Industrial Noise in the Community—Current Views

Abstract

Noise from industrial plants has continued to be a problem for both the plant managements and their neighbors. Several recent studies have indicated that the majority of persons in residential areas are exposed to ambients set by transportation noise sources. This is of little comfort to the immediate neighbors of an industrial plant whose noise dominates a small region surrounding the plant. Recent acceptance of the A-weighted sound level to rate noise, results of several Federal studies, and an evaluation of the Normalized Community Noise Equivalent Level (NCNEL) have changed the community-industry situation little, but prepare the way to develop workable methods for rating noise situations in a manner similar to the earlier Composite Noise Rating, but without measurement of the spectrum. Furthermore, the interrelationship of a community and its industrial neighbors appears to play a major part in the acceptance of the noise levels surrounding the plant. This leads to the conclusion that there is no universal method of rating community noise that will satisfy any given percentage of neighbors in a community without first determining attitudinal factors that can be applied in the noise evaluation as weighing factors. Further research is currently under way. This effort is critical since current work to reduce transportation noise may lead to a situation where industrial noise becomes dominant in the major portion of many more communities.