Noise Pollution and the EPA: Celebrating Earth Day

Planet Earth: the "blue marble" photo.

Today is the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day and Earth Week. The NASA “blue marble” photograph of Earth, taken from space, was published two years later. The photograph gave us a new perspective. It showed once and for all how all Earth’s creatures were bound together on a journey through the solar system, bounded as we were by Earth’s fragile biosphere.

Hazardous chemicals. Wikimedia Commons.

Environmentalism in 1970 was all about curbing pollution of the commons: air, water, soil. The villains included atomic waste, pesticides, toxic metals, automobile exhaust, sewage, factory smokestacks, plastics, and so on. We were intent on making Earth a healthier place for humans primarily, but also for other species, especially endangered species. In response President Nixon set up an environmental council and, following their recommendations, asked Congress to set up a federal agency to monitor the environment, to organize and coordinate federal programs and to assist states, and to issue guidelines and regulations, all to reduce pollution. Seven months after the first Earth Day, the Environmental Protection Agency was established.

Industrial noise pollution. Wikimedia Commons.

The EPA soon became concerned with noise pollution as well. Although local governments had long enacted noise ordinances, the 1972 Noise Control Act gave the EPA authority to regulate noise associated with construction and transportation. The EPA began to work with aircraft manufacturers, airlines, and airports to reduce engine noise and re-route takeoffs and landings to avoid the most heavily populated areas. In 1979 the EPA established a new noise label program to give home products like vacuum cleaners, shop tools and chainsaws decibel ratings, indicating those to which prolonged exposure was unhealthy. I recall when I bought my first chainsaw in the early 1980s that I also purchased noise-canceling headphones. Coordinating efforts through the EPA Office of Noise Abatement and Control, the EPA also got Congress to establish the 1978 Quiet Communities Act. 

One of the most important things the EPA did in its early days was to encourage scientific research on the psychological and physiological effects of noise pollution. In 1978 the Noise Abatement Office published a helpful pamphlet, Noise: A Health Problem. It summarized research on the effects of noise on hearing loss, heart disease, special effects on children and the unborn, intrusion at home and work, sleep disruption, and mental and social well-being. Among its conclusions were the following:

*Noise can cause permanent hearing damage, and people with hearing loss suffer discomfort and social isolation.

*Noise produces stress that contributes to heart disease and other illnesses.

*The fetus is not fully protected from noise. Noise may threaten fetal development.

*Noise may hinder language development in children.

*Noise hampers work efficiency.

*When sleep is disturbed by noise, work efficiency, health and well-being may suffer.

*Noise can cause extremes of emotion and behavior.

*Noise can obscure warning signals, causing accidents to occur.

In 1981 the Noise Abatement Office published a lengthy and still very useful Noise Effects Handbook: A Desk Reference to Health and Welfare Effects of Noise. Whereas Noise: A Health Problem was aimed at a popular audience, the Noise Effects Handbook included data from scientific research and made a convincing case for the harmful physiological and psychological impacts of noise pollution.

Pittsfield, Maine. Photo by Jeff Titon

Although funding for the Noise Abatement Office was stopped by the Reagan Administration in 1982, as the federal government gave over noise abatement responsibilities to state and local governments, the Noise Control and Quiet Communities Acts were never rescinded. They remain in effect today, although they are unfunded and unenforced. Meanwhile, a great many state and local citizens groups and NGOs organized in opposition to noise pollution. Among them were HORN (Halt Outrageous Railroad Noise), and BLAST (Ban Leafblowers and Save our Town), a Santa Barbara, CA organization. The next blog entry shows how BLAST became a model for citizen activism through the ballot with petitions, bumper stickers, and other measures. When a majority of the citizens of Santa Barbara voted in favor of the ban in the November, 1997 election, it took effect the following February.