmology, with wondrous visual expression by Hubble and other deep-space imagery, is given intimate evocations within the timeless tradition of creation stories.  His encouragement to take part in a modern recasting of our culture’s creation story inspired much of my early adulthood; EarthEar was a chance to let the creatures of the earth tell their own story, “the eternal story, in its original language.” In the past couple of decades, he’s written and spoken passionately about the need to put the earth’s needs at the center of human decision-making, and has inspired other eco-theologians and eco-ministries that are bringing the natural world back into the center of Christian practice.

At the end of this post, I’ll link to a few of the obituaries that are beginning to emerge.  Before that, I’ll share some of his reflections that appear in them: Read the rest of this entry »

Call me naive, but I never imagined that the Fish and Wildlife Service would make it nearly to the conclusion of its process of developing Siting Recommendations for wind farms without any consideration of the acoustic footprint of these sprawling industrial installations.  Of all the possible impacts that large wind farms may have, their acoustic presence is likely to be second only to the raw habitat changes in its localized biological significance.  The Federal Advisory Committee charged with drafting FWS recommendations and procedures for assessing impacts on wildlife has been working since 2007, and has just released the 3rd Draft of its recommendations, which contain not one single occurance of the words noise, acoustics, or ambient.  Acoustic appears only in  references to acoustic monitoring to identify the presence of bats or birds.  Sound appears three times, each one in the phrase “scientifically sound,”  which may in fact be related to the lack of attention to any acoustic impacts or effects in the rest of the document.  In correspondence with a committee member, I learned that they had briefly discussed noise impacts of turbines, but had quickly concluded that there was insufficient science on which to base any recommendations.  

I have no idea what the members were aware of in the bioacoustics and anthropogenic sound literature, but there is a long (if not always broad) body of research into the effects that road noise, ocean noise, aircraft and military noise, and more have on wildlife–looking at avoidance, stress hormones, disruption of mating, and acoustic masking.  The nature of wind turbine noise is not so different than some of the noise sources that are well studied.  In addition, bioacousticians are constantly adding to our understanding of the hearing ranges and acoustic communication/behaviors of an increasingly wide range of species.  And, in order to pass muster with local or state permitting standards, wind farm developers must produce sound modeling maps showing their predicted sound levels at various distances from turbines. Surely there is enough here for FWS to address the simple need to assess potential wind farm sites to be sure that any especially acoustically sensitive species will either not be significantly affected, or have suitable nearby habitat to relocate to.  

The National Park Service Natural Sounds Office is but one (and the most experienced) agency office that is always ready to share its expertise with other agencies; one of the more intriguing recent NPS research efforts has been looking precisely at the sort of noise impacts that could be caused by wind farms: modest increases in background ambient noise, and how that may make it more difficult for predators to hear and find prey (e.g., mice in leaves), or make it harder for prey to hear predators in time (e.g., owl wings or stalking bobcat).  The US Forest Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, BLM, and National Science Foundation all consider noise impacts as a matter of routine; why does FWS consider the topic too complex or too little understood to be relevant to this foundational document?

The committee may feel that existing assessments of habitat impacts will protect animals from more subtle acoustic effects as well. In some wide-open spaces (such as ranch land), this may be the case, as the turbines and their infrastructure will create ongoing visual/presence impacts. On wooded ridges, however, acoustic impacts could well outstrip visual and road-related impacts: the small footprints of the turbine towers will be surrounded by forests where the increased noise will be a primary effect, and in some topography, lowlands beneath ridges may well be significantly noisier for at least a half mile, and in many cases, up to a mile from the edge of the wind farm, especially at night.  We can only hope that the committee reassesses their dismissal of this potentially significant siting factor, or that there will be an opportunity for scientists and other agencies to comment and amend the recommendations before they are finalized.

See the http://www.fws.gov/habitatconservation/windpower/wind_turbine_advisory_committee.html#mce_temp_url#, where you can download the latest draft, as well as a PDF version of the presentation to be made at a public meeting this week.