Disastrous decisions: Costs to natural quiet of Grand Canyon National Park.

Abstract

Noisy intrusions from air tour rides and other aircraft increasingly, adversely affect highly significant areas of the Grand Canyon National Park. These continue in the heart of the park, even though Theodore Roosevelt told us to “do nothing to mar its grandeur.” Preserving the Canyon’s numinous aura requires maintaining its emblematic silence. The requisite policy would be to severely restrict aircraft noise. Belated efforts for an aggressive noise policy began here soon after 1965 airport completion near the Park. Hard won Congressional mandates for restoration of natural quiet were nonetheless frustrated by an accelerating aircraft boom fed by still more bad decisions, FAA stonewalling/bullying, and industry selfishness. The NPS/FAA environmental outcome—being finalized now, under a “change” administration—is coming into focus via a detailed EIS under public comment. The still unmet national direction to curb this noisy, commercial park “take-over” illustrates serial failures in group decision-making. A “road map” of contributing reasons for a veritable acoustic/soundscape “collapse” here gains strength from insights in Jared Diamond’s recent book “Collapse”:, i.e., failures to anticipate, to perceive, and to behave or obey. To right these wrongs, the concerned public must assertively guide the current Administration’s implementation of substantial, enduring restoration of the Park’s natural quiet.